Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Fred_Rap Seminal Joan Crawford campfest. Returning to her home studio after a ten-year exile at Warners, she celebrates her triumph with all the pomp and circumstance of a battle-hardened legion entering Rome after a decade in the field. Single-handedly, she turns this moth-eaten meller into an audacious display of venom-spewing bitchery and vainglorious posturing.In a story tailor-made for the occasion, La Crawford plays a hard-as-nails Broadway diva with a ruthless tongue and a flaming orange helmet of hair. We are asked to believe that beating beneath her tyrannical front is the love-starved heart of a lonely woman. And we are supposed to root for her to tumble for the blind and gentle pianist (Michael Wilding) who won't take her guff. This is impossible, of course, since we are too busy either laughing derisively or gawking in slack-jawed disbelief at Crawford's gargantuan ego run amok.The opening scene, in which Torch Song director Charles Walters performs a cameo as Crawford's cowering dance partner, seems to reflect the truth behind the making of the movie. We get the creepy feeling that Walters, fearful of Joan's wrath, just stepped back and let his aging star run this sideshow. How else to explain the unchecked excess of Crawford's costumes (especially her garish yellow nightgown-cum-muumuu), her eye-popping penthouse digs (where the bedroom windows come with three, count 'em, three sets of drapes), or the song and dance numbers in which she flaunts her legs like a ten-dollar hooker and even lip-syncs a tune in blackface? It's a treasure trove of Crawfordisms for drag queens and freak show enthusiasts alike: See Joan clean lint from the floor, dismiss gigolos with the wave of a cigarette, nitpick over line readings with her devoted secretary, offer apologies to her victims that seem crueler than her insults. Scarier than "Strait-Jacket" and twice as much ghoulish fun.With Marjorie Rambeau, hilariously salty as Joan's crude stage mother, and Gig Young as her affable paid lover.

bkoganbing After a ten year absence in which Joan Crawford proved she was not by any means through as an actress when she won an Oscar for Mildred Pierce, she came back to MGM for what became her second musical role in Torch Song. She plays a Broadway star, a temperamental one at that which I think was modeled on Ethel Merman who's tired of everyone including her family of using her.It takes a blind musician played by Michael Wilding to set her straight about herself. But Wilding's got his reasons, he remembers her as a promising young singer whom he saw before he went off to war and lost his vision.Crawford also probably drew on her own experiences as a film star with the number of hangers-on folks like her inevitably develop. That would also include her husbands, thespians though they all were as well. And she had blood relatives as well who lived off her celebrity.Joan's vocals were dubbed by India Adams and having heard Joan actually sing, she sounds nothing like Ms. Adams. In the beginning she dances with Charles Walters and I wish Torch Song had included more of that. A lot of people forget that it was as a dancer that Joan Crawford got her start at MGM way back in silent films.One of the songs interpolated in the score was Tenderly, one of the great romantic ballads of the Fifties. Right about this time Rosemary Clooney was enjoying a big megahit from her recording for Columbia Records. No doubt that helped the box office of Torch Song.Marjorie Rambeau got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as Joan's mother. She lost to Donna Reed for From Here To Eternity. Harry Morgan as the director of the revue Joan is rehearsing for also scores well in this film.One of her numbers as Joan in a black wig looking very much like Lena Horne. I don't think that anything disrespectful was meant in this, in fact I think it was an homage to Lena Horne. MGM had signed Lena Horne a decade earlier and then didn't quite know what to do with her. Maybe they were making some amends. Torch Song is not one of Joan Crawford's better films, but her legion of fans will approve and she's good in the part. I just wish she'd danced some more.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Unbelievably corny yet fascinating movie that has Joan Crawford pay more or less herself as the bossy and arrogant Broadway superstar Jenny Stewart.Jenny in her rehearsals for her new Broadway play "Two Faced Woman" is so overbearing in her demands that her top musician pianist Charlie Maylor walked off the set and was never seen or heard from again. With Charlie being replaced by the blind and dignified pianist Tye Graham, Michael Wilding, Jenny finally meets her match in someone who's about as unyielding and non compromising as herself. This sets off a number of wild confrontations between Jenny and Tye in how the music is to be conducted with Tye getting the best of her by getting things done his way not hers. As much as Jenny dislikes Tye she in fact becomes secretly found of Tye by him treating her like any other "broad" and not giving into her demands even if it means him getting fired from his job as the plays musical director.As he slowly turns the screws on Jenny Tye get her to open up and reveal the miserable life that she's been leading all these years that made her the horror that she eventually became. It's lonely to be on top and Jenny being there for years had become detached from the very people who were responsible for her getting there. Acting aloof and not giving a heck about Jenny's feelings about him Tye treats her as shabbily has she's been treating those who work with her on the set: With complete contempt! It's later when Jenny learns through her beer drinking mom Mrs. Stewart, Marjorie Rambeau, the truth about Tye from and old scrapbook that she had about her daughters road to success that the truth finally came out to what was behind Tye's conduct towards her! This was the opening that Jenny was looking for and with that explosive information went for his jugular vain like a bat straight out of hell!Michael Wilding-as Tye-does hold his own against the hard driving and take no prisoners Joan Crawford-as Jenny-who finds it very difficult to get the guy in line and in his place for almost the entire length of the movie. The super cool Tye does in fact have Jenny's number and knows how to play it as good has he plays his piano but it's Jenny, with the help of her beer swelling mom, who discovers Tye's weak point which has the calm cool and completely in charge of things Tye fall apart like the cheap, from a crack a jack box, camera that he really is! ***SPOILERS*** In the end with both Jenny and Tye realizing what imperfect persons they really are they in fact come together and fall in love with each other. Fully knowing that somehow they were both really meant for each other for better or for worse with of course Tye's cute and dedicated seeing-eye Duchess being thrown in for good luck.P.S After staring in some 100 movies "Torch Song" was Joan Crawford's fist Technicolor film that she stared in and as expected she made the very best of it!

preppy-3 **PLOT SPOILERS** Just hilarious. Joan Crawford plays hard-boiled bitchy singer/actress Jenny Stewart. She treats everybody like dirt--but that's cause she's (sigh) lonely. Only piano player Tye Graham (Michael Wilding) sees right through her. And--oh yes--he's BLIND!!!! Oh the irony! Naturally she hates him then falls in love with him. It leads up to a totally predictable twist at the end that leads to a happy ending that will have you screaming for insulin! Crawford made plenty of bad films in her career--but none was as much fun as this one! She overacts even more than usual (believe it or not) and bulldozes her way through the film. It's a terrible film with a truly rotten script but Crawford is so over the top it's hard to not enjoy. Her "singing" numbers are unbelievable. When she "sang" her first number "Follow Me" I broke out laughing! It is SO obviously not her voice and Crawford's overdone acting during it is just incredible. Still she DOES lip sync well. The high point (so to speak) is the song and dance of "Two Face Woman" with Joan AND the entire chorus in black face! It's just too jaw-droppingly silly to take seriously. And when Joan tears off the black wig at the end to show that blazing red hair it hits new heights of camp! The rest of the cast falls by the wayside of Crawford's histrionics. Poor Gig Young barely registers. Wilding is actually pretty good--his nice underacting actually compliments Joan's overacting very well. Marjorie Rambeau (playing Joan's mother) is very good also and was actually nominated for a Best Supporting Actress for this. Also Joan's "clumsy" dance partner is director Charles Walters.This is most definitely not a good picture but it's in blazing Technicolor, has a hilariously stupid story and has Joan going full blast! A must see for camp followers. I can only seriously give it a 7 though. Yeah it's fun but it's SO stupid!