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    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
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      • Let Us Be Gay
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      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
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      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
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      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
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      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
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      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
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      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
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      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
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      • The Misfits ('61)
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      • Jaws Intro
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Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies

The Best of Joan Blondell

4/17/2017

0 Comments

 
Joan Blondell Bio
  1. Blonde Crazy ('31)
  2. Night Nurse ('31)
  3. Blondie Johnson ('33)
  4. Three on a Match ('32)
  5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ('45)
  6. Illicit ('31)
  7. Miss Pinkerton ('32)
  8. Gold Diggers of 1933/Dames ('34)/Footlight Parade ('33)
  9. Public Enemy ('31)
  10. Nightmare Alley ('47)
Reviews
Blondie Johnson
Blonde crazy
The Crowd Roars
The Rationalization:
​I could have added another 10 or more titles to this list.  I just like Joan Blondell in everything she does.  While I like her spunky characters more in Night Nurse or Three on a Match, those aren't "her" movies, she is a supporting character; a wonderful, can't take your eyes off her supporting character, but a supporting character nonetheless.  With that in mind, then I choose Blonde Crazy as my favorite of her movies because she's definitely the co-lead and the movie really exposes every bit of her charm and bubbly personality. She is also the only actress I've ever seen who can go toe to toe with the scene stealing dynamo James Cagney.  As 2 chiselers on the lamb, Blondell & Cagney are perfectly matched, as they would be in 6 other films.  It's as if they had their own internal dialogue with each other that makes it's presence know in winks, nods, ticks & nonsensical gestures.  Night Nurse is a quirky movie overall, with Joan's sidekick character Maloney providing  levity and earthiness to the crazy, mixed up world of child abuse, rape, alcoholism, neglect and the most dastardly chauffer in all moviedom (Clark Gable). Night Nurse is all pre-code goodness, with Barbara Stanwyck in a fantastic performance.  In Blondie Johnson, Joan's title character flips pre-code conventions on their head by using her brains, not her body to take on the mod & win!  Her transformation from clueless hick to knowing con-artist is a thing to behold and her taxi cab scam with fantastic character actor Sterling Holloway is a fun bit of stage manners on Joan's part.  Much like Night Nurse is Stanwyck's picture, Three on a Match is best known for Ann Dvorak's impassioned performance as a mother spiraling into drug addiction & suicide, but Joan's turn as the wise cracking chorus girl turned step mother of the year shows her range and depth as an actress.  She is funny, but not cloying; she is sincere without being maudlin.  In Miss Pinkerton, she maintains her consistent spunk and charm, but doubles it as an undercover amateur sleuth helping to solve a murder. The 3 Musicals at #8 are all classics in their own rights, and none of them is dominated by Blondell, but they are each made much better because of her.  She adds humor and imagination in all 3 playing chorus girls with brains & attitude.  Her plaintive opening for the show stopping "Remember my Forgotten Man" in Gold Diggers of 1933 adds a poinnant capstone to the Depression era classic.  While she was never much of a dancer & frightened director Busby Berkeley as a singer, she nonetheless gave the beginning of the song a depth that a more polished singer couldn't have carried off (later parts were sung by another singer. To cap off her Pre-Code Era films Public Enemy is in a class by itself.  One of 4 of her top 10 Films made in 1931, it is also the movie that captivated movie goers like no other, with it's mix of violence and bravado in spades performance by James Cagney.  Blondell's turn as his girlfriend isn't a big part, but she makes the most of it with her usual snappy readings and always fetching appearance.  Here, as in many of Blondell's films, its not the amount of time on screen, but what she does with it that makes her so memorable. The screen lights up whenever she appears and you have to watch her until she leaves.  It's an amazing gift.
Her effervescence captivated audiences in the '30's, but Joan Blondell was not just a pretty face.  She had a long and varied career that lasted into the '70's (check out her bio above), so it shouldn't be a surprise that 2 of her best performances came in the 1940's with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Nightmare Alley.  She always seemed comfortable in her own skin and both of these performances show an actress willing to give up her glamour to take on a character role.  Her Aunt Sissy, in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has the same spunk and charm as her earlier roles, but hidden within a middle age body and with a world weariness and frustrated longing that was absent in the 1930's.  She's what some of her Pre-code characters may have become if they'd had a family and she'd lived to love them.  Similarly, her Zeena Crumbein , in Nightmare Alley, is a schemer of the highest order, more similar to Blondie than not, but on the downside of life.  Both performances reflect the growth of Blondell as a performer and her willingness to adapt to what her audience wanted.  When she was nominated for her only Oscar in 1951 for The Blue Veil (a film I have not seen), I believe it had to be a career achievement of sorts because Blondell had been consistently good for more than 2 decades.  
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  • Home
  • Top 10 Lists
    • My Top 10 Favorite Movies
    • Top 10 Heist Movies
    • Top 10 Neo-Noir Films
    • The Top 10 Films of the Troubles (1969-1998) >
      • The Troubles Selected Timeline
    • Top 10 Films from 2001
    • Director Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Film Noir Directors
      • Top 10 Coen Brothers Films
      • Top 10 John Ford Films
      • Top 10 Samuel Fuller Films
      • Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films
      • Top 10 John Huston Films
      • Top 10 Fritz Lang Films (American)
      • Val Lewton Top 10
      • Top 10 Ernst Lubitsch Films
      • Top 10 Jean-Pierre Melville Films
      • Top 10 Nicholas Ray Films
      • Top 10 Preston Sturges Films
      • Top 10 Robert Siodmak Films
      • Top 10 William Wellman Films
      • Top 10 Billy Wilder Films
    • Actor/Actress Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies
      • Top 10 Clark Gable Movies
      • Top 10 Ava Gardner Films
      • Top 10 Gloria Grahame Films
      • Top 10 Jean Harlow Movies
      • Top 10 Miriam Hopkins Films
      • Top 10 Grace Kelly Films
      • Top 10 Burt Lancaster Films
      • Top 10 Carole Lombard Movies
      • Top 10 Myrna Loy Films
      • Top 10 Marilyn Monroe Films
      • Top 10 Robert Mitchum Noir Movies
      • Top 10 Paul Newman Films
      • Top 10 Robert Ryan Movies
      • Top 10 Norma Shearer Movies
      • Top 10 Barbara Stanwyck Films
    • Top 10 Noir Films (Classic Era)
    • Top 10 Pre-Code Films
    • Top 10 Actresses of the 1930's
  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
      • Jean Harlow Bio
      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
      • Joan Harrison-Producer/Writer
      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
      • Actor Bios
      • Film Noir
      • Director Bios
      • Studio Head Bios
      • Hollywood History
    • Studio
  • Resources
    • Sight & Sound Top 100 2022
    • NOTES >
      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
      • Breakfast Club Notes
      • Citizen Kane Notes
      • It's A Wonderful Life Notes
      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
      • Singin' in the Rain Notes
    • CMBA Interview/Profile
    • Bay Cinema Society Press
    • Hollywood History >
      • Production Code
      • Film Noir
  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
  • Last Picture Show Notes
  • Paul Verhoeven