Mommie Issues: Reconsidering Crawford through 5 Cult Classics

by Matthew Crump, Staff Writer

I feel I owe Joan Crawford an apology. It’s taken me a long time to realize it, but as it turns out, I am one of her fans. You see, seven years ago I found a bootleg mirrored .mp4 of Mommie Dearest uploaded to Youtube and it changed my life. 

If you don’t know anything about Mommie Dearest, let’s catch you up: 

About a year after she died, Joan’s first adopted daughter published an exposé painting her as a really bad parent. Then, after a few more years, Hollywood did the thing they always do with anything scandalous and made her book into a movie. That’s how we got Mommie Dearest, the over-sensationalized, hyperbolic story about Joan’s relationship with Christina Crawford. The movie depicts her as being in a pretty much constant state of mania, turning everyday objects like scissors, cleaning powder, and, of course, wire hangers, into certifiable weapons.

As you might imagine, this movie that was intended to be a drama became a box office success for all the wrong reasons, namely that it was an unintentional comedy. You might also guess that pretty much everyone who actually knew Joan Crawford was quick to dismiss it as pure lies– with even Christina herself admitting to its rampant misleading! Then you might go on to assume that because no one cared much about it, the natural next step was to pump it out non-stop on TV throughout the 80s. Of course, you know this could only lead to one thing: an enormous number of LGBTQ folks transforming it into a cult film and officially transcribing the entire script into The Gay Agenda™… For someone who’s never heard of Mommie Dearest, you sure do seem to know a lot about it.

Anyway, my point is, there aren’t many people from The Golden Age of Hollywood that I knew about at 18, but I knew about Joan. I saw this ridiculous, over-the-top, campy movie and thought, “Who the hell is this woman?” Then, I fell into the rabbit hole that is her life and filmography and seven years later I have no intention of ever getting out.

Still, I’m here to tell Joan I’m sorry. I’m sorry I bought into the Mommie Dearest madness for as long as I did. I’m sorry I’ve seen it more times than any other movie. I’m sorry for showing it to all those people… Like, a lot of people. But it’s not enough to just say sorry! I want to make it up to her.

I want to use my little spot on the internet to recommend a few films for people like me. For those of you out there looking to finally atone for the guiltiest of the guilty pleasure movies, here are five Joan Crawford films that any Mommie Dearest reformer is sure to get behind. Let’s celebrate these underrated cult gems and finally give Joan the respect she’s entitled to.

The Unknown (dir. Tod Browning, 1927)

If you’re not into silent films, this might not be the one for you. But if you just think you don’t like silent films, I would definitely recommend starting with this one. Directed by the legendary Tod Browning (ala Freaks fame), Joan plays the daughter of a circus ringmaster whose main character trait is that she hates men (cough–lesbian–cough). She literally says (via title card), “Men! The beasts! God would show wisdom if he took the hands from all of them!” 

This particular line doesn’t land too well with our main protagonist, Alonzo The Armless. Even though the star actor Lon Cheney had accusations made against him from women on past productions, Crawford had nothing but praise for her male co-star. His performance impacted her so deeply that she credits Cheney with teaching her how to master the art of acting, saying, “On the set nothing distracted him. He became that armless man. Lon Chaney didn’t exist… the man was a perfectionist.”

All in all, The Unknown is a fun, hour-long flick riddled with more gruesome twists and turns than you might expect from a film of its era. Nobody’s limbs are safe when Tod Browning is at work.

Trog (dir. Freddie Francis, 1970)

From the beginning of Joan’s career aaaall the way to the end, this one is actually the last film Joanie left us. For a movie that kicks off with a couple of absurdly hunky nerds getting terrorized in a prehistoric cavern, it’s surprising what a slow start Trog gets off to. If you can make it to Joan’s character hitting the scene though, it’ll all be worth it!

Even though this movie looks like a horror flick, the bulk of it is more of a sci-fi drama, following Joan’s character as she battles against a bunch of nasty British men who are out to put a stop to the research/rehabilitation she’s conducting with an ice-age era troglodyte (think half man, half monkey). She develops an almost maternal relationship with Trog and has to demonstrate a rock solid conviction to protect him— in the name of science! Somehow this leads to an extremely bizarre scene where you go into Trog’s brain and watch a stop motion animation dinosaur fight that I still haven’t been able to stop thinking about. He also randomly turns into Leatherface for 5 minutes in a quaint British suburb which is even more jarring.

While many Hollywood purists view Trog as a far fall from grace for our favorite starlet, in many ways I see it as a testament of her strength. It would be easy to chalk this silly little low-budget picture up as a loss and yawn out during your swan song, but instead Joan is completely unwavering in her commitment to the role. She is a strong-willed lady anthropologist who’s gonna take care of that monkey-man, goddammit! 

Strait-Jacket (dir. William Castle, 1964)

This might not be the Joan Crawford camp film from the early 60s that you were expecting, but when it comes to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, we all know that one really belongs to Bette Davis. Why not try out a movie where ya get to see Joan have a turn to descend into madness instead?

Written by the man who gave us the novel Psycho, Robert Bloch, and directed by b-horror gimmick king, William Castle, Strait-Jacket is a movie worth seeing for the first 2 minutes alone. It’s some of the best/worst camp that Joan Crawford has ever given us. The rest of the movie is a fun, spooky ride too! It follows a woman recently released from a 20 year stint in an asylum as she reunites with her daughter while everyone around them loses their heads (literally). What was she in for? Oh, just axing the girl’s father to death for cheating on her. It’s probably not related.

