I love classic Hollywood films of the golden era and not surprisingly I also love biographies of that talk about these stars. Unfortunately, most of them frankly leave a lot to be desired. They usually only talk about the good points of the celebrity or only discuss their films and as a result, you get a very one-dimensional view of the person. Occasionally, you also get some that are all dirty--and once again you only get a one-dimensional portrait. I was absolutely thrilled when I watched "Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star" because it managed to do something quite rare--balance the great talent with the human being. As a result, it's one of the best celebrity biographies I've seen.Angelica Huston narrates this made for Turner Classic Movies film. It combines her nice voice with some lovely interviews, photos and film clips to talk about her life from birth to death. You get a discussion of her major films as well as her personal life--and this is where the film shines. While it does talk quite a bit about her abuse of her children and affairs (and there were many), it tried to explore WHY--what about her caused her to be so screwed up and out of place off-camera. And, it seemed less angry in doing so. So, despite many clips of Christina Crawford discussing her mom, it did not come off as a recapitulation of "Mommy, Dearest". Plus, it balanced this with genuine respect and admiration for her talents and tenacity. Together, all these factors create a rich tapestry--and make it a must-see of fans of the genre. See this one.By the way, as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had a bit of a rivalry, I should point out that the TCM biography of Crawford was superior to the one they produced on Davis. It was longer, more complete and more interesting--warts and all.

JOAN CRAWFORD: THE ULTIMATE MOVIE STAR is far from being a glowing tribute to the film star, as most of these comments seem to suggest. It shows just how sad, how tragic her life really was behind all the glamorous facade of Hollywood phoniness.Like Bette Davis, her personal life was a mess. Both of them had bad relationships with their fathers resulting in a lifelong distrust of men, which killed any chance for happy marriage relationships. Joan went about choosing men to marry based on her own insecurities as a woman from a dubious background who wanted to learn from the men she married and cultivate herself with knowledge she otherwise would not have.We learn that her marriage to DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR. was an open marriage that lasted about four years; her marriage to FRANCHOT TONE was happy as long as they stayed in the Hollywood limelight and again she was educating herself because he was a worldly, sophisticated mate, but again the marriage fell apart because of infidelities in another open marriage; she had torrid romances with most of her leading men, including director VINCENT SHERMAN, always willing to talk about his affairs with the many actresses he directed.Nor are the comments about her--not just those by Christina Crawford--on the positive side all the time. I'd say half and half. A word of praise followed by the "but she always had to be in control" kind of statement, from people who knew her, like LIZ SMITH, BETSY PALMER, CLIFF ROBERTSON, MARGARET O'BRIEN and others.Far from being a paean to her glory as "the ultimate movie star", it's really more of a "warts and all" confessional that fans of Crawford seem to be in denial about. Her life off screen was full of venom and hateful feuds with just about every co-worker, all the while giving the viewers a few chuckles about how she slapped everyone in films because--well, "because I do that in all my films".So you have to take the good with the bad, all the way through this documentary, which is essentially a tribute to Crawford's longevity as a name above the title film star. The only one who looks worse than Crawford is Bette Davis, whose cruelty during the aborted filming of HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE reached new lows, even for Bette. Those two divas really hated each other.It's definitely a monument to her longevity, but can't exactly be looked at as a glowing tribute to the actress or her thespian abilities. The kindest, most perceptive comments on the real Joan seem to come from Hollywood columnist BOB THOMAS.Almost painful to watch are the clumsy dancing sequences showing how she made her start in early MGM films, just about the clunkiest exhibition of dancing ever performed on camera. She looks like a dancing windmill. It's a howl.But, hey, it's the Joan Crawford we all remember from the '40s that really counts. She left a rich legacy of film noir/soap opera stuff that became legendary: MILDRED PIERCE, HUMORESQUE, POSSESSED and some of the lesser Warner films (FLAMINGO ROAD, THE DAMNED DON'T CRY) in which she came into her own. But behind all that glory, it's really an awfully sad success story when it comes right down to it.Trivia note: I loved the perceptive comment by BETSY PALMER who admits feeling sorry for children in any marriage involving actors/actresses. "Beware. We're a different species," she says with a mischievous grin.

This is an engrossing and faultlessly researched documentary with excellent movie clips. (The montages are GREAT!) I especially liked seeing the bit where you can actually glimpse Crawford playing for a fleeting second with Norma Shearer as her double in LADY OF THE NIGHT in 1925, and the sound clip from her radio recording of Ibsen's classic drama A DOLL'S HOUSE. (It's intriguing that some of her contemporaries have said elsewhere she was surprisingly effective in the plays she mounted with husband Franchot Tone in their little home theater, making us wonder if she might have actually been able to pull off classic stage roles if she'd taken it further.) I do have to take issue with this comment from the review below, though: << I noticed Christina seemed all too eager to bring forth the darker side of Joan -- how she forced the children to do the cleaning, the wire hanger incident, taking over her role in "The Secret Storm" and all I sense from Christina is an incessant need to repeat to the public how nasty Crawford was. The damage has been done already with the book and MOMMIE DEAREST, isn't it time to move on?...It's the only headache in the entire documentary >> We don't know how much tape the producers shot with Christina Crawford or what else she was asked, all we know is what they finally chose to use. To say that Christina is "still" focusing on that aspect of Crawford's life and should "move on" is like saying that Cliff Robertson is "still" focusing on AUTUMN LEAVES and should do likewise.When the 20th Anniversary edition of her memoir MOMMIE DEAREST was released, Christina gave many interviews in which she praised her mother's career and effective performances. Those professional issues have never been in dispute, though, and what Crawford's daughter has to offer that's unique is insight into what the star's home life was like at specific periods of time.Again, this is an extremely well done documentary, giving an excellent overview of Joan Crawford's life.

Lucille La Seuer came out of a poor home. Abandoned by her father and raised by a mother that had to struggle to make ends meet, Lucille saw a way out of her dreary life by becoming a dancer with dreams for going far in show business. Little did she know she would go on to become one of America's movie icons in a career that expanded more than fifty years after she became Joan Crawford, a screen goddess without rival."Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Film Star", conceived and directed by Peter Fitzgerald, follows Ms. Crawford's life in detail. We are given direct accounts by people that knew her and are still around to tell us. The documentary is narrated by Angelica Huston.Joan Crawford was a woman larger than life. As an ambitious woman, she knew from the beginning she had to create her own persona in order to carve a niche in the movie industry. Louis B. Mayer was the man who saw her possibilities and quickly hired her to be part of the MGM family.Ms. Crawford's ambition was boundless. She knew that by marrying Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was her entry into the inner sanctum of most of Hollywood's best people's homes and parties. She transformed herself into the creature one saw in her films. In order to appear more respectable, she adopted a boy and a girl. That girl being Christina, who went to tell it all in her famous book about her adopted mother, "Mommie Dearest", in which one learns about another facet of her character. In fact, Christina talks openly about her adoptive mother quite openly. Ms. Crawford went to adopt three other children, of whom one didn't hear much about.The interviews with some of the people that knew her well proved to be one of the most interesting side to the documentary. Vincen Sherman, the director who worked with her in several movies, is candid about the woman and her human side. Bob Thomas shows an insight about the star. Also we see testimonies by Betsy Palmer, Anna Lee, Diane Baker, Dickie Moore, Ben Cooper, Cliff Robertson, among others that give us the picture of the woman who invented herself and went to become a dominant figure in the American cinema.Thanks to Peter Fitzgerald for making it possible.