Well here goes Joan Crawford being passionate, and wearing high-heeled shoes as she walks along a California beach, with each step stabbing the sand with intensity, just to let us know how much her relationship with romantic hunk of the time, Jeff Chandler, really means to her. In the fifties, when the producers wanted melodrama, they really laid it on thick, and the audiences loved it, because they did not yet have television soaps to get stuck into. In this film, Joan Crawford is genuinely hard to get, but when she falls, she really falls. Jeff Chandler does a very good job of acting in this film where he plays a scheming toy boy who marries older women for their money, and has accomplices who facilitate and fund his predations. Usually, Chandler got less demanding roles in films, and had less chance to show acting skills other than being manly. Joan Crawford is truly in her element here and plays it for all it is worth, and more. Jan Sterling is very good playing a hard-bitten real estate agent who is more than she seems, and whose crush on Chandler has, like the storyline, gone way over the top. Everybody must have had a lot of fun making this kitsch picture. And Chandler seems to have survived repeatedly kissing Joan Crawford without having his tongue bitten off. I suppose her mind was really on her swishy skirts. Joseph Pevney directed, immediately after directing Jeff Chandler opposite Jane Russell in FOXFIRE, an interesting film which made a much bigger hit with the public in 1955 than this one did. Two years later, Pevney would direct perhaps his biggest hit of all, the now-forgotten but then dearly loved TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR (1957), starring Debbie Reynolds.

I am of fan of cinema. I especially love old movies. Actress Joan Crawford had the foresight to keep reinventing herself and stayed on the screen for an amazing 50 years! To me she was the truest movie star in that sense, and a darn good actress in some films. She was magnificent in "Rain" and good in "Grand Hotel". Later on, she shone in some others like "The Women" and of course in "Mildred Pierce." (She was NOT among the Top 10 best actresses by any means, but I would put her in the Top 20.)HOWEVER "Female on the Beach" cannot be taken seriously from beginning to end, and it was not meant to be, just like any Douglas Sirk movie. The dialog is totally so unrealistic and hilarious, perhaps unintentionally so. All the acting is overwrought, and the plot is so unbelievable. Add a dash of Natalie Schaefer with a little dog in her purse and later with a monosyllabic body-builder Ed Fury on her arm at the end of the film. Who could ask for more?! "Female on the Beach" is actually my favorite film of all time. So how do I vote for such delightful grade "A" trash? By giving it a "10", of course!

The immortal Joan Crawford is Lynn Markham, a widow who longs to be left alone at her beach house, where previous tenant, Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn) had fallen to her death.Lynn's neighbor turns out to be the gorgeous male specimen in the form of Jeff Chandler, playing Drummond Hall (Drummy), who might have had something to do with Eloise's fatal fall off the porch. Of course Drummy starts to move in on Lynn. Along for the ride are the marvelous duo of Natalie Schafer and Cecil Kellaway who play Drummy's crafty aunt and uncle, Osbert and Queenie Sorenson. And then there is the frequent visitations by realtor Amy Rawlinson played by the always effervescent Jan Sterling who is of course gaga over Drummy, the slick and sleazy gigolo with a rough past.Directed by Joseph Pevney (prolific in great television series' spanning the 1960s-80s, not to mention THE STRANGE DOOR 1951,and PLAYGIRL 1956 starring Shelley Winters.)The film is filled with the right amount of 50s kitch and camp and delicious vulgarity under the sensationalized surface. An obscure Crawford goodie that enthusiasts of the actress and genre should add to their 'must see' list!

Just finished watching an average looking copy of this movie, as a good quality one is nearly impossible to find. The only real reason to watch this movie is Joan Crawford. She could put on a good act at a funeral! I thought she was great, especially considering what she had to work with. Jeff Chandler was never known as a good actor and this movie proves it. The old couple were probably the only real actors in the movie other than Joan. This movie is good to watch if you don't have anything much of importance to do or if you are a big Joan Crawford fan. I don't care how old she was when she made this movie...SHE WAS STILL HOT! I would have taken her on my boat anytime...