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IMDb > Torch Song (1953)

Torch Song (1953) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
5.4/10   304 votes
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Down 12% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Charles Walters
Writers:
John Michael Hayes (writer)
Jan Lustig (writer)
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Contact:
View company contact information for Torch Song on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
23 October 1953 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama | Music | Romance more
Tagline:
Tough Baby - a wonderful love story with the star of "Sudden Fear" and for the FIRST TIME you'll see her in TECHNICOLOR!
Plot:
Jenny Stewart is a tough Broadway musical star who doesn't take criticism from anyone. Yet there is one individual... more | full synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. more
User Comments:
Sweetness! Heatness! more

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Joan Crawford ... Jenny Stewart
Michael Wilding ... Tye Graham
Gig Young ... Cliff Willard
Marjorie Rambeau ... Mrs. Stewart
Harry Morgan ... Joe Denner (as Henry Morgan)
Dorothy Patrick ... Martha
James Todd ... Philip Norton
Eugene Loring ... Gene, the Dance Director
Paul Guilfoyle ... Monty Rolfe
Benny Rubin ... Charles Maylor
Peter Chong ... Peter

Maidie Norman ... Anne
Nancy Gates ... Celia Stewart
Chris Warfield ... Chuck Peters
Rudy Render ... Singer at Party
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Additional Details

Runtime:
90 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.75 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Sound System)
Certification:
Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #16608) | Sweden:Btl

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
MGM's ad campaign erroneously boasted that this was moviegoers' first chance to see Joan Crawford in Technicolor. Actually, Crawford had appeared in a Technicolor sequence in same studio's Ice Follies of 1939, some 14 years earlier. more
Goofs:
Continuity: In the "Two-Faced Woman" song Joan Crawford's character starts out wearing a green dress. At the bottom of the stairs she turns and when the women start beating on the tables, Joan's dress becomes blue. more
Quotes:
[first lines]
Jenny Stewart: Hold the record.
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Movie Connections:
Featured in That's Entertainment! III (1994) more
Soundtrack:
You're All the World to Me more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful:-
Sweetness! Heatness!, 26 March 2008
Author: marcslope from New York, NY

That's a couplet from a production number in which Miss Joan Crawford declares, in Technicolor blackface, "I can't help being a two-faced woman." She overestimates herself: In this peerlessly ripe '50s melodrama she has one face, glaring, glaring. She's a harder-than-nails Broadway singer-dancer (dubbed, and clearly no Terpsichorean natural) who shouts down anyone opposed to her in the tiniest way, and then smokes countless cigarettes, glowers, and downs alcohol to betray her neuroses. She's inexplicably adored by her blind rehearsal accompanist (Michael Wilding, who got some terrible parts at MGM), who at least doesn't have to witness her terrifying eyebrows or orange hair, and who's in turn pursued by a nice blonde musician who's obviously a much better match for him. What's surprising and endlessly entertaining about this not-quite-musical is how willing, and even eager, La Crawford is to play up to her public's worst estimation of her. She'll play unsympathetic up to the armpits, as long as they sense that underneath is the heart of a real woman who merely needs to be dominated by a devoted male. None of the characters makes much sense--Marjorie Rambeau, Oscar-nominated as her mother, is either cold and grasping or warm and sympathetic depending on the moment in the plot--but the dialog has some sarcastic snap to it, and it's fun to watch Crawford go through her purification-through-humiliation paces. There's a brilliant Carol Burnett parody of this called "Torchy Song," but the original is even more giggle-inducing.

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