Autumn Leaves (1956)

This is my second time watching Autumn Leaves and I can't figure if I like it or not. Like, no? Lol. It's mad...like it's a shitty movie. Or the themes are. Idk, it could be worse. But what saves it are my baes Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson. I think both of them elevate a fairly questionable script with their individual talents. 

Joan was like a true movie star, looking mad glam and bright in roles that call for her character to be sort of plain and dusty and regular degular. It's almost always like a really awkward, jarring dichotomy in Joan's movies. Especially since she so often plays pathetic woman. That's what I will call the genre she often mired in, "Pathetic Women". Joan's character stayed lusting after that bs. Obsessing over ugly ass Van Heflin, or letting Veda and Bette Davis get into that ass - no ma'am! And it's so crazy because you know Joan was That Bitch in real life, so to watch her play all these weak, damp ass damsel in distress types is super disconcerting. But thankfully most of them are also kinda mentally deranged, and that wears well on Joan. No shade but all shade, let's keep it real.  

So Joan here plays some broad named............goddamn Millicent Wetherby. Smh. So I guess Millicent is kind of a loner, spinster-type? #same. She makes a living...I think typing up screenplays or books or some shit at home? There's like a professional name for that but I am having an ADD brain thing and can't remember it. Transcribing? Is it ADD or a tumor? Either way, we are all going to die. And that's just wonderful.

Millicent has some landlord all in her business and there's a conversation about how Millicent needs a bae. Something about how she can't stay home all the time doing work. And why is that? Lol lee the bitch alone. But whatever, I guess Millicent is lonely. She goes out to a concert and the movie is mad extra and highlights how ALONNNNE she is. Like why a bitch by herself can't be enjoying the Brahms or whatever without internally screaming about how single and unmingled she is? Like it was just doing the most. And then after the concert Millicent goes to a crowded ass restaurant and awkwardly sits by herself at a booth. BUT WHO MAKES IT EVEN MORE AWKWARD IS, Burt Hanson, played by Cliff. 

He come in the restaurant and there's no tables for him, so his rude ass see Millicent sitting by herself and walks up and kind of gives off this entitled ass attitude, like, oh, because you're sitting here alone and there's no more seats I should be able to sit here with you so I can eat. Um, no?? It would be nice of Millicent to offer her seat, but who the fuck would do that? Who the fuck tryna eat with some random nigga, even if he is suspiciously roughy-haired Cliff Robertson?? And like, in Burt's defense, he didn't get mad or whatever when Millicent declined him sitting at the table, BUT HE DID KEEP STANDING THERE! HE DID KEEP DOING THAT!! 

Millicent was like .....uhhhhhmmmmmmmm are you gonna move? Like lol why would he keep standing there? Like she said she didn't want to eat with you, so go wait up by the front? It got so awkward with him standing there she was basically forced to say he could eat with her. And so begins their awkward ass romance.

Their romance is awkward because, I guess, Millicent is OLD. Idk how old she's supposed to be, or how old Burt is supposed to be, but they make it seem like he's quite young and Millicent is an old maid, which was prob like thirty in 1956. But it's also awkward because, the movie sort of emphasizes that Burt and Millicent get together because they are lonely. Millicent is OLD and HUSBANDLESS and Burt is new in town. So they get together on, I guess some not ideal common ground. Or the movie makes it seem like two people connecting because they are lonely is pathetic and doesn't bode for a stable, long-lasting relationship, because loneliness is finite. Or that's how the movie makes it seem. But lol, no. Like, aren't most relationships spun from loneliness? People connecting and warming each other's cold, dead hearts? Or am I just such a mess and that's not even the case? Lol and smh.

But whatever. I disagree their situation is tragic because...of how it started, or the reasons. So what if Millicent is old, or they were both lonely as fuck and just trying to find companionship? At the end of the day, they made a good connection and chose to be together, and when they don't want to be together anymore, they won't. It's not that serious. Or I should tell Millicent that, because she was acting like it was a big deal that she was older or that they both met when they were lonely like girl you just looking for excuses to be a spinster at this point.

But anyway, I think their relationship could have been sweet and nice had Burt not been, you know, INSANE. Just as looney tunes as he could be, bless his sweet heart. 

Just a goddamn mental case. Turns out, Burt used to be married to Vera Miles. But she smashed his daddy and Burt walked in on it, so he snapped. Lol okay. Kinda dramatic, just take your ass on Maury or something and call it a day. But Burt gotta be extra and have a complete mental breakdown. Drama. Queen. 

So...I felt like the shit with Vera Miles and Burt's daddy makes this a bad movie. It was very B-movie to have them turn up on some villainous shit. We could've been good just with Burt being crazy, you know? But it's like I can see the machinations of the writer of this movie's mind, like, How are we going to ~reveal~ Burt's lies?, and then shit just got outta control lol. The daddy fucking his son's wife and them trying to get his crazy ass to sign some paper so some land could be released to them deal was a total thumbs down for me. 

