Flamingo Road is clearly a soap opera and hardly a film noir as some have maintained. Nonetheless you could call it entertaining camp. With noted director Michael Curtiz at the helm, this a picture that keeps your interest till the end despite its many imperfections.
First off it's hard to buy 45 year old Joan Crawford playing what should be a 20 year old carnival dancer, Lane Bellamy, who's stranded in the small southern town of Boldon after her boss, the circus owner, picks up and leaves in the middle of the night after a creditor comes calling threatening to re-possess the business.
Lane is helped by milquetoast deputy sheriff Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott) who finds a job for her with romantic sparks kindled between the two. But Carlisle is beholden to the villain of the piece Sheriff Titus Semple (Sidney Greenstreet) who wants him to marry his long-term girlfriend Annabelle Weldon (Virginia Huston) and then eventually put him up as his hand-picked candidate for governor.
You're expecting the relationship between the deputy and the carnival dancer to develop but the narrative spins off in a completely different welcome direction. Titus frames Lane on trumped up prostitution charges and she's sent to the workhouse for women for 30 days and once released must find employment.
Lane manages to find a job as a waitress at the "Roadhouse," run by the older but sassy Lute Mae Sanders (Gladys George) who is both suspicious but sympathetic to the beleaguered victim of the maniacal Sheriff Titus. The Roadhouse is close to being a brothel but not quite-more a political club where various prominent politicians hang out.
This is where Lane meets political boss Dan Reynolds (David Brian) who she falls for and they eventually get married. Reynolds unsavoriness is played down despite clearly being a ruthless political broker.
Meanwhile Carlisle is elected state senator but falls out of favor with Titus and is dumped by him. The former Deputy Sheriff is a weak character, an unconvincing sad sack who ends up committing suicide while visiting Lane at her now spacious home on Flamingo Road, an opulent area of the town.
Crawford pulls out all the melodramatic stops in her characterization of the now successful wife of a political boss. Early on can you imagine that Lane actually slaps Sheriff Titus? (this is how she ends up in prison for 30 days). And later when she finally reveals to Reynolds that she was briefly involved with Carlisle, she responds to his query as to whether she's still in love with him by replying that she's "not sure."
That didn't go down too well with Reynolds who decides he's through with Lane. But then Titus frames Reynolds by forcing his construction boss to hire convicts without pay on Reynold's payroll, leading to a charge of "peonage."
Lane saves the day by confronting Sheriff Titus with a gun and demands that he contact the State Attorney and have all charges dropped against her husband. There's a struggle over the gun and Titus is killed. The death is ruled a suicide and Lane walks back into the arms of Reynolds who recognizes that she saved him from ruin.
Greenstreet probably has the best part here playing the oily sheriff despite looking quite ill throughout all of his screen time (the famed actor was to make one more picture and die of complications from diabetes five years later).
The other principals prove to be caricatures typical of the melodramatic genre. Crawford was known for many of these "rag to riches" parts but she ends up saving a husband who in reality is not somebody we should really be rooting for. We care for Scott's character even less because he's so ineffectual and seems to wimp out at every turn.
I didn't expect to enjoy Flamingo Road as much as I did. Maybe it's the plot rather than the characters that drew me in. This is a story that will hold your interest despite the campy nature of its subject matter.
First off it's hard to buy 45 year old Joan Crawford playing what should be a 20 year old carnival dancer, Lane Bellamy, who's stranded in the small southern town of Boldon after her boss, the circus owner, picks up and leaves in the middle of the night after a creditor comes calling threatening to re-possess the business.
Lane is helped by milquetoast deputy sheriff Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott) who finds a job for her with romantic sparks kindled between the two. But Carlisle is beholden to the villain of the piece Sheriff Titus Semple (Sidney Greenstreet) who wants him to marry his long-term girlfriend Annabelle Weldon (Virginia Huston) and then eventually put him up as his hand-picked candidate for governor.
You're expecting the relationship between the deputy and the carnival dancer to develop but the narrative spins off in a completely different welcome direction. Titus frames Lane on trumped up prostitution charges and she's sent to the workhouse for women for 30 days and once released must find employment.
Lane manages to find a job as a waitress at the "Roadhouse," run by the older but sassy Lute Mae Sanders (Gladys George) who is both suspicious but sympathetic to the beleaguered victim of the maniacal Sheriff Titus. The Roadhouse is close to being a brothel but not quite-more a political club where various prominent politicians hang out.
This is where Lane meets political boss Dan Reynolds (David Brian) who she falls for and they eventually get married. Reynolds unsavoriness is played down despite clearly being a ruthless political broker.
Meanwhile Carlisle is elected state senator but falls out of favor with Titus and is dumped by him. The former Deputy Sheriff is a weak character, an unconvincing sad sack who ends up committing suicide while visiting Lane at her now spacious home on Flamingo Road, an opulent area of the town.
Crawford pulls out all the melodramatic stops in her characterization of the now successful wife of a political boss. Early on can you imagine that Lane actually slaps Sheriff Titus? (this is how she ends up in prison for 30 days). And later when she finally reveals to Reynolds that she was briefly involved with Carlisle, she responds to his query as to whether she's still in love with him by replying that she's "not sure."
That didn't go down too well with Reynolds who decides he's through with Lane. But then Titus frames Reynolds by forcing his construction boss to hire convicts without pay on Reynold's payroll, leading to a charge of "peonage."
Lane saves the day by confronting Sheriff Titus with a gun and demands that he contact the State Attorney and have all charges dropped against her husband. There's a struggle over the gun and Titus is killed. The death is ruled a suicide and Lane walks back into the arms of Reynolds who recognizes that she saved him from ruin.
Greenstreet probably has the best part here playing the oily sheriff despite looking quite ill throughout all of his screen time (the famed actor was to make one more picture and die of complications from diabetes five years later).
The other principals prove to be caricatures typical of the melodramatic genre. Crawford was known for many of these "rag to riches" parts but she ends up saving a husband who in reality is not somebody we should really be rooting for. We care for Scott's character even less because he's so ineffectual and seems to wimp out at every turn.
I didn't expect to enjoy Flamingo Road as much as I did. Maybe it's the plot rather than the characters that drew me in. This is a story that will hold your interest despite the campy nature of its subject matter.