And an evil sheriff is turning the crank. What he (Sydney Greenstreet) is unaware of is that a political outsider is about to unscrew the bolts that keep the crank oiled. The fat and disgusting Titus Semple, his weight a metaphor for his greasy demeanor, has everybody under his thumb, or runs them out of town on a prison trek if they don't pay him heed. He jokes that fat men are supposed to be happy but he has everybody fooled. Like the wicked witch of the west, he's amused by his beautiful wickedness. Who he doesn't fool is Laine Bellamy (Joan Crawford), the carny girl who remained behind and a victim of his calculating whims. She isn't afraid to stand up to the machine, daring to fall in love with aspiring politician Fielding Carlyle (Zachary Scott, Crawford's co-star in "Mildred Pierce"), and squelched by Semple's weasel like scheming. "You'd be surprised how much trouble it is to dispose of a dead elephant", she tells Greenstreet, having returned to town with a make-over thanks to her new husband, Dan Reynolds (David Brian), a big wheel from Washington D.C. determined to put small town viruses like Semple in their place.
This is a gripping political drama, made the same year as the Oscar Winning "All the King's Men" and the lesser known "Alias Nick Beal". The focus here is on the woman behind the scenes, and Crawford is great, even if her masculine hairstyle makes her appear older than the character, especially in the opening carny scenes. Greenstreet revels in his villainy here even more so than in "The Maltese Falcon", his hatred of Crawford instant from the moment he sees her dining with his puppet. The wonderful Gladys George steals every scene she's in as the one person who sees through Laine (but likes her anyway!). When Ms. George warns Greenstreet that she's the only one who determines who works in her place and dismisses him like nobody else besides Crawford has dared (and that was with a slap across the face), you want to shout out "hurray!". Then, she tells Crawford how much more she likes her now that she knows how Greenstreet feels about her. You just wish this character had more scenes.
"I've crawled into a bottle and I can't get out", Scott reveals in a key scene as the weak Fielding, and it is obvious that his character will end up being destroyed by the machine that's been protecting him. This leads to the cards stacking up against practically every character with Semple's destruction only a matter of a plot twist or two away. This is movie soap opera at its best, and sure enough, in the early 1980's, it became one, albeit sadly briefly. But the original movie, which I must confess I didn't care for when first seeing it years ago, has stood the test of time, and today's political machine, still cranking away today, can be recognized in the cogs of the wheels turning here.
This is a gripping political drama, made the same year as the Oscar Winning "All the King's Men" and the lesser known "Alias Nick Beal". The focus here is on the woman behind the scenes, and Crawford is great, even if her masculine hairstyle makes her appear older than the character, especially in the opening carny scenes. Greenstreet revels in his villainy here even more so than in "The Maltese Falcon", his hatred of Crawford instant from the moment he sees her dining with his puppet. The wonderful Gladys George steals every scene she's in as the one person who sees through Laine (but likes her anyway!). When Ms. George warns Greenstreet that she's the only one who determines who works in her place and dismisses him like nobody else besides Crawford has dared (and that was with a slap across the face), you want to shout out "hurray!". Then, she tells Crawford how much more she likes her now that she knows how Greenstreet feels about her. You just wish this character had more scenes.
"I've crawled into a bottle and I can't get out", Scott reveals in a key scene as the weak Fielding, and it is obvious that his character will end up being destroyed by the machine that's been protecting him. This leads to the cards stacking up against practically every character with Semple's destruction only a matter of a plot twist or two away. This is movie soap opera at its best, and sure enough, in the early 1980's, it became one, albeit sadly briefly. But the original movie, which I must confess I didn't care for when first seeing it years ago, has stood the test of time, and today's political machine, still cranking away today, can be recognized in the cogs of the wheels turning here.