Flamingo Road 1949

The scariest thing about this movie is seeing Joan Crawford at age 45 playing a carnival dancer and carny gal who should be 20 years younger. Many times in the movie Joan is called a girl which will bring a smile to your face as her bags and dark shadows under her big eyes come into sharp focus in spite of all the make-up and lighting applied.

The dancer Joan plays is named Lane Bellamy and she’s laid low with 3 bucks to her name in a sleepy southern town left to her own devices after the carnival is run out of town for owning money. Soon Joan meets up with the sheriff’s deputy played by a low key and soft Zachary Scott. Zach is bossed and pushed around by the corrupt sheriff played with sweaty overweight gusto by Sydney Greenstreet, who almost makes this film worth your time. Titus Semple is his name and never has a character been more aptly named.

 From their first meeting Titus and Joan are at each other’s throats with Titus using all his resources to make Joan’s life miserable and their scenes together are tangy and tough and give the film a much needed boost. It seems that Titus in his corrupt ways wants Zachary to become the new state senator and can’t allow him to have any thing to do with   Joan who is from the other side of the tracks, way over on the other side. He want Zach to marry up with a nice society girl from Flamingo road who will give his campaign the right touch of respectability. 

Zachary has used his pull to get Joan a job slinging blue plate specials in a little run down food joint, but she is soon let go because of the stronger pull that Titus has and manages to get Joan thrown into jail on fake prostitution charges. After Joan gets out she meets up with the wonderful tough Gladys George named Lute Mae Sanders who runs a road house juke joint and hires Joan to do her waitressing stuff there. Into this mess comes David Brian who is also corrupt but nicer and a maker and doer in the state who is always  in conflict with Titus over power. Meanwhile David is  getting the hots for Joan and in a wink of an eye they are married, and Joan is now a rich society dame living on Flamingo Road and her troubles are just beginning. 

The movie is a low down Warner Bros. Feature made with all their lack of charm or subtly and helmed by the professional Michael Curtiz who knows how to turn out a flick on a dime. Here he’s reunited with his Mildred Pierce piece and except for some lousy looking process shots, the film looks pretty good. Joan was approaching her gorgon years but still had a few good movies in her notably “Sudden Fear” and Johnny Guitar before hitting the low road to nowhere.