A large household in the American south, the people in it, and their friends, are all at the mercy of Joan Crawford in 1955's Queen Bee. As splashy melodramas go, this one's kind of mild but I couldn't stop watching.
Our point of view character at the beginning of the film is Jennifer (Lucy Marlow), who joins the household to care for the children and can't understand why everyone lives in fear of her cousin, Eva (Crawford), the household matriarch. Basically it turns out that Eva reserves the right to any dalliance she pleases and will manipulate to suicide anyone who defies her. The screenplay's not the best in the world but it's quite easy to believe Joan Crawford capable of occupying such a position.
No-one really has much of a southern accent for some reason. There are a lot of servants, all of them black, the obvious implication is directly called out once when Eva's husband starts telling the story of how the old family once had lots and lots of slaves. For this bit of dialogue, and this bit of dialogue only, one of the black servants is seen peeking through a doorway, grinning, apparently to absolve the family history, or something. It's extremely awkward though a surprising gesture from an American movie in the mid-'50s.
At one point, Eva hires a cruel governess to care for the children. This is supposed to help support the impression of Eva as a tyrant but I was just marvelling at the number of people caring for these kids. Eva is a housewife. There's the endless supply of black servants, one of whom has the specific job of caring for the children, and Jennifer came to the house to help care for them as well.
Barry Sullivan plays Eva's smouldering, quietly suffering husband who drinks all the time and makes bitter comments in even tones. Fay Wray appears very briefly, still looking vivacious twenty-one years after King Kong. So that's what happened to her, Frank-N-Furter.
Queen Bee is available on The Criterion Channel in their new Murderous Melodramas playlist.
Sonnet 2001
The orb arises over building score
Triumphant notes announce the quiet waste
The dark and hairy wights peruse before
The black enigma grants a scary taste
And now the war begins with vicious bone
That changes fast to spin in outer space
A business man with smart and even tone
Conceals a plan behind a smiling face
To Jupiter, the men and HAL embark
The smartest gadget known to guileless man
Electric wounded pride distorts a spark
So death awaits the ones who take the van
Beyond conception, lights and shapes approach
The deeper darkness lives beyond reproach
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