Goodbye, My Fancy

Right off the bat I'll say I hated this movie. But it was refreshing to see Joan playing a part in her own age range instead of trying to pass for younger and more beautiful, as she had been doing for most of her parts since turning forty. This is a soft drama with a few comedic touches about a congresswoman (Joan) who returns to her college to receive an honorary degree. Actually, she really returns to see old beau Robert Young, now the president of the college. She's followed along by her annoying reporter ex that's in love with her. Crawford's performance is mixed. Most of the time she's solid but there are scenes where she acts like she's never been in a movie before. Particularly the more sentimental scenes. Young is good, even with the added gray to his hair and the mustache designed to make him appear older. Robert Lovejoy is terrible. His character type -- the guy who won't take no for an answer but if he just keeps pushing eventually the woman will give in -- is a gross one that unfortunately popped up often in older films. Modern day stalkers must watch movies like this and long for the old days when no meant yes. I couldn't stand this obnoxious a-hole. The saving grace of the film is Eve Arden. How many times has that been the case? If I made a list of great actresses who played supporting parts but should have been leading ladies, she would be number one. The only bad thing I'll say about her is this: Eve and Joan were apparently having a "worst hair" contest in this movie and Eve won. Anyway, this is a poor effort with few bright spots and a huge downer of a romantic plot.

Although I gave this film a "7" last time around, I was still a bit harsh about it. Now, having watched it a second time, my "7" will remain, but I'm going to chill out a bit about the film. Here a brash Congresswoman (Crawford) Agatha Reed returns to her alma mater to receive an honorary degree, although her prime motive is to rekindle an old romance with the college president (Robert Young). But, a reporter is after her, too (Frank Lovejoy). It's not the "Mommie Dearest" thing, but -- particularly this late in her career -- I have a difficult time seeing Joan Crawford as a sentimental character, or even being in a romantic comedy. But, Crawford comes across pretty well in the other half of her role here --a Congresswoman. So. it's a balance. Having Crawford as a brass Congresswoman is just about enough brashness for any film, but here we also have -- as her secretary -- Eve Arden. Arden excelled at being brash, and is no less so here. And only she could have pulled this off without the film going overboard in the brashness department. In a way, it almost seems to me that Robert Young was trying out his "Father Knows Best" persona here...just 3 years before that iconic role came his way. I enjoy him here; this is one of his better performances. It's a little difficult to understand why a mellow Young would be so attracted to the brash Congresswoman here. That's one of my biggest problems with this film. She seems more suited to Frank Lovejoy's newspaperman character...but of course, in real life they'd almost certainly end up in a divorce court a few years down the road. There's an interesting subplot about a teacher's freedom to teach students to think...although it falls flat at the end of the film...seems to have been forgotten about. The bottom line here, for me, was why this film grates on me a bit. And I think I finally figured it out. Joan Crawford as a Congresswoman...well maybe. But Joan Crawford fighting for education and freedom and democracy? I just can't buy that. Pretty good movie, but terribly miscast in terms of Crawford. (And her eyes drive me crazy...spooky!). Well worth watching it...once. Oops. Guess I should say twice.

I'm sure there is a worse romance to come out of the 1950s, but after watching Goodbye, My Fancy, I can't think of one. This movie is so awful, it's hard to describe; but since that's the purpose of this review, I'll have to try. Joan Crawford stars as a mannish congresswoman who let love pass her by twenty years ago. Lately, she's had a fling with an obnoxious, coarse, crude magazine reporter Frank Lovejoy. Is this romantic: Frank took a photograph of her sleeping in his train compartment then sent it to her as a threat that he could blackmail her at any time during election season. When Joan gets invited back to the college that expelled her for staying out all night with a man to be given an honorary degree, she jumps at the chance and unfortunately so does Frank. He stalks her down there intent on making trouble, and between his un-romantic, creepy gestures, secretary Eve Arden's Debbie-Downer quips, and Lurene Tuttle's endless screeching, the movie isn't very enjoyable. Where's Robert Young? He's President of the university, and the man Joan stayed out all night with twenty years ago. They're given a second-chance romance, but underneath it all, there's the feeling that something's going to go wrong. When it finally does, to provide the script with a plot, it's very disappointing and incongruous to the rest of the movie. The film subscribes to the 1950s view of "a woman is nothing without a man" so if you don't agree, you're not going to like it. Joan's extremely masculine features, walk, and speech, seem to make that phrase inapplicable, but she must have insisted on the makeup artist applying an incessant amount of cleavage makeup to convince audiences that she was indeed a woman, who was nothing without a man.

