Strait-Jacket, Part 3

One of the great moments in Joan Crawford's acting career happens in this film, following the main credit sequence. Having been locked up for murdering her spouse and his lover in an insane rage, Lucy Harbin reunites with the daughter she hasn't seen in twenty years.

When she first sees Carol, now a lovely young woman, she steadies herself against the wall. The sheer weight of everything she's lost, all the times she missed with her child, so much regret, is physical. 

Carol's shocked as well at how visceral her reaction is to seeing her mother after all those years.

Both are nervous, tentative. Lucy slowly crosses the room and suddenly, spontaneously hugs Carol close to her. Carol is stiff with apprehension at first (who can blame her after what she's been through?), but...

eventually...

warmth.

And these actresses do this entire scene without dialogue. Diane Baker should have been at least nominated for an Oscar for her work here, and Crawford...well, she should have been nominated and won Best Actress for her performance in this film (I have no idea who won Best Actress in 1964, but whomever, it was a mistake). It's been said many times (by professional writers much smarter than I) that if this film had a larger budget and wasn't so-well, tacky, that Crawford would have swept all the awards onto her mantel (this is some Falconetti-type shit here, in this humble little B-movie).

Carol was adopted by her uncle Bill (Lucy's brother) and his wife Emily as a child, and they all live together on some kind of a farm.

So Lucy moves in and tries to acclimate herself to life at home, but she's always nervous and everyone around her is nervous, but well-meaning. Everyone just wants her to be alright.

The tension is palpable.

Getting reacquainted with her daughter, Lucy takes a walk with her around the farm, but Carol's nervous and can't seem to say anything right. When they check out the chicken coop, Lucy says "I just hate to see anything caged." Whereupon Carol notes:

Ahem...long pause.

And when they stroll by the pig sty Lucy mentions that it's not very tidy...

Ummmm...

 Lucy also meets the dim-witted farm-hand, played by George Kennedy.

Sensing Lucy's nervousness, Carol invites her into her studio (she's a sculpter) and shyly brings up the good old days.

She has scrapbooks from her childhood.

And mom's old jewelry!

(It's clear that poor Carol is still struggling with their mutual past)

She's even sculpted her mothers face, as she remembers her.

But when she drops the bombshell that she's engaged to a hunky,wealthy guy,

(who's coming to dinner that night), then 'ol Lucy freaks out a bit.

"At least, not just yet."

When Carol tries to reassure Lucy that he's no stranger, Lucy sadly smiles:

Although ultimately convinced by her daughter to meet Michael (the impossibly hot John Anthony Hayes),

 Lucy ducks out at the last minute, frightened by the idea of meeting him. Carol understands, and goes looking for her with her fiance.

When they wind up at her studio, they find some unpleasant surprises...



End of Part Three.

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Strait-Jacket actually ceases to be a horror film for me at some point. It isn't even a melodrama anymore. Instead it becomes a tragedy. Despite the best intentions, some really bad stuff happens to some very normal, flawed people. Bummer, for real.

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And speaking of bummers, I found a really odd link recently. I don't recommend reading it (kind of self-indulgent and overly long, detailing the author's intent to do a one-man performance of JC and the reporter interviewing her) but it gives some evidence of Joan Crawford's troubled state of mind regarding her two oldest children at a critical stage in her life (1958) right before her husband died. Things were going well, Movie Star-wise, and her marriage seemed to be working. But her two eldest children were behaving in increasingly horrid ways (Chrisopher Crawford took a rifle and went on a rampage, injuring a few girls, although of course christina Crawford doesn't mention that in Mommie Dearest!), and JC couldn't understand why.

So I've taken the liberty of slogging through this article, and cutting and pasting, all for you. But honestly,  WHY didn't the author provide a scan or transcript of the actual un-published article?

"Unger interviewed Crawford at her Manhatten apartment in 1958 for a special feature in Datebook, a now-defunct magazine for teenage girls. After initial reluctance, Crawford agreed to do the interview on Unger's promise that he wouldn't publish her words unless they actually proved constructive for young girls.

Although Unger left with the realization that he did not have a story for his magazine, he transcribed his notes and edited them into narrative form.

According to Unger, in the interview, Crawford spoke candidly and sometimes tearfully about her difficulties with her adopted children Christina and Christopher, as well as her own troubled childhood.

Sez the actor/playwrite: "Though my own bias towards Crawford grew exponentially, I'd like to think that Cranberry presented a somewhat balanced Crawford, as I did not shy away from embracing, for example, her sometimes harsh words in reference to Christina and Christopher, which could potentially cast her in a negative light."

"Crawford remembers her daughter Christina asking for help rehearsing lines for a school play. Crawford admits it was one of the few times she felt her daughter really respected her."

Mothers and daughters, WTF? It all seems so sad to me.