Also another thumbs down was Millicent basically being in an abusive relationship but the movie kind of glossing over that because Burt has a mental illness. How progressive but in like the wrongest way lol. IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN, Burt threw a goddamn typewriter on this bitch's typing hand!!!! AND ALSO DID HE NOT SLAP HER A BUNCH OF TIMES?!!?!?!?! Is this movie nuts?! HAS THIS MOVIE LOST ITS GODDAMN MIND?! Because lol!!!! Then we have Millicent showing up at the end AT THE GODDAMN LOONY BIN SHE HAD TO SEND HIM TO, TO FUCKING, LIKE, PATHETICALLY SAY GOODBYE TO HIM BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT HIS TREATMENT WOULD MAKE HIM NOT WANT TO BE WITH HER ANYMORE!! LIKE SHE WAS THE BAD SEED IN THEIR SHITTY ASS RELATIONSHIP LOL SMFFHFHFHFHFHFHFHFHFH

I hate this movie lowkey like it's honestly ugly. I just like hate...how they wrote for Joan's character. Why was she so thoroughly pathetic? Feeling like...almost like she didn't deserve Burt. Ha! She was ride or die for this crazy nigga, and I...sigh, I guess applaud Millicent for having her man's back or whatever while he going through a trying time, but the first time a nigga hit you, it's a wrap, yeah? Idc if he in some ~manic state~ or whatever you wanna call it, once their shit start spilling over and black-molding your ass, it's time to bounce. I'm not co-signing a gotdamn thing that happened...even before the slaps. The minute Vera showed up like lol anyway I'm his wife, it's a wrap, endgame. But golf clap for Millicent for being desperate and thirsty as fuck and the movie tryna make that seem noble. Like Millicent was out here looking like Elephant Man and should be grateful for her scraps. Bitch, Joan Crawford was on the board of Pepsi, and it wasn't her first time at the rodeo! Miss me!!  

But anyway, what's up with this movie being called Autumn Leaves? Was...was it supposed to be autumn in the movie? I couldn't tell because it just looked like a studio backlot. *Autumn Leaves by Nat King Cole gears up over my sarcasm*

Joan Crawford does blackface, or why Torch Song is probably my favorite terrible movie of all her terrible movies

Hmm. Well, first off, Torch Song is actually not that bad of a....picture. It's Joan's attempt to do Judy. And...it's not that horrendous. Which, nothing Joan Crawford does can ever be truly atrocious. (I haven't seen Trog yet so maybe I'm speaking too soon). She's a good actress, but even more, she's a star. Which is sort of a hilarious thing to be calling someone in this day and age - or any age, really. Because what the fuck is a star? It sounds really hokey and artificial and explains why people like the Hemsworth Bros get to do anything besides being the half-assedly charming Outback Steakhouse busboys they were born to be. I guess a star, a true star, is someone with presence. And, in the case of Joan, that means someone who can perform in this ridiculous film and still manage to produce something legitimately intriguing and entertaining. 

Joan is playing "Broadway musical star" Jenny Stewart. Let's first tackle the name Jenny Stewart. I mean, I guess. But I'm sort of annoyed they didn't GO THERE. They really should have given her some extra-ass moniker to go along with the extra-ass material of the script. Jenny fucking Stewart? Who is this bitch - Teresa Wright? Jenny is a BROADWAY MUSICAL STAR. Her name should be on some Patti LuPone esque bullshit. Or Ethel Merman or some shit. Wasn't Jenny Stewart the name of the most annoying fucking character on The L Word? That has nothing to do with anything. Also, the most annoying character on The L Word was definitely Max. Like, when he/she was pregnant with facial hair looking like fucking Barbie Joaquin Phoenix doing Brando Later Years - FUCKING STOP IT. Woah, way off track. Anyway, I didn't like the name JENNY STEWART for a Broadway star. They could have tried a little harder. And if they were trying to go for subtlety or nuance here - I don't fucking think so. They weren't. So, what happened? 

ANYWAY, Jenny fucking Stewart is a Broadway star and she's working on a new musical. And oh my fucking god she is a bitch. And it's cliche. Like, she's the star and she can talk to people however she wants, so. But also I feel like they're going for the extra double-helping cliche of a ~mature older woman~ needing the love of a man to sacrifice his wooden leg in the bear claw trap that is her old rusted vagina?? I don't know, but they definitely are trying to drive home the point, the entire film, that Jenny is lonely as fuck. NO MAN. Well, she has Gig Young. But he appears to be some sort of male escort. 