A very good Joan Crawford 1951 vehicle. As a successful Congresswoman, she returns to receive an honorary degree from her Alma Mater. There she meets up with an old flame, her former professor, now the college president, a widower with a daughter in the school. They keep hidden the secret that she was expelled from the school years before, but left so as to avoid his embarrassment with the school. You would think this is a definite comedy when Frank Lovejoy enters the story as a Life camera man sent up to the school to photograph the issue. Appears that the Lovejoy character and Agatha (Crawford) had something going when they were war correspondents. This along with Crawford uniting with Eve Arden, her co-star in 1945's "Mildred Pierce." Wise-cracking as ever, Arden plays Crawford's secretary. The picture is a good one as it soon turns into one talking about academic freedom and the right to teach what one wants taught as opposed to the stuffy college administration, represented here by Howard St. John. There is definitely a relation here to the McCarthy witch hunt which was sweeping the nation at the time.

SHAWFAN has the issue correct. The problem is that he does not have a full sense of history. This movie was made in 1951, and there was constant pressure on the motion picture industry to tone down hints of "radicalism". Joan Crawford's attack on the right wing trustee for forsaking the education of these college age students with "entertaining" motion pictures; prevents the message of the film she has brought to campus. Simply, without images, the result of letting the National Socialists destroy education in Germany from 1933-1945, resulted in hanging and executions of the teachers. The trustee in question expressed that buildings were more important than a good education. Yes, there are those gooey moments. They are not there because the film story has a need for it, but rather that the various "approval" boards would have forced the filmmakers to put it in to water down the content. Robert Young's role proves that he is just a weak person. Not the person to stand up for what is right. Even his mealy mouth response to the film being shown AND THE STUDENT'S APPROVAL over everyone's objections prove that. BUT, run this film with two others, THIS LAND IS MINE (1943) and PEOPLE WILL TALK (1951). Then the message of what the film is about comes through like a bell. IN OUR DEMOCRACY EDUCATORS MUST BE BACKED. When cities, states and even your congress-persons yell, CUT EDUCATION SPENDING, these are just three films with which you can relate. peter22060 PS Truth through learning, and a focus on history, should make these three movies text material.

or even a scene, for that matter. She is a stiff broad in this one, right down to a short, severe stiff hairdo. I am not a huge Joan Crawford fan, although I liked her a lot more in her earlier films, when she was still loose and a bit floppy. Once she became a "star" she changed her whole acting style so she could appear, as her ex-flame says "refeened." It is a shame she couldn't just go with the flow once in a while, instead of playing herself in different occupations.In this one, she is Joan playing a tough congresswoman. But of course she does a classic Joan melt when she sees Robert Young again after all these years...heart on sleeve as always. She enters the reunion at her old college to the strains of a song being "sung" by by the co-eds, which incorporates her name, yet sounds like a heavenly choir. The girls come forward one by one to hand her a bouquet and each one is a cliché; there is the butch athlete, the drama queen, the good girl, etc and Joan ends up clutching a veritable rose bush as she launches into a speech, gazing off into the bright and shiny future. Of course Robert Young is now a widower. You'll have to see the movie to see if his marital status changes. This movie is a fifties movie, in that it is prim, everyone is a cliché of a type, right down to the wise-cracking assistant (Eve Arden)and the women are stuck with the hairdos and clothes of the period, which were never flattering to anyone. But if you are a Joan fan, she is here, in her glory.

