Review of Harriet Craig

Joan, with director Sherman, trimming *all* the fat away from *Craig's Wife* (that means removing every scene in which Joan would *not* be present), and turning it into a tour-de-force for La Crawford. As the epitome of every neurotic, deeply disturbed female that Joan ever portrayed, *Harriet Craig* is Joan with a capital J. Taking the role in her mouth and shaking it into submission, she is playing, ultimately, another facet of Joan herself. But what Joan film role *didn't* become Joan herself – either before or *after* filming? In a case of Joan's art imitating her life, as well as her life imitating her art, Harriet provides Joan with yet *one* more of those peculiar roles – roles which must have been written with *only* Joan in mind, since it would be difficult to imagine *any* other actress in this role. If Rosalind Russell had had this much focus on her in *her* version, *Craig's Wife*, it's hard to imagine if she could have sustained it, since part of Russell's strength was her ability to respond to other characters while seemingly on a course all her own. But Joan, never one to shy away from *any* movie role, makes *Harriet Craig* one the great milestones of her career. And we are indebted to her for it. As she explains to her niece (she *always* has nieces in movies like this – sweet young things who come to live with her and become her indentured servants) about how to "keep men in line," we are given more pure-Joan philosophy. With lines like, "…the average woman *does* put her life in someone else's hands – her husbands'. That's why she usually comes to grief," and "No man is *born* ready for marriage – he has to be trained," it is familiar Joan territory. Familiar now, because we've seen Joan spackling her angst all over movie and TV screens for decades, but along with *Mildred Pierce*, *Queen Bee* and *Torchsong*, *Harriet Craig*, at the time, was a new dimension in Joan's personal psychosis committed to film.