The Damned Don't Cry

A housewife abandons her stifling life and crawls her way to the top of the social ladder... but not without getting her hands dirty. Joan Crawford is very good as the ambitious woman, still alluring at 45. The film has some noteworthy qualities and there isn't much room for complaint, although it doesn't really knock your socks off either. Perhaps Crawford's character is just too hard to latch onto. Sometimes she seems complex, but sometimes she just seems uneven.

The supporting performances are pretty good, but Crawford overshadows them all, much like her character is supposed to. It's a rather enjoyable story and it's nice how the peripheral stories are pretty well developed and work to enhance the film's exploration of a "success by any means necessary" philosophy and the various motivations behind it. I found Kent Smith's storyline the most compelling, particularly with how the film treats it, but Crawford's is very well crafted from start to end.

Few own the screen like Crawford does when she brings it. Not close to her best performance but it's still quite the show.

"Like the star in question, this diva showcase knows what it is and what it's good at." - Jeremiah Kipp

Joan Crawford was great, but the men were more like caricatures, through three different kind of men to give some dimension to the interactions. Still it's a Warner Bros film, so it's snappy and not really much room for any deeper dives into the characters. The shooting of this looked stunning, and really helped set the tone. Then again, the tone was Crawford.

The story is absorbing owing to its appeal to the B-side of its characters, and its awareness that the bigger the schism from one part of a character's life to another, the more dramatic the story. And it's fun to watch Crawford and her male co-stars tackle the psychology.