"Goodbye, My Fancy" stars Joan Crawford, Robert Young, Eve Arden, and Frank Lovejoy and was made in 1951. It was originally a play by Fay Kanin that enjoyed a run of over a year. Madeleine Carroll starred. Crawford in 1951 was 44, and in those days, after an actress turned 30, she went into supporting roles. It's to Crawford's credit that she stayed a leading lady well past 30, albeit in lesser films. This film is actually a good one. Crawford plays a Congresswoman, Agatha Reed, who is invited back to her old college to receive an honorary degree. She is thrilled, for more than one reason. She has happy memories there and has never forgotten her old love and, though she doesn't state it, she's hoping to see him again. Also, she finds it amusing that she's been invited -- she was expelled from the school for staying out all night and didn't graduate. Agatha and her able assistant (Eve Arden) travel to the college, dogged the entire way by a photographer (Frank Lovejoy) with whom Agatha had an involvement a few years back. Agatha has filmed a documentary that she wants to show at the school. The film is about what happens when people are denied their freedoms, and deals with book burnings, persecution of teachers, etc. She is shocked to find that there is some question as to whether or not the film will be shown. "Goodbye, My Fancy" is about going home again, and underneath Agatha having two men interested in her, it makes a statement about McCarthyism which was so rampant at the time. It's also about standing up for what you believe in and having integrity -- true ethics kick in when you've got something to lose. I saw some comments about Crawford being miscast - I'm not sure why - she played strong career women for many years. The casting is off, but it's not Crawford. It's partly the script and partly the casting. Robert Young is very good as the President -- handsome, charming, and formal. Eve Arden is funny as the assistant, wisecracking her way through the role. Shirley Booth played the role on Broadway. The role that's miscast is Frank Lovejoy as Matt Cole. The role called for a macho, attractive tough guy and instead we get the rather sloppy, wisecracking Lovejoy. The ending of the film seemed to come out of nowhere. Otherwise, fairly enjoyable, good cast.

While this picture ranks as a pretty heady Joan Crawford fantasy, this picture is NOT Joan! It is, however, Joan as she wanted to be seen -- younger than her peer Clara Bow, glamorous, caring about mothers and constituents and others, and hopelessly romantic. Truth be known, her only care for others was for her fans -- that they continued to write her, to adore her, to idolize what they believed to be her! Only one other reviewer tells the truth about the tawdry life of Joan before she was 18; none tells of the continuance of that life when she embarked on Hollywood and had her three or four careers there. That same reviewer, incidentally, is the only one who mentions that "Goodbye, My Fancy" was a hit play before it fell into the clutches of La Crawford, so while its premise and material might be heady for behind-the-times Hollywood, Broadway and the "road" had seen and enjoyed the play for a while before Hollywood tackled it! The 6-star rating is for the fact that this Crawford epic is meatier than the films-about-nothing that she usually made! While Robert Young played the usual stalwart, faceless, and characterless version of Robert Young that he usually played, and while Eve Arden managed to steal every scene in which she appeared -- even if only in the background -- no one mentions the name of the real man in the film, the really masculine character and actor who could more than handle La Crawford: Frank Lovejoy! He waited in the background, as he says, until she stops playing Little Nell from the Country and comes back to Earth! He and Arden are easily the best actors -- and give the best performances -- in the film. "Goodbye, My Fancy" is better for these two actors, for the rest of the supporting cast, and for the production values than its two stars -- Crawford and Young, in case you forgot -- deserved!

Goodbye My Fancy finds Joan Crawford taking over a role popularized by fellow film star Madeline Carroll on stage as a member of the House Of Representatives coming back to her former college to accept an honorary degree. She's invited by college president and former boyfriend Robert Young. There's a lot of history here and this is the only degree she'll have from the College Of New Hope for women located in rural New England. Back in the day apparently Crawford was a wild child, at least wild by those standards back then. She got into a compromising situation with Young and she took the fall by herself and got expelled for it. In the interim Young in addition to rising to the presidency of the college married a woman who died and has a daughter, Janice Rule, who is going to be one of the graduates at the ceremony Crawford gets her degree. Crawford went into journalism and then politics. She's combining the two at this point having produced a documentary about the current social problems of Europe and how Fascism by curtailing free speech contributed mightily to them. She's hoping to show the film while she's at the college. Her opponent in this endeavor is the chairman of the board Howard St. John who also happens to be now married to Crawford's former roommate Lurene Tuttle. He's got the part that actors like Eugene Palette and Charles Dingle normally were cast in, the arrogant, self righteous right wing blowhard who thinks he ought to be controlling the educational process. Not that he's against free speech mind you, but he feels that kids should not be exposed to this kind of serious work. He in fact donated the campus movie theater and he'd like for them to show entertainment that he approves of, such as his favorites Abbott&Costello. Young's dependent on St. John's good will for his job. But one who isn't and is also a rival for Crawford is Frank Lovejoy, a Time&Life war photographer who is covering this event. He'll expose Young's timidity if for no other reason than to shame him in front of Joan. Goodbye My Fancy was written by Fay Kanin and ran for 446 performances on Broadway during the 1948-49 season and was directed by Sam Wanamaker who also played the Frank Lovejoy part. The college president was played by another former movie name, Conrad Nagel. The play took home a Tony Award for Shirley Booth who played Crawford's Congressional aide and has some really funny Eve Arden type lines. When the film came out the Eve Arden part was played by Eve Arden. The play draws heavily on themes expressed in James Thurber's The Male Animal. If anything it's more serious here because whereas in The Male Animal, trustee Eugene Palette objected to the content in reading Nicolo Sacco's letter in class, St. John just objects to the idea of material that is mind challenging in the classroom in general. What does this imbecile think they're going to college for. In fact there's a minor role played by Morgan Farley as a physics professor who is intending to leave the college because of the limits he's being put under and Farley plays it well. Coming out as it did during the House Un-American Activities Committee days and after Joe McCarthy started finding Communists in all kinds of places, Goodbye My Fancy was quite the courageous project for Warner Brothers at the time. It's a timeless tribute to the value of free speech and the marketplace of ideas that a university is supposed to be. This is a film that I think needs a remake. Can you see some trustee on a university today throwing his weight around and maybe filling the campus cinema with reruns of Saturday Night Live in order that students not concentrate on serious issues? I think it could be done.

