STRAIGHT TALK

Joan Crawford called last night demanding equal blog time, so here’s a first: back-to back Flaming Bore Movie Reviews. Who am I to deny diva Joan and her head-dropping performance in Strait Jacket?

As the movie begins, Lucy Harbin, played by our glamour gal Joan, returns home early one night, only to find her wayward younger husband in bed with a blonde hussy. Well, of course, Lucy does what any respectable spurned woman does--she grabs the nearest ax and chops them into ribbons.

Fast forward 20 years. After two decades of asylum rehab, Lucy is ready to inflict herself back onto society and to reconnect with her daughter, lovely Carol, now in her mid-20’s, who was an eyewitness to the crime as a child. She’s been raised by Lucy’s brother and his wife, who just happen to go by the unfortunate last name of Cutler, and who also happen to run a chicken ranch where we periodically see actor George Kennedy engaged in bird beheading. Are we picking up on any foreshadowing yet?

Carol, meanwhile, has become a sculptor (could it be that she is crafty with a knife?) and is hot for Michael Fields, from the wealthy Fields family. Carol would love to get married, but she’s not sure how the Fields’s will accept having an axe murderess for an in-law, or an outlaw for that matter. Still, she welcomes her mother home and tries to help her adjust to post-asylum life, buying her pretty clothes and a stylish wig. (“Oh, I couldn’t,” Lucy modestly says. “But, Mother, wigs are all the rage!”)

Next thing you know, Lucy starts having nightmares and hallucinations, gets drunk, puts the moves on Carol’s beau, dramatically strikes a match on an LP record, --and then an ax murderess arrives on the scene. Gee, I wonder who THAT is? Could it be that the nut doesn’t fall too far from the tree? Well, Joan/Lucy comes on at the end to explain the entire plot to her brother and to those in the audience who remain clueless, and then, being the wonderful mother that she is, goes rushing back to the asylum to visit the newly-homicidal Carol. Like mother, like daughter. How sweet. The end.

On the 5-Flame Scale, I give Strait Jacket three stars. The conclusion is highly predictable, but the actors play it straight (or is it strait?) and never quite sink to the level of the material until the very end. If you enjoy stories about ridiculous mother-daughter relationships, and, let’s face it, Joan Crawford is the queen of mother-daughter relationships, then Strait Jacket should fit you perfectly.