Director: Vincent Sherman
Screenplay: Anne Froelick, James Gunn
Based on the play by: George Kelly
Producers: William Dozier
Starring: Joan Crawford, Wendell Corey, Lucille Watson
Year: 1950
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: PG
Duration: 94 mins

Harriet Craig is the second of three films that director Vincent Sherman made with Joan Crawford, with whom he was having a torrid affair at the time. Based on George Kelly’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Craig’s Wife, which had been adapted previously for both screen and radio (two examples of the latter are amongst the extras on this release), Harriet Craig is a both involving and dated look at one woman’s fastidious need to control every aspect of her own life and the lives of those around her. In some cases this involves being openly unpleasant, bullying an increasingly fragile maid into a state of perpetual anxiety, while in others it requires a more manipulative and underhand approach. Harriet has created a rigid, bloodless picture of domestic bliss and will stop at nothing to maintain it, even if it means stacking lie upon lie and resorting to inevitable exposure with accusatory hostility.

To enjoy Harriet Craig, it’s important to remember the era in which it was made and how psychology was a new concept for many audiences. The way in which Harriet’s entire personality is traced back to a particular initiating incident from her childhood feels hackneyed and underdeveloped from a 21st century standpoint where such shorthand has been used regularly and often crassly in so many films. But in 1950 this lightly touched-upon explanation probably felt less played out. Crucially, Crawford’s subtly pitched performance captures many of the nuances that aren’t necessarily inherent in the screenplay’s reveal. While she makes Harriet into a loathsomely manipulative and self-centred woman, she is also careful to layer in the split-second thought processes that drive her every action. While we see her negative responses to certain pieces of news, she crucially never appears panicked because she is clearly so practiced in the art of deceit and influence at this stage. Even during the lengthy climactic confrontation in which secrets are exposed, Harriet appears to be working through a repertoire of defence mechanisms planned for just such an emergency.

Harriet Craig has an unusual pace to it which likely mirrors the two act structure of its source play. The majority of the first hour feels like set-up for the painted corner of the second half and there’s a certain repetitiveness to the endless string of falsehoods and puppeteering but the film also achieves a level of hypnotic resonance as it allows us to follow Harriet in her daily routine. It’s not quite Jeanne Dielmen in terms of either mundanity or extremity of transgression but we do begin to experience the smothering straitjacket in which Harriet finds perverse comfort. Whether we feel any pity for Harriet is down to the angle from which we view the material. Certainly, the film doesn’t seem to want us to. It offers a reason for her behaviour but doesn’t go any further in exploring the potentially complex psychology behind it. Any humanity glimpsed in Harriet comes from Crawford’s performance which is steely but never one-note. The thinly sketched supporting characters require Crawford to work doubly hard. Wendell Corey is adequate as the husband but a more assertive performer would be required in order to both demonstrate the depth of Harriet’s control and make the climactic turnaround remotely believable. A better screen partner is found in Viola Roache’s Mrs. Harold, the longtime housekeeper who knows Harriet’s husband better than she does. Roache and Crawford’s confrontation is the most satisfying dramatic moment but it is served up as an hors d’oeuvres in a meal that peaks too early.

For all its flaws, Harriet Craig is an enjoyable depiction of mental machinations and doomed domesticity which offers a muted take on the Melodrama. Repetition is both its strength and its downfall, helping to build an immersive atmosphere but taking too long to wind up once the facade begins to crumble. It leans too heavily on an undercooked explanation and an obvious Chekov’s gun in the shape of a prized vase whose fate is tepidly inevitable from the outset. The major reason to see the film, unsurprisingly, is Crawford, who turns a potentially flat character into a recognisable, if still largely detestable, human being. There’s enough potential in this setup for a complex miniseries in which the supporting players might be given a chance to be fleshed out and their own failings explored as part of the problem. But this is Hollywood 1950 and a star vehicle for Joan Crawford. In that respect at least, it succeeds. Like so many melodramas, Harriet Craig climaxes in a slow, defiant ascent of a staircase. As she continues to exude the gravitas that other areas of the film lack, the impression is that that staircase may as well be a winner’s podium.

Harriet Craig is released by Indicator on Blu-ray on 17 February 2025. Special features include a generous double bill of radio adaptations of George Kelly’s original play, and an entertaining twenty minute assessment of Harriet Craig and how it fits into Crawford’s oeuvre, delivered by the likeable Lies Lanckman.

The full list of special features is as follows:

* High Definition remaster
* Original mono audio
* Audio commentary with critics and writers Glenn Kenny and Farran Smith Nehme (2025)
* Lies Lanckman on ‘Harriet Craig’ (2025): the academic and film historian discusses the making of the film and its place in Joan Crawford’s careerstrong>
* Lux Radio Theatre: ‘Craig’s Wife’ (1936): radio play adaptation of George Kelly’s 1925 play, starring Rosalind Russell, Herbert Marshall and Beulah Bondi
* The Campbell Playhouse: ‘Craig’s Wife’(1940): subsequent radio adaptation of the play, starring Orson Welles and Ann Harding
* Original theatrical trailer
* Image gallery: promotional and publicity material 
* New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing 
* Limited edition exclusive booklet with new essay by Pamela Hutchinson, a look at the film’s production with a focus on Joan Crawford and Vincent Sherman, an overview of
contemporary critical responses, and film credits
* World premiere on Blu-ray
* Limited edition of 3,000 copies for the UK

Harriet Craig
3.5Overall Score
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