P.s. If anyone has one of the plastic axes that William Castle threw out to audiences while promoting the film I will literally give you an arm and a leg… Don’t worry about where I got ‘em.

Johnny Guitar (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1954)

Sometimes I like to say “I grew up watching Westerns,” but really what I mean is that I routinely poked my head into the living room to see if my grandpa had finally woken up and left his recliner so I could immediately flip the channel as far away as possible from the endless stream of sepia-toned cowboys that all look like the same movie being played over and over. I would usually get 5, maybe 10 precious minutes in with Lizzie McGuire or Raven Baxter before he would come back in the room and kick me out, just for the cycle to repeat again.

Anyway, this is the only Western I’ve ever seen that might’ve actually had a chance at keeping me in the living room. This is because Johnny Guitar is made for homosexuals (it’s also in color, thank god!). This isn’t a joke though, it literally was made for homosexuals. I’d say it was made by homosexuals too, but director Nicholas Ray was a deeply closeted bisexual at best and screenwriter Roy Chanslor was straight depsite also writing the extremely misleadingly titled film Battle of the Bulge. 

What we get here is one of the most queer-coded films of all time. If the gender reversal of women heading a western wasn’t enough, the central themes of persecution and bigotry were sure to speak to queer folks flocking to the theater in the 1950s. And flock they did. Next to Doris Day in Calamity Jane, Joan’s role as Vienna, a butched-up saloon gunslinger, reached cult status among the lesbian community, especially in the context of her love/hate relationship with co-star Merecedes Cambride, who really puts the “B” in HBIC with this movie. 

The main group of male outlaws central to the story are also up for queer readings, being that they explicitly express their disinterest in women and stir up the inciting incident simply because no one in town knows where any of them ever are due to the fact that they only hang out with each other in a “silver mine.” Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?

TL;DR: this movie is about Joan Crawford leading a bunch of gay cowboys and girls to a magical desert waterfall. What’s not to love about that?

Rain (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1932)

This is by far the Joan Crawford film that surprised me the most, and certainly a contender for my personal favorite in her filmography. Hell, I might even like it more than Mommie Dearest! Let that sink in… Now just imagine my shock when I read that Joan credits this as her worst performance.

One of Lewis Milestones’ earlier talkies, Rain follows the story of a lone sex worker who gets sequestered into a Hawaiian boarding house by a relentless storm. We watch her struggles as she tries to privately navigate love with a marine while also being forced to live under the same roof as the devout Christian fundamentalists that she got off the boat with. 

Certainly Milestone’s leftist sensibilities had a lot to do with him choosing such controversial subject matter, but even beyond the story, the look of this film is stunning. There are countless examples of creative cinematography decades ahead of its time here— an unbroken tracking shot around the entire exterior of her rain-soaked shelter during a pivotal conversation comes to mind. Even more memorable is Joan’s entrance, revealing one bejeweled hand and fishnet leg at a time before finally unveiling the face of a woman who has no time for games.

I can’t help but feel like the film’s box office failure in conjunction with the endless stream of her own personal struggles on set colored her opinion of her own performance. Every single man on this set seems to have been determined to break her spirit. If Milestone’s reputation as a “man’s director” wasn’t enough, her male co-stars showed little to no respect for her: offering constant comparisons to other actresses, open admittance that they didn’t like/had no intention of seeing any of her movies, and even calling her a “real-life tramp” (turns out Walter Huston was just as nasty in real life as the religious extremist he played in the movie).

To see a film tackle religious hypocrisy so head on—with a headstrong woman at the helm of it no less—during the early 1930s, it caught me as off guard as it appears to have been caught by the public upon its release. Only the expectations are totally inverted on my end; she’s spectacular! So spectacular, in fact, that I’m overlooking the teensy insignificant detail that this movie doesn’t really have any kind of cult following (…does one person count as a cult?) and therefore likely doesn't qualify as a “cult film.” Just go watch it so we can make it a cult film!

Despite Joan ranking this as her worst personal performance, by today's standards it holds up absurdly well. I mean, just think about it, she was acting in a role that few directors had ever even dared offer a glimpse of, let alone thrust into the leading spotlight. The fact that she was blazing a trail for sex worker representation that society is still actively trying to ignore in 2022, it makes sense that her performance would go beyond even her own understanding. Quite frankly, I’ve never seen her shine brighter than in this gloomy, water-logged bungalow. 

———

In an interview from 1966, Joan discusses a wide range of her opinions and beliefs, everything from her nonstop drive for making movies to respecting celebrity privacy (especially from ungrateful daughters). There was one moment though that surprised me so much that I had to rewind and make sure I’d heard her right: “I write about ten thousand or twelve thousand letters a month to my friends. I never call them my fans. What they get out of my performances… it is so fantastic. And when you realize throughout the world that you reach this many people, and if they feel a friendship for you and they write year after year after year, then I feel I’m the lucky one to have found this many friends.”

So, the next time you put on Mommie Dearest, after you’ve said all your favorite lines and the credits start to roll, take a moment to consider Joan Crawford. Not the caricature, not even the star, but the woman. Look back through her filmography, pick a film, and see what you can get out of her performance. You might find that, just like Christina, you’re NOT one of her fans. Instead you might find a friend.