Joan....Gotta love her

My incredible friend Mandy (who’s blog you can find under my links to the right), has an acute fondness for Stevie Nicks. While I am a big fan of Stevie as well, most of my fondness would fall towards big stars of the silver screen - and one of the biggest of them all was Joan Crawford.

It is true that she was bit whacko, especially towards the end when she was trapped in a self-illusionary world where she still considered herself to be the beauty siren of the stage and screen living in a world where any man would fall to her feet in praise. (as seen in this ghoulish still from one of her thankfully last films Beserk!").

That young fellow is actually supposed to be Joan’s lover and he has just killed the beautiful blonde trapeze vixen to prove it to her. Uh huh. It doesn’t hurt that Joan’s character in this film just happens to own the traveling circus where the blonde himbo works.

If you do happen to catch this mind-numbingly bad film one late night, make sure that you have sufficiently prepared your brain with your favorite drug of choice beforehand in order to capture and savoir every nuance. Like this scene where Joan confronts the blonde (soon to be dead) trapeze artist - who happens to look like an albino Flip Wilson.

Just one glance at Joan in that outfit with that stance means trouble! Check out the very upset pretty boy in the back - you know what he’s thinking - “that dame’s gotta big mouth alright, and if she keeps shooting it off, I’m gonna loose my meal ticket”. Alas. The blonde, by the way is palyed by Diana Dors - who actually did have an amazing life. Read about it here:

But this is all besides the point. When she was in her prime, Joan was just so “it” that she couldn’t be touched. Mandy also shared with me a hilarious story about when she went trick or treating in the 8th grade dressed as Joan Crawford. Brave little girl! Perhaps she will post it on her blog. I must beg her. It’s a story rife with idol worship gone astray and the vengeful punishing spirit of an icon from yesteryear. Perfect Halloween fodder! Yikes!