Flamingo Road

(1949, USA, 94m, b/w)
d Michael Curtiz p Jerry Wald, Michael Curtiz sc Robert Wilder ph Ted McCord ed Folmer Blangsted ad Leo K. Kuter m Max Steiner cast Joan Crawford, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, David Brian, Gladys George, Virginia Huston, Fred Clark

Flamingo Road is the wealthy avenue of achievement in a sleepy southern town where circus girl Crawford decides to put down roots. Her battle of wills with corpulent, corrupt sheriff Greenstreet ranges from the soda fountain to the senate and furs and jewels appear in due course. She marries into local politics, and a sophisticated intrigue threatens to emerge from broad-stroke class issues and amped-up melodrama; the dialogue has its moments, the camerawork is striking if occasionally fussy, and Curtiz keeps up the pace, but Scott is rather lost as Greenstreet’s puppet (until he starts to hate himself); the fat man embodies sweaty evil and leers into the camera; and Joan remains luminous, appropriately lived-in (though generously referred to as a “girl” throughout”), and tough as old boots.

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