Video Beaverhausen: Joan Crawford IS Queen Bee

"Any man's my man if I want it that way," Joan Crawford as Eva Phillips says in the 1955 film, Queen Bee. There's no doubt in my mind that this movie was a model for tv's Dynasty and the Alexis character.

Joan is the dominating, manipulative, Machiavellian character in a family that lives in the same mansion despite all the ongoing turmoil and drama there. She will stop at nothing and is totally without morals or sympathy for others; a complete sociopath on a drama spree.

Bosley Crowther, film critic at the time for The New York Times, called Joan's performance in this film "the height of mellifluous meanness and frank insincerity." On her part, Ms Crawford looks fabulous in her Oscar-nominated Jean Louis frocks. She admitted that people often identified her with her role in this film.

The film co-stars Barry Sullivan as evil Eva's alcoholic husband, hunky John Ireland as her lover, Betsy Palmer and Faye Wray. Joan is an even more formidable foe for Ms Wray than King Kong. I met Betsy Palmer once and, when I asked her about working with JC, she told me, "I was surprised Joan was so petite but had such a huge head! She was a bit stand-offish but that fed into the dynamics of our characters' relationship in the movie." 

The beautiful b&&w cinematography by Charles Lang was also Oscar nominated. Many diva staircase moments are on view, an obvious influence on Mommie Dearest.

Based on the novel The Queen Bee by Edna Lee, the story is like low-rent Tennessee Williams. The dialogue throughout is to be savored. But Joan is magnificent and rarely off-screen in this classic melodrama. On dvd (not yet on Blu-ray) from Columbia Classics.

By the way, film features the Best Bitch Slap Ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i-0Ew5rslc

Remembering Betsy Palmer

I grew up watching Betsy Palmer on tv's panel game show, I've Got a Secret. I had a childhood crush on her. Her beauty, her voice, her warmth; she was completely charming.

Ms Palmer was a lifetime member of The Actors Studio. She did a lot of tv and movie work, especially through the Fifties and Sixties. She co-starred with Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Sullivan, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon and Joan Crawford.

Whoever thought sweet Betsy would have her most famous role as Jason's murderous mother in the 1980 Friday the 13th movie?

It was in the early Nineties, a little ahead of my blogging days, that I met Betsy Palmer and she was as warm and gracious in real life as in her public persona. It was at a Cyndi Lauper concert at the Beacon Theater in NYC. We were seated next to each other in the second row of the top tier balcony. She smiled and said hello and I told her I was a longtime fan.

She was with a very young and handsome man. (I thought he was her son but she has one daughter only.) She obviously enjoyed the show and even got to her feet to dance a little.

Afterwards, I had to ask her about her role in Queen Bee with Joan Crawford. Betsy smiled and said, "I was surprised Joan was so petite but had such a huge head! She was a bit stand-offish but that fed into the dynamics of of our characters' relationship in the movie."

Of Friday the 13th, she said to me, "Yeah, well, I thought nobody's going to even see this cheap crap! And I could use the money for the new car I had my eye on at the time. Never thought the movie would be so wildly popular! Never in my life!"

RIP, Betsy Palmer. Died of natural causes at 88 in Connecticut.