7/10
Crawford's worst? You've gotta be kidding...
29 July 2009
This film begins with Crawford a gangster's girlfriend...and this gangster (David Brian) is insanely jealous of her. When it turns out she's going blind, the nutty boyfriend thinks that she is just plotting to run away from him. When the surgery occurs and she is cured, he assumes that she and the doctor are having an affair! In fact, she and the doctor are interested but Crawford puts him off because she loves him and knows that Brian will ultimately kill him if she reciprocates. It's like a soap opera and film noir combined.

I think that either Joan Crawford's statement on IMDb that this was "her worst film" must either be taken out of context or Ms. Crawford had recently suffered a blow to the head, as THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS is a very good film. Additionally, late in her career she made some embarrassingly bad films (such as TROG and BERSERK). So how could this be the worst?! Perhaps Crawford was talking about being a bad time in her life or it was tough because after this film her contract with Warner Brothers was expired--but this surely is far from a bad film.

Now I am not saying that this is a great or perfect film--it has a couple knocks against it. First, Dennis Morgan is just too young for her. I am not trying to be mean, but Crawford had been around Hollywood for almost 30 years--Morgan was simply too young and handsome to believe as a doctor who falls for this patient. Second, the plot about a woman going blind and needing this surgery does seem a tad contrived--though I found it pretty easy to accept it for what it was.

The film excels in several ways. First, it was nice to see Crawford in a more vulnerable role. Too often, she played manish roles that almost seemed like caricatures (such as in JOHNNY GUITAR). Second, the ending is quite suspenseful and I loved the character of Crawford's antisocial/paranoid boyfriend. Thing about it--the doctor just restored Joan's sight and yet the crazed boyfriend wants to kill the doctor because he KNOWS that every man wants his girl! Good writing, very good acting--this film is one of Crawford's best from the 1950s.
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