Harriet Craig

WIFEY DEAREST....
This is an engrossing film of a cold, calculating, and manipulative woman, Harriet Craig, who is married to Walter Craig, a very nice man who adores her. She lives in an impeccably appointed mansion with him, has two servants, and a poor relation, Claire, who caters to her every whim. Life should be great. Wrong!

Harriet is not happy, unless she is able to control everyone and everything around her. A regular martinet and perfectionist, she is cruel to the servants and totally self absorbed. If something does not revolve around Harriet, then it is of no import. She stops at nothing to get what she wants, even if it means destroying those who love her.

Harriet keeps her husband on a short lease, and he is so besotted by her that, at first, he does not even notice. She is a master at maintaining her own status quo. Then, one day she goes too far. Walter is going get a long awaited promotion that will require him to travel abroad. As this does not fit in with Harriet's plans, she...

Joan Crawford in full throttle
"Harriet Craig" is a startling and awe inspiring movie which is dominated from beginning to end by Joan Crawford in a standout performance as the character of the title, a cold and calculating woman used to getting her own way in all things. Never was a role more tailor made for an actress than this one and it is a tribute to Joan Crawford's great (and often underrated) talent that she manages to pull it off and add extra dimension to an otherwise unlikeable character.

This film was based on the stage play and previous movie starring Rosalind Russell called "Craig's Wife" and deals with a domineering and manipulative woman who runs her beautifully furnished home like an army base and also controls the lives of her husband and servants as she sees fit. Despite having everything in life to make her happy Harriet is only content when she has people to herself, namely her Husband Walter played superbly by Wendall Corey and her cousin Clare (KT Stevens). What transpires is in a way a...

Crawford in Full Control
The play "Craig's Wife"(title of an earlier movie version with Roz Russell) may have been a daring-for-its-day look at a phenomenon of Depression-era America's upwardly-mobile middle class: the empty shell of a woman for whom position and appearance mean everything. (Mary Tyler Moore played an updated version in "Ordinary People.") But when Crawford the control-freak assumed the role, it took on grotesque dimensions -- down to her 1950 hairdo that looks like an Oreo with a bite out of it. This is one role Crawford played that must have been completely natural to her -- the narcissistic despot of "Mommie Dearest." (And with tired old Wendell Corey as her spouse and foil, she steals every scene.) Still, it's fun to watch this cool schemer get her comeuppance -- but, when she regally ascends her spiral staircase in the last shot, alone among the splendor of her possessions, you wonder who has won after all.

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