MovieChat Forums > Strange Cargo (1940) Discussion > Joan Crawford never looked so good!

Joan Crawford never looked so good!

posted 13 years ago by PussyCrusher_Principal
10 replies | jump to latest

I was only able to watch this movie in a spotty fashion, as it was on in the early evening and I had things to do (it's now #1 on my Netflix queue). As I passed the tv early on I saw Joan Crawford and, without knowing it was her, I said "What a beautiful actress. She must have been a big star, I wonder who she is." I passed the tv again and noticed how much, when I looked closer, she resembled Joan Crawford. Then I checked the credits. Now, the reason I felt compelled to comment is that, although I disagreed when I'd see a post on a JC-movie's imdb page that said how ugly she was, I never felt she was on par with the beauty of the Lana Turners, Olivia DeHavillands, etc. Part of that may have been that the things I've seen her in (Daisy Kenyon, Baby Jane, and a couple others) didn't have a glamorous role for her. In Strange Cargo, though, I finally understood why some critics spoke to how beautiful she was in her day. She's a knockout in this!

"How do you feel?"
"Like the Kling-Klang King of the Rim-Ram Room!"

[–] pentimento37 13 years ago

I have to agree, she looks beautiful, sans make up for much of the movie. Alot of people recall Joan after she took on the big lips, big eyebrows etc and forget how truly beautiful she was in a natural way. A classic beauty!!

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained"

[–] oldblackandwhite 12 years ago

When I was young/middle-aged I didn't care for Joan Crawford. But now that I'm an old geezer, I just love her!

When I first started watching movies, late '40's, early '50's, Joan was still going strong on a what would be a 40-year plus career. She was still doing leading lady parts, but she had not aged well -- whiskey is no beauty treatment. I didn't see her "pre-eyebrow" pictures until much later.

When I first read her quote that she regarded herself as a better acress than Bette Davis, I thought she was minority of one. After watching a dozen or so of her pictures on well-restored dvd's the past couple years, I have joined that minority.

You're right. She never looked better than in the late 'thirties, early 'forties. Check out how beautiful she is in A Woman's Face (1941). Never mind that forty year old women look like young chicks to me now. Even when I was young, I thought women generally were at their best in their late 30's, early 40's.

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] forfarmarkus-1 11 years ago

You should see her in one of her first hits Grand Hotel. She stole the movie and launched herself into the A league in that one. She was definitely at her best looking from the early 1930s up to about 1945. After that her looks faded badly, but she was a real actress all the same, up there with Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck. The actresses today are pale shadows compared to those three.

[–] oldblackandwhite 11 years ago

Joan looked good in Grand Hotel, all right. She had a better role than Greta Garbo, whose character was so whacko, it was hard to see her as attractive. I thought that Lewis Stone, as the disfigured doctor, stole the movie when Joan wasn't stealing it. I just aquired Our Dancing Daughters (1928), the sound except for talking picture that was her fist big hit. Have not seen it before, except clips, and looking forward to watching flapper Joan.

Barbara Stanwyk is another one I didn't care for when young but now is one of my favorites.

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] intofilm 11 years ago

She indeed looks wonderful. I recently watched "Mommie Dearest" however, and remember seeing her daughter on talk shows when that book came out, and the things she and other people revealed about the cruelty of Joan Crawford's personality kept playing through my mind throughout the movie.

[–] bedrock1960 9 years ago

Many other people (Myrna Loy, George Cukor, Ann Blythe, Diana Baker, etc), including Ms. Crawford's daughters Cynthia and Cathy, have given many warm and affectionate statements about her and discredited much of Christina's dubious account. Why not allow those to play through your mind instead?

[–] vinidici 11 years ago

A couple of weeks ago TCM aired The Women (1939), which I'd been wanting to see for many years. It baffled me that Joan Crawford, as the "bad girl" who steals wholesome Norma Shearer's husband, was able to pull that one off -- to me, Crawford looked mannish in that picture.

Fast forwarding to the following year, Joan in Strange Cargo is irresitible! Nothing at all like her character in The Women and every bit the raving beauty described by the OP.

Okay folks, show's over, nothing to see here!

[–] npaxton-3 10 years ago

I agree that Joan looked so much more attractive and natural in her earlier films (20's - mid 40's) except for The Women. She just did not look alluring or glamorous at all in that one. She actually looks older and harder than she did in any of her movies in the early to mid 40's. I wonder why?

[–] Igenlode Wordsmith 10 years ago

I would assume it was a deliberate make-up job to present the character as a hard-as-nails man-eater versus the truly attractive heroine...~~IgenlodeGather round, lads and lasses, gather round...

[–] Satantangoandcash 9 years ago

Unfortunately I learned about Joan Crawford from Mommy Dearest and from her later films such as Baby Jane long before I saw how great looking she is in her earlier films, including this one. Also check her out as a sexy twenty-year-old exotic carnival girl in 1927's The Unknown.