Queen Bee [DVD]

undefined

In a beautiful, Georgia mansion, the home’s matriarch, Eva (Joan Crawford, Grand Hotel), rules with an iron fist. Whether it‘s domineering her alcoholic husband, Avery (Barry Sullivan, The Tall Man), or preventing Carol (Betsy Palmer, Friday the 13th, 1980) from marrying Judson (John Ireland, All the King’s Men, 1949), Eva controls everyone around her. But when a cousin, Jennifer (Lucy Marlow, A Star Is Born, 1954), comes into town and develops a bond with Avery, Eva wants to take control of the situation again — leading to dark choices. .com ---- "Any man's my man if I want it that way." The speaker could only be Joan Crawford, as a wicked man-eater terrorizing her Deep South household in Queen Bee. Crawford's the whole show in this campy 1955 melodrama, which aspires to be second-rate Lillian Hellman but doesn't even reach that level. Having trapped a wealthy Southerner (Barry Sullivan) into marriage, Crawford takes her main pleasure in making life miserable for the other women of the mansion. This is fun to watch for a while, but director Ranald MacDougall (he wrote Mildred Pierce for Crawford) can't get the pace moving, and the final comeuppance is all too predictable. Crawford was going into her final high-diva phase at this point in her career, all chalky makeup and yard-long eyebrows, and Queen Bee clearly points the way toward What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Star power prevails, however, and at least the picture summons up its share of unintentional laughs. --Robert Horton P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); From the Back Cover ------------------- Queen Bee Academy Award-winner Joan Crawford (Best Actress, "Mildred Pierce", 1945) is at her conniving and devious best as the Southern socialite who manipulates the lives of those around her with tragic results. The art screamed, "One female alone may be the queen bee. The other females serve only to sacrifice themselves while tending the queen bee or defending her. The males of the species exist only to serve the queen's pleasure…" and who better to exact the role than Crawford? Eva Phillips (Crawford) is married to Avery (Barry Sullivan), a wealthy mill owner who has been driven to drink and bitterness by Eva's ruthless, self-seeking machinations and frank infidelity. When Avery's sister Carol Lee (Betsy Palmer) announces her engagement, Crawford maneuvers to prevent the wedding to Judson Prentiss (John Ireland), the queen bee's secret lover. William K. Zinsser in the New York Herald Tribune said of her performance, "Miss Crawford plays her role with such silky villainy that we long to see her dispatched." See more ( javascript:void(0) )