| The Damned Don't Cry! | |
|---|---|
DVD cover (based on original film poster) |
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| Directed by | Vincent Sherman |
| Produced by | Jerry Wald |
| Written by | Story: Gertrude Walker Screenplay: Harold Medford Jerome Weidman |
| Starring | Joan Crawford David Brian Steve Cochran |
| Music by | Daniele Amfitheatrof |
| Cinematography | Ted McCord |
| Editing by | Rudi Fehr |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | May 7, 1950 |
| Running time | 103 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,233,000 |
The Damned Don't Cry! is a 1950 Warner Bros. drama film starring Joan Crawford, David Brian, and Steve Cochran tells of a woman's involvement with an organized crime boss and his subordinates. The screenplay by Harold Medford and Jerome Weidman was based on a story by Gertrude Walker. The plot is loosely based on the relationship of Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Jerry Wald. The Damned Don't Cry! is the first of three cinematic collaborations between Sherman and Crawford, the others being Harriet Craig (1950) and Goodbye, My Fancy (1951).
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Ethel Whitehead (Joan Crawford) is a weary housewife living at the edge of the Texas oil fields. When her young son is killed in a bicycle accident, she leaves her abusive laborer husband Roy (Richard Egan) for the big city. She quickly learns to use her physical charms to get ahead. In cahoots with bookkeeper friend Martin Blackford (Kent Smith), Ethel works her way into the entourage of George Castleman (David Brian), a mobster who enjoys an elegant lifestyle. With the help of socialite Patricia Longworth (Selena Royle), Castleman grooms Ethel in the arts of cultured living. After making her his mistress, he tries to use her to trap his arch-rival Nick Prenta (Steve Cochran). The trap fails when Ethel falls in love with Prenta. The betrayed Castleman kills Prenta and goes gunning for Ethel but dies in a shoot out with Blackford.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times and Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune both panned the film with Crowther commenting, "A more artificial lot of acting could hardly be achieved," and Barnes stating, "the theme is shabby and the incidents too violent for complete plausibility."[1]
The film has gained its fans. Donna Marie Nowak commented in 2006, "Crawford makes the whole sordid enterprise taut and entertaining and is mesmerizing onscreen, walking across a room as if she owns it. Although Ethel is as "tough as a 75 cent steak", Crawford injects this hard-shelled dame with enough verve, style, chutzpah and charm to make one root for her. Her cheeky, sexy confidence in certain scenes helps roll the plot along...In all, it's Joan at her gritty, spunky best."[2]
This gem is adored by some and hated by others. The fault line lies somewhere along the popular sentiment vs intellectual split. The movie was panned by the critics, but the public loved it. At the same time, Crawford is majestic in some scenes and weary or skeletal in others, to the extent we expect a tragic end without knowing why. The film has a moral core wrapped in a fig leaf of feminism and plenty of action, or the reverse. It’s a rags-to-riches tale with a fall at the end, which isn’t fatal. And this is a woman’s picture, not in any sense a chick flick. The lighting may be questioned. The camera work is dubious. But the story is all. Here is what the movie is about under its fairy tale surface.
For a start, it’s a restatement of Ida Lupino in The Hard Way (1943), also directed by Vincent Sherman. The Hard Way shows Lupino exploiting her sister’s musical talent to escape a small town's dismal future. You do what you have to do.
The New York Times has said that the film is about a woman who brings trouble to those around her (Robert Berkvist, June 21, 2006). Sure, but the same is true of Hamlet. And it’s hard to imagine a newspaper saying something similar about a man who breaks the mold to make money. Nor is it about a woman who is forced to leave an abusive marriage. There are hints of this if you look with a magnifying glass. Nor is it about losing a child and going off the rails. Crawford is far from insane. And it’s not about a scarlet woman. This is a story about money, plain and simple, which is perhaps why making the protagonist a woman was a stroke of genius.
