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Joan Crawford in A Woman's Face

© K Cruver

Though her image has taken some brutal blows in the years since her death, Joan Crawford remains one of the most formidable stars of classic Hollywood. She not only endured, but prospered in a tough industry--starting her career in the last years of the silent age and continuing to work after the fall of the studio system.

Part of Crawford's durability was due to a series of successful image changes she made throughout her career. Her first screen roles were as a high-spirited flapper type in the silents [Our Dancing Daughters (1928)] . Then she evolved into a tough-willed shop girl/showgirl in the thirties [Dancing Lady (1933) and The Women (1939)] , later toughening her image to play beleaguered women in a series of forties vehicles [Possessed (1946) and Humoresque (1947)] . She had a particularly campy period in the fifties; sometimes the results were horrific [Torch Song (1953)] , though just as often they were highly entertaining [Johnny Guitar (1954) and Queen Bee (1955)] . She finished her career in a series of low budget horror films [Strait-Jacket (1964) and Berserk! (1968)], with an unfortunate final appearance in Trog (1970).

There are lots of movies to treasure in Joan Crawford's long career, but I find her performance in A Woman's Face (1941) particularly fascinating. She is at the beginning of one of her richest periods, the decade in which she won her only Academy Award for the title role in Mildred Pierce (1945). With this early forties role, she adds new depths to her acting style. As the disfigured blackmailer Anna Holm, Crawford is more thoughtful and less mannered than in her typical thirties roles.

Burned in a childhood accident, Anna has spent most of her life with severe scars on half of her face. She gets her revenge on the world by bitterly banking on the secrets that people more attractive than she would like to keep.

Anna's life changes when two men are drawn into her life. One, the mysterious Torsten Barring (Conrad Veidt), is the first man who has ever looked past the scar and loved her. The other, Dr. Gustaf Segert (Melvyn Douglas), is a plastic surgeon married to one of her victims who fixes her face and makes her a beauty for the first time in her adult life.

While Barring embraces her bitter side for his own gain, Sergert falls for her and tries to heal her soul in addition to her physical beauty. With her newly beautiful face, Anna finds that life has become more complicated. She must endure a tug-of-war both between these two men and her outer and inner selves.

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