Ridiculous fluff, that compounds its error by trying to have meaning. Joan, this time as a congresswoman, Agatha Reed, chairwoman of a committee dedicated to "investigating the high cost of food." Says Congresswoman Reed, "The housewife has been getting it in the neck too long. I'm going to keep fighting long enough so that the American family can take a vacation once a year, see a movie every week and feed an occasional peanut to an elephant." She's all business, but becomes all gushy when she is awarded an honorary degree from Good Hope College, where she was expelled for the crime of having stayed out all night (the parallel to Joan's real life is unmistakable here, as it is in all Joan Movies). The degree causes much consternation on campus ("That would make it the most broad-minded institution in the history of education!") – but Joan is unaware of this as she arrives. The college president, Jim Merrill, played by Robert Young, at his handsomest, happens to be Joan's former teacher – and lover. It was with *him* that she spent the night out, all those years ago, but Joan felt it was better to just disappear rather than try and explain to the skeptical college that they were about to be married. Naturally, this high-profile event will be covered by *Life* magazine – and who does the photographer turn out to be? Yet another of Joan's old lovers – this one, she hung out with in China "during the war", and he thinks Joan might be headed for trouble with her old flame. Eve Arden, playing Joan's assistant, "Woodie," is at her butchest and most smart-alecky in this movie – with her flippant and unnecessary remarks that would make you dismiss her from her job, if you didn't like her so much. But you not only like Eve in this, as in all her roles, you adore her. She is so droll and no-nonsense, you'd like to pay her just to hang around and be one of the boys. When Joan cries upon arriving at her alma mater, Eve tells her it "looks fierce." But Joan says that maybe others only see a collection of buildings, she, Joan, sees youth – herself at 18 "eager, expectant – a little frightened, asking 'What is life? What am I?'" But, of course, if we actually go into depth about Joan at 18, the truth may be a little different. For me, this is the major problem in watching any Joan movie. You can call her characters whatever you want to, but it's always all Joan, all the time. So, since what we're always seeing is Joan being herself, it's easy to dispense with character's names. It's just that it gets confusing when Joan tries to tell us something patently untrue, like her description of herself at 18 – when we know that at 18, Joan had already been around the block several times. Many men would have described her as eager, and as far as being expectant, she had already had several abortions at this point. But that's a personal problem, and I digress, but I simply wanted to explain why I say things such as "…and then Joan does…" this or that, or "We see Joan as..." when we are not literally watching a home movie. There is an unintentionally hilarious moment in which Joan is given the Clara Bow doll that she left behind in college – quick arithmetic tells us that Joan and Clara were contemporaries and this is a transparent ploy to make us believe Joan is much younger than she actually looks. It fails. What also fails is an attempt at early-50s political correctness. In the story, Joan has written a book about free speech and made a film (no, not the one about the plumber), and she attracts the attention of an early 50s campus radical, Dr. Pitt, who is about to be fired for his views, which are shockingly similar to Joan's. This is where the movie mysteriously becomes a morality tale –a weak one, to be sure, but perhaps the only thing that keeps it from sliding into oblivion.