Catch those predatory petroleum pumps in Ethel's (Crawford) backyard. They look like feasting vultures as they bob up and down into the ground. No wonder she wants to get the heck out of poverty row, especially with a tightwad husband and a crabby father. And this being Crawford, we know how she'll do it.
Watch her climb up the ladder from cheap model to gambler's moll to phony socialite, chewing up men the whole way. So what if she puts one foot into organized crime in the process. Men do it all the time. No doubt about it, she's a female shark who knows what she wants and gets it. But we sympathize anyway knowing what her past has been like. Yes indeed, this is a Crawford role, in spades.
Okay, so maybe dear Joan is a ripe 45, a time when most female stars have drifted into wife and motherhood roles. But she's still got fire in those big liquid eyes, and besides, at her age, she knows the tricks in how to seduce a man. I like the way the screenplay toys with that touchy angle.
Then too, it's quite a collection of male stars she works her way through—a smooth David Bryan, a sexy Steve Cochran, a dour Richard Egan. But I especially like the bland Kent Smith whose colorless personality perfectly suits a bookkeeper's role. You might even say that in the end he scores an odd moral victory over the more dashing types.
Anyway it's Crawford at the height of her golden period, 1945-1955, when she, almost single-handedly, flew the colors of middle-aged women everywhere. It's also golden age Hollywood, when lush studio hokum is hitting on all eight cylinders.