HUMORESQUE: Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1946) Warner Archive
Odd to consider Joan Crawford hitting the zenith of her second career over at Warner Bros. with Jean Negulesco’s Humoresque (1946)… odd , first, because she had only begun this ascend to Oscar-winning glory the year before in Mildred Pierce , and, curiouser still, as Crawford isn’t even in the first third of Humoresque . Actually, it’s really co-star, John Garfield, cast as temperamental concert violinist, Paul Boray whose story screenwriters, Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold are telling here, Crawford entering the scene, and thereafter chewing up the scenery as married cougar, Helen Wright. It is tragic what the advancing years can do to a seemingly indestructible diva of the silver screen. In the late silent era, a little-known contract player named Lucille LeSueur was magically transformed by MGM’s dream factory into that wide-eyed confection of fantasy loveliness, rechristened Joan Crawford, thereupon answering Shakespeare’s time-honored query “ what’s in a name?” with “plenty.” ...
