The Damned Don't Cry (1950)

Thanks for the memories!

A Masterpiece!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Already a major star for nearly 25 years as the 1950's rolled in, a maturing Joan Crawford was more handsome than beautiful, which isn't bad for a movie star if she's not afraid of becoming a camp icon. Crawford gets some great monologues and a fairly decent story, but the script and direction are not at their best in this rising from the gutter mob moll Cinderella story. The film opens up with the discovery of a corpse and the search for a socialite (Crawford) mixed up with him. The wealthy society widow, having no tax returns filed with the IRS, turns up in a factory town, banging on the door of an elderly couple who turn out to be her estranged parents. From here, the film flashes back to her life there, an unhappy marriage to factory worker Richard Egan, the sudden shocking end of that marriage thanks to the final straw breaking, and her entrance into big city society through modeling, through political connections and through mob boss David Brian who has his finger in every political pie. Biting off more than she can chew, she refuses to get out, and an intelligence you don't get in a factory town makes her a rare female entry in a man's world, and one that could destroy her life...or worse.Nineteen years before this, the young and beautiful Joan Crawford escaped from a factory town in the MGM pre-code drama "Possessed" and became a politician's mistress under the respectability of being a young widow. That film had the benefit of Crawford's youth and earthiness, a young Clark Gable, the solid direction of Clarence Brown, but most importantly, the MGM gloss. This has the benefit of Crawford's toughness (mixed with hidden vulnerability), an interesting film noir set-up and a fairly glossy atmosphere. It's obvious that even as stunning as Crawford still is, she wouldn't have it as easy as her character of Ethel/Lorna has it here, and that she'd become so tough in only a short period of time. Steve Cochran as a nasty thug who aggressively pulls Crawford into his web and Selena Royle as a society matron with shady contacts are decent in supporting roles. It's an amusing melodrama that Crawford makes more tolerable, but also an example of why she faced decline as the 1950's marched on. Vincent Sherman directs with the determination to make this rise above what it is, but that's simply just an impossible task.

Take the old true-confession formula, stylize it with some panache and crown it with gangster violence. For here we have crime and its pay presented in the old recognizable blueprint of invented realism. Here we have Crawford playing a discouraged blue-collar worker's wife who leaves her despondent situation for a high and mighty calling, working up in a gangland milieu to the position of elegant lady to an important gang boss and then collapsing back to roots when a mob war eliminates her man.Crawford runs the gamut of affected behavior in her latter-day hard-edged, unsmiling fashion. As a manual worker's spouse, she plays it without make-up and with her face deeply oiled. As a cigar-store clerk and clothes model, she plays it gristly, speaking the tough guy's line and looking the simple men directly and callously in the face. And as the eventually sophisticated lady she gives it all the superior stateliness that goes with champagne buckets and Palm Springs swimming pools.Nevertheless, the men who support her run her a very close race. David Brian as the prevailing bigwig crime boss appears and behaves like the urban rogue in bucolic traveling sideshows. When he comes to a line such as this one, "I like a woman who has brains, but when she also has spirit, that excites me," he practically ends it with a lusty snigger. And Kent Smith, as a public accountant whom Crawford ensnares in the syndicate, plays a milquetoast so absolutely that his entire performance seems a train of nervous swallows. Steve Cochran as a cunning West Coast heavy and Selena Royle as a vagrant socialite do their jobs in a standard B-story, A-budget way.Then again, as with countless crime dramas and film noir of the era, thematic images slip their way into the story through the deliberate compositions that connect to the sleight of hand of your psyche. And the story is absorbing owing to its appeal to the B-side of its characters, and its awareness that the bigger the schism from one part of a character's life to another, the more dramatic the story. And it's fun to watch Crawford and her male co-stars tackle the psychology.

Joan Crawford delivers a vintage performance in this rags to riches story of married early middle aged woman who leave her husband following the tragic death of her son. She has had enough of the grinding poverty associated with living in a small house with her in-laws and husband which is positioned close to pumping oil wells. Her mission is to be someone important, a woman of society. The method used is that of sleeping her way to the top of the syndicate latter.None of this material is new or groundbreaking. "Flamingo Road" released earlier when Crawford was nearing the end of her stay at Warner Brothers covered much of the same ground. The Damned though benefits from even brisker than usual pacing and a strong supporting cast. The increased sexuality of the storyline was indicative at all the major studios as they saw the rise in the popularity of television was starting to cut against their numbers.It may not be of the caliber of "Mildred Pierce" but it is very representative of the performances she was giving at the time

Very good performance by the cast especially Joan Crawford. There are times we care little about a film because we care little about the main characters. In this film the characters are not likable but there is recognition that the disdain we feel for them is part of the point. These are people who are part of a shady and dark underworld, prone to betrayal and violence. After tragically losing her young son to a bike accident, Crawford's character abandons not only her husband but also her parents. She quickly descends into the aforementioned underworld with reckless aspirations which eventually paints her into a corner. This is a movie with a moral message. This is a movie which unlike so many movies in today's world does not glamorize crime and make heroes out of thugs but instead shows us that there are consequences for the decisions we make, and that the consequences not only affect ourselves but also loved ones and others around us. If you love old classics you will enjoy this film especially if you are a Crawford fan. The DVD I watched has a commentary track by the director who irritatingly told us more about what was happening in the film than inside information and behind the scenes happenings.