Watched: 04/08/2024
Format: Criterion
Viewing: First
Director: Vincent Sherman
Selection: Me
First: The Damned Don't Cry (1950) is an amazing, pulpy-perfect name for a movie. I am not sure more movies need to do this in this age, but The Dead Don't Hurt coming soon as a Western is a pretty dang solid name, too. Marketers, challenge yourself when selling movies!
Criterion Channel currently has a series going on featuring noir films made in 1950 entitled "Peak Noir", and I'm going to catch all of them I haven't seen. Honestly, shoving Joan Crawford into a movie from this series was going to get me to prioritize it, so here we are.
Crawford plays a mother to a young child, married to a roughneck and living with her parents in near poverty. After the tragic death of her child on a bike they couldn't afford, she splits and heads for New York. She moves swiftly into modelling for a dress-maker, and finds it has a side-hustle that's not quite prostitution, but adjacent. Meeting a harmless CPA, she sees a way out, and gets him better gigs working for shady operations (and I think it's assumed, they're friendly). However, this means she meets a 50's-style syndicate boss, and she trades up to become his kept woman.