Michael Curtiz’s Flamingo Road is a fantastic romance noir that serves as the third film I’ve seen from the legendary director but the most important statistic of this watch is it being my first Joan Crawford film, as I’ve been going through and loving the work of Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck I’ve only grown more shameful that I’ve never seen her act and her being as good as she was here makes me doubly happy that I chose to finally fill that hole with this movie. Immediately I have to praise the screenplay from Robert Wilder because wow is the dialogue writing fantastic here, every scene flows beautifully and the impressive cast, especially Crawford and Greenstreet, were able to elevate it even higher. Though despite the positives I do have to criticize the script which has my biggest issue of the movie in the ending, I’m still having trouble with some of these old Hollywood endings working on me and sadly this one is the perfect example of my feeling that some of them end incredibly abruptly and without impactful conclusion. Outside of that though I really have nothing but praise and one of the biggest recipients of that praise should be Michael Curtiz, all through the movie the shots are beautifully conceptualized which is no surprise at all when I consider the look of the other films I’ve seen of his in Casablanca and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. The narrative dives into some lovely themes of political corruption which were a lot of fun to take in, if I were to talk about the way machine politics still hasn’t changed much today from what’s shown here and all the specifics of this depiction that I loved I’d be writing this review for hours so I’ll just leave it simply by saying I loved just about every thematic choice here. I should also talk about the biggest reason I put this on in Joan Crawford and it’s safe to say I’m already in love with what she brings as an actress, her charm is truly not far off Audrey Hepburn level and with her incredible dramatic ability I fully see why she’s in the greatest of all time conversation. When the credits rolled I was feeling a 3.5 with how that ending didn’t leave me with much but as I’ve written about it here I’ve convinced myself of a higher rating, everything here, from 99% of the story to the dialogue to the acting and the technical experience, is all done so incredibly well and I’m absolutely positive this film just kicked off what I already know will be an amazing journey through the filmography of Joan Crawford.

Michael Curtiz’s Flamingo Road is a fantastic romance noir that serves as the third film I’ve seen from the legendary director but the most important statistic of this watch is it being my first Joan Crawford film, as I’ve been going through and loving the work of Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck I’ve only grown more shameful that I’ve never seen her act and her being as good as she was here makes me doubly happy that I chose to finally fill that hole with this movie. Immediately I have to praise the screenplay from Robert Wilder because wow is the dialogue writing fantastic here, every scene flows beautifully and the impressive cast, especially Crawford and Greenstreet, were able to elevate it even higher. Though despite the positives I do have to criticize the script which has my biggest issue of the movie in the ending, I’m still having trouble with some of these old Hollywood endings working on me and sadly this one is the perfect example of my feeling that some of them end incredibly abruptly and without impactful conclusion. Outside of that though I really have nothing but praise and one of the biggest recipients of that praise should be Michael Curtiz, all through the movie the shots are beautifully conceptualized which is no surprise at all when I consider the look of the other films I’ve seen of his in Casablanca and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. The narrative dives into some lovely themes of political corruption which were a lot of fun to take in, if I were to talk about the way machine politics still hasn’t changed much today from what’s shown here and all the specifics of this depiction that I loved I’d be writing this review for hours so I’ll just leave it simply by saying I loved just about every thematic choice here. I should also talk about the biggest reason I put this on in Joan Crawford and it’s safe to say I’m already in love with what she brings as an actress, her charm is truly not far off Audrey Hepburn level and with her incredible dramatic ability I fully see why she’s in the greatest of all time conversation. When the credits rolled I was feeling a 3.5 with how that ending didn’t leave me with much but as I’ve written about it here I’ve convinced myself of a higher rating, everything here, from 99% of the story to the dialogue to the acting and the technical experience, is all done so incredibly well and I’m absolutely positive this film just kicked off what I already know will be an amazing journey through the filmography of Joan Crawford.

An mix of melodrama, politics, and noir. Lots of elements I really like here, Crawford and Greenstreet are really damn good here, just not really sure how well it coalesces together.

An mix of melodrama, politics, and noir. Lots of elements I really like here, Crawford and Greenstreet are really damn good here, just not really sure how well it coalesces together.

i stan dan

i stan dan

Joan Crawford pls slap me 🙏😭

Joan Crawford pls slap me 🙏😭