robert-temple-1 Well here goes Joan Crawford being passionate, and wearing high-heeled shoes as she walks along a California beach, with each step stabbing the sand with intensity, just to let us know how much her relationship with romantic hunk of the time, Jeff Chandler, really means to her. In the fifties, when the producers wanted melodrama, they really laid it on thick, and the audiences loved it, because they did not yet have television soaps to get stuck into. In this film, Joan Crawford is genuinely hard to get, but when she falls, she really falls. Jeff Chandler does a very good job of acting in this film where he plays a scheming toy boy who marries older women for their money, and has accomplices who facilitate and fund his predations. Usually, Chandler got less demanding roles in films, and had less chance to show acting skills other than being manly. Joan Crawford is truly in her element here and plays it for all it is worth, and more. Jan Sterling is very good playing a hard-bitten real estate agent who is more than she seems, and whose crush on Chandler has, like the storyline, gone way over the top. Everybody must have had a lot of fun making this kitsch picture. And Chandler seems to have survived repeatedly kissing Joan Crawford without having his tongue bitten off. I suppose her mind was really on her swishy skirts. Joseph Pevney directed, immediately after directing Jeff Chandler opposite Jane Russell in FOXFIRE, an interesting film which made a much bigger hit with the public in 1955 than this one did. Two years later, Pevney would direct perhaps his biggest hit of all, the now-forgotten but then dearly loved TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR (1957), starring Debbie Reynolds.

jamesabutler44 This is the type of film that used to be featured on American Movie Classics before they ruined the channel with commercials and more recent fare.Fortunately, I caught it on AMC and taped it years ago. I pull it out every now and then on a lazy rainy day for pure enjoyment. Just seeing Crawford with that Godawful makeup, heavy brows, and mannish bob is a riot. Her scenery chewing acting style is also a hoot. She plays it like she's trying to get an Oscar. She takes every opportunity to show off her figure also. There's even a scene where she's getting out of bed in baby doll pajamas no less! I wish they would release this on DVD!

Bucs1960 This is Crawford camp at its best. As her star waned, she began to appear in films that will forever be treasured by those who adore the trash and flash of 50's soapers with Joan in the spotlight.In this outing, she is a former "specialty dancer" (read what you will into that appellation)who moves into a beach house next to hunky gigolo Jeff Chandler. He takes one look at her and decides that she is a target for his con game of fleecing defenseless women although Crawford can hardly be categorized as defenseless. Joan reads the diary of the former (and mysteriously dead) beach house tenant, a slave to love of Chandler who was bleeding her dry and Joan still doesn't get it. Needless to say, Crawford marries Chandler anyway and we spend the rest of the film wondering if, how, or when he will murder her.Crawford was years too old for the part and she swans around like a twenty year old in the fashions of the time, including many shots in a dazzling variety of negligees. But remember, this is Joan Crawford and during this phase of her career it was exactly what we expected. Nobody did this better than she did. It epitomizes the term "camp" and you can't help but love it. Whew!!!!

wayjack I've seen this film exactly twice on TV late at night. If it isn't in print anywhere (it doesn't appear to be currently) it should be. Joan is at her campy, over-the-top best in this bizarre story of a woman, her love interest, and a couple truly strange neighbors (one of whom would later become "Lovey" on Gilligan's Island). The dialog alone is enough to make it worth seeing. Jeff Chandler is at his studly best too. So much of Joan's work is out on DVD and hopefully this film will be too some day. If you're a Crawford fan and you've never seen Female on the Beach (get a load of that title!) you'll be thrilled by this seemingly "lost" movie. You can't beat a film with a line like, "I wouldn't have you if you were hung with diamonds upside down!"