Flamingo Road

The second coming of Joan Crawford was a truly awesome sight. After leaving MGM under a cloud and winning her Oscar in 1945 for Mildred Pierce at Warner Bros, Crawford played a string of femme fatale/grande dame roles, making mincemeat of weak leading men, while women would come to sticky ends in a welter of retribution or redemption in melodramas that pleased audiences and dismayed critics. Here Crawford is reunited with her Mildred Pierce mentor, the brilliant director Michael Curtiz, portraying a carnival dancer stranded in deepest Florida, trapped between two men and swapping cheap philosophy with sinister small-town sheriff Sydney Greenstreet. Immaculately produced and consummately well acted, this is a torrid treat.