    (his dick fell off, I surmise)

And everyone knows they're not human. They're like one step below cats on the Eleanor Rigby scale. So, Joan - I mean, Jenny - is ALOOOOOOOOOOOOONE. But before we really get into those scenes of Jenny in her bedroom playing around with pencils on her nightstand because she has no love in her life, we see her at rehersal, rehearsing some fucking song. I must say that I really loved all the music in the movie. "Two-Faced Woman" is good, even though Joan is not actually singing and then when she performs the song in its entirety she's...she has some dirt on her face. Some smudge or some such. I also really love "Tenderly", by Rosemary Clooney. And how it's just played on a record and Joan is sitting there listening to it despondently thinking about her blind beau.

(stop)

Speaking of BLIND! So Joan is a pterodactyl to her piano player whose name I don't know or remember. He's a guy. Anyway, he quits. Michael Wilding, Blind-o, takes his place. Joan is p-o'd. She's all like WHERE IS THE OTHER GUY?! Which is super-random because she appeared to have a huge problem with that dude. Like, she doesn't even give Michael Wilding a chance, even before she finds out he can't see. So, she's all rude. Then she sees he has a seeing-eye dog and...is still rude???? But Michael--Tye Graham--plays well. Maybe too well. Something happens...like, he changes the arrangement a little in the song Joan is rehearsing. He slows it down a bit or something like that but Joan is one of those over-the-top perfectionist types who think their way is the only way. And no one ever really stands up to her, so she's been behaving like this for quite some time and has become positively monsteresque. Which is all to say, she totally spazzes on Tye. And it's so funny because not only is her behavior entirely unprofessional and ridiculous, but Tye is blind. It's so awkward and horrible to be screaming like some crazy harridan at a disabled person. I don't care what their crime is, which, here, is simply Tye playing a song slightly differently from how Jenny is used to???? Like, chill out, bro. GET LAID, LONELY WOMAN, THEN YOU WILL BE LESS LONELY AND CRAZY, AMIRITE???

So Broadway Star Jenny Stewart fires Ray Charles but white and English. And she asks her stage manager person guy - who I think is named Joe and who is super hot which has nothing to do with anything but I was really into his glasses and how, like, wanting to be dead all the time he seemed - if she's a horrible person for firing Helen Keller but a man and he can still hear? I don't remember what Joe says. Probably he just looks like I Need A Drink And A Noose, like he does the entire film. Probably he looks like that and then Joan surmises that yes, he believes she's a bad person, but also it doesn't really matter, because we all die in the end. Later, but like, right after this scene, I think Joan/Jenny runs into Tye Graham - who, by the way, has an appropriate STAR OF SOMETHING name, even though he is just a measly no eye-seeing piano player - at a restaurant. He says a bunch of shit that establishes he sees right through Joan's halloween mask, to the mushy rotting meat underneath. Apparently, when you lose your sight, your able to gain other special senses like being able to tell that someone is very obviously being a bitch to hide the pain and loneliness she feels inside. You need to be blind to be able to determine this, so at least some good things come from not being able to see. /sarcasm

So Tye gets his stupid job back. Wait, no, first I think Jenny goes to his apartment and is, like, surprised he has a nice place. Which, maybe she was thinking: HE'S JUST A LOWLY MUSICIAN HOW CAN HE AFFORD THIS?? But really it came off more like: BLIND AND NOT BEING WHEELED AROUND SOME RUN-DOWN URINE-SCENTED SANITARIUM? HOW WHAT WHY???? So, that's funny. When Joan/Jenny arrives Tye is ~jammin'~ with a bunch of his musician friends. EYEROLL. Can we talk about Tye Graham really quick? He's smug. Blind and smug. Look, I should feel bad for him the way Joan/Jenny is carrying on, but I don't. He's gross. And then later on it's revealed he's also maybe sort of a stalker?? Like, before he went to the war, before he was blinded, Tye saw Jenny in some low-rent off-Broadway show maybe? Some shit. But anyway, he wrote a review about it in the paper? And like fawns all over the Jenster. BUT, LOOK, SHE WAS A BIT PLAYER AND IT'S WEIRD. It's weird he wrote this super amorous review about essentially an extra in a musical, and then he goes off to war, gets blind, then years and years later turns up as her piano man. THIS IS ALL VERY STRANGE. And when Jenny finds out she doesn't immediately start thinking about Kathy Bates in Misery or anything. I'm sure there are better stalker fan things to compare this to that actually are like this. Maybe Devon Sawa in the video for Stan?? (no.) Idk, but that crazy bitch from Misery is like the ultimate #1 Fan. Runner-up def goes to Jessica Walter stalking the shit out of Clint Eastwood in Play Misty for Me. She was the #1 Fan of dat d. 

Ugh I'm all over the place. Like, how did I get from the mostly beginning to spoilers in ~the climax~?? Somewhere in this mess there's a girl ~friend~ of Tye's, who is very attractive and loves him but Tye can't return the love because he can't ~~~~see~~~~ this bitch. When Tye says this to her I thought he was referring to her ~soul~ or something. Because Tye says he can see Jenny. BUT, NO. APPARRENTLY TYE MEANS HE CAN ACTUALