Word: dunaway
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...FAYE DUNAWAY, who plays Joan, cannot be blamed for the failure of this film. She is a fine actress, and the work she invested to perfect her Joan Crawford imitation is evident throughout. Her recreation of Crawford's seductive, almost sneer-like frown is remarkable. And the make-up artists deserve credit, too, for Dunaway looks as well as acts the part. Both Diana Scarwid and Mara Hobel, who play Christina as a child and as an adult, respectively, turn in good performances. There is no problem with the acting in Mommie Dearest. The flaw is the absolute lack...
...this silly movie about the domestic life of Joan Crawford. The sympathy one is supposed to feel for the poor little rich waif (played at different ages by Mara Hobel and Diana Scarwid) slides away from her and onto the fashionably padded shoulders of the actress, whom Faye Dunaway's makeup artist, Lee C. Harman, gets just right. It was Crawford, after all, who had the career problems, the man problems, the drinking problem and, finally, the aging problem. That she sometimes lost her temper at home is hardly the stuff of tragedy, or even good melodrama...
Lacking psychological intelligence or, for that matter, awareness of Hollywood sociology, Mommie Dearest is just a collection of screechy scenes further distanced by convictionless direction. Confronted by a movie without narrative tension or human interest, one is finally reduced to watching the paint dry-on Dunaway's face...
...Cora in The Postman, Jessica Lange is tall and erect and self-possessed. Her anarchic blond hair frames a face dominated by classic cheekbones and sulfurous dark eyes, suggesting a Faye Dunaway who does not yet know she is beautiful. She has the strength and solidity of a heroic sculpture-Maillol's Leda, perhaps-a peasant-goddess rooted in the earth. With this performance, Lange has passed from the status of minor curiosity as the heroine of Dino De Laurentiis' King Kong to that of respected actress and, maybe, star. Jack Nicholson thinks so: he calls...
...believes Christina Crawford's tales of child abuse in the bestselling Mommie Dearest, the real surprise is that little Christina was not actually done away with by her mommie severest. Now Faye Dunaway will unwrap that dirty linen again: Dunaway plays Joan Crawford in the movie version being shot in Los Angeles for a scheduled September release. The facial resemblance is clearly a casting director's dream. Says Dunaway: "It was scary the first time I saw it." She puts Crawford the Legend before Joan the Mom. Faye's judgment: "I have nothing but admiration...