Torch Song (film)

Infobox Film
name = Torch Song


image_size =
caption = Original theatrical poster
director = Charles Walters
producer = Henry Berman
Sidney Franklin, Jr.
Charles Schnee
writer = Story:
I.A.R. Wylie
Screenplay:
John Michael Hayes
Jan Lustig
starring = Joan Crawford
Michael Wilding
Gig Young
Marjorie Rambeau
music = Adolph Deutsch
cinematography = Robert H. Planck
editing = Albert Akst
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
released = flagicon|USA 23 October 1953
runtime = 90 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget =
gross =
amg_id = 1:50470
imdb_id = 0046446

"Torch Song" (1953) is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature film starring Joan Crawford and Michael Wilding in a story about a Broadway star and her rehearsal pianist. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes and Jan Lustig was based upon the story "Why Should I Cry?" by I.A.R. Wylie. The film was directed by Charles Walters and produced by Sidney Franklin, Henry Berman, and Charles Schnee. "Torch Song" has gained note for the musical number "Two-Faced Woman", from "The Band Wagon" in which Crawford in blackface, lip-syncs to the voice of India Adams while snakily dancing with male dancers. The film marked Joan Crawford's return to MGM after a ten-year absence.

Plot and cast

Jenny Stewart (Crawford) is a tough Broadway musical star, alienating her colleagues with her neurotic demands for absolute perfection. Jenny takes offense when her new rehearsal pianist Tye Graham (Wilding) criticizes her song stylings and ruthless ways. Graham was blinded in WWII but fell in love with Jenny when he was a young reporter. Deep down, Jenny yearns for a real and lasting love but is disenchanted with the men around her such as Broadway parasite Cliff Willard (Gig Young). At her mother's (Marjorie Rambeau), she discovers an old newspaper clipping in which Tye reviewed one of her first shows and made it evident he loved her. Jenny realizes she is loved, goes to Tye, and they embrace. Cast includes Henry Morgan, Dorothy Patrick, Eugene Loring, Maidie Norman, and James Todd.

Reception

Otis Guernsey, Jr. in the "New York Herald Tribune" wrote, "Joan Crawford has another of her star-sized roles...she is vivid and irritable, volcanic and feminine...Here is Joan Crawford all over the screen, in command, in love and in color, a real movie star in what amounts to a carefully produced one-woman show." [Quirk, Lawrence J.. "The Films of Joan Crawford". The Citadel Press, 1968.]

ee also

* Joan Crawford filmography

References

Navbox
name = Joan Crawford
title = The 1940-1970 Films of Miss Joan Crawford
group1 = 1940-1949
list1 = nowrap| "Strange Cargo" (1940) • nowrap| "Susan and God" (1940) • nowrap| "A Woman's Face" (1941) • nowrap| "When Ladies Meet" (1941) • nowrap| "They All Kissed the Bride" (1942) • nowrap| "Reunion in France" (1942) • nowrap| "Above Suspicion" (1943) • nowrap| "Hollywood Canteen" (1944) • nowrap| "Mildred Pierce" (1945) • nowrap| "Humoresque" (1946) • nowrap| "Possessed" (1947) • nowrap| "Daisy Kenyon" (1947) • nowrap| "Flamingo Road" (1949) • nowrap| "It's a Great Feeling" (1949)
name = Joan Crawford
title = The 1940-1970 Films of Miss Joan Crawford
group2 = 1950-1959
list2 = nowrap| "The Damned Don't Cry!" (1950) • nowrap| "Harriet Craig" (1950) • nowrap| "Goodbye, My Fancy" (1951) • nowrap| "This Woman is Dangerous" (1952) • nowrap| "Sudden Fear" (1952) • nowrap| "Torch Song" (1953) • nowrap| "Johnny Guitar" (1954) • nowrap| "Female on the Beach" (1955) • nowrap| "Queen Bee" (1955) • nowrap| "Autumn Leaves" (1956) • nowrap| "The Story of Esther Costello" (1957) • nowrap| "The Best of Everything" (1959)
name = Joan Crawford
title = The 1940-1970 Films of Miss Joan Crawford
group3 = 1960-1969
list3 = nowrap| "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) • nowrap| "The Caretakers" (1963) • nowrap| "Strait-Jacket" (1964) • nowrap| "I Saw What You Did" (1965) • nowrap| "Berserk!" (1967)
group4 = 1970
list4 = nowrap| "Trog" (1970)