Joan Crawford plays a housewife (Ethel Whitehead) who sees that only one thing counts in this world: cash. She spends precious savings to buy her son a bicycle, which makes her laborer-husband irate. He shouts angrily to his son, and the son is run down by a car. Crawford leaves her husband. She relies on her looks to get a job, because she can’t afford an education and can’t type. The message writ large is that everybody does what they can. Some have brains, like a CPA she meets who earns a pittance. And others have charm, brains and guts, like mobsters that cross her path. But Crawford doesn’t sell her body. She's smarter than that. She offers ideas about how to advance careers, make progress, fulfill ambition. She explains how the world works and is convincing. Moreover, there’s nothing in this movie that separates a gangster from anyone else in business who wants to expand or protect his operation. They all need brains, courage and insight. When Crawford encounters a gangster who has money and power, the movie emphasizes the man’s sophistication. He talks with pleasure and erudition about an Etruscan vase. The movie is making the point that there’s nothing special about crime. In fact, it’s clear that Crawford needs a grounding in the arts to keep the mobster company and increase his profit. She introduces the CPA to the gangster; the CPA organizes the mob’s finances as he would any national enterprise. The key to the film’s success is that Crawford helps the men she meets. It’s not about causing trouble for them. The success of the movie, for women, is also what it shows about the skills they’re allowed to use. Everyone does what they can. Crawford is everyman and everywoman. Most importantly, she isn’t afraid to admit it. After a year of cultivation in Europe, paid by the mobster, Crawford takes her place as a wealthy socialite equipped with an illustrious pedigree. All false, but no one asks questions. Money is proof enough to make the society pages, and a keen mind will take you anywhere. The keen mind is important. There’s not a hint that Crawford’s brilliance isn’t more valuable than her looks.
The gangster feels that his western representative is being disloyal. He asks Crawford to investigate. The man won’t just open his soul to me when I introduce myself, says Crawford. I’ll have to do something more. To which the gangster replies, I’ll leave that up to you. There’s a touching naivete in such scenes, or subtlety. Does the gangster mean that any intimacy Crawford deploys will be manipulative and therefore not interfere with their own emotional ties? The film’s director, Vincent Sherman, had a long and close relationship with Crawford. A romance on screen is as unreal as a feigned romance to obtain information. But there’s no reason except sexism to suggest intimacy is the vehicle Crawford will prefer. She might inveigle her way into the man’s confidence by building new criminal ventures that multiply his profits. The audience is caught in a sexist trap of its own imagining.
The western lieutenant is indeed disloyal, and Crawford appears to lose her heart to the man, but she’s least convincing in these scenes. Crawford drags her feet in tattling to the chief mobster. He comes west to confront her. Crawford wants the western rep to live. In fact, she wants both criminals to live. But they’ve chosen their paths and it’s too late. The same is true for her. The mobster shoots his western rep, and Crawford is afraid she’ll be next. She bolts, and almost laughingly, ends up back where she started, with her parents. There’s another twist or two, but in a nutshell the mobsters die and Crawford lives. The sheriff’s men can’t figure how all this happened. Was she rich or poor? Who were her real friends? At the end, one sheriff’s deputy asks another if Crawford will do it all again. His companion looks at the nondescript house where Crawford now lives and asks, Wouldn’t you? This question lies at the heart of the movie. If you’re rich, you get an education and use those skills to navigate through life. If you’re not, you do what you can. That’s what America is about. It’s about success and striving and results. A woman can get ahead in the same way a man can, by brains and guts and using her talents to their utmost. Nobody denigrates Crawford in this movie, at least convincingly. Crawford is the star both in the real world and on stage. She was head and shoulders above the men around her. That’s why this is a woman’s movie, and - at least in part - why the public loved it.
The movie was a hit grossing $2,211,000 nearly double its budget of $1,233,000.[3] In 2009 after being adapted for inflation the film gross would be $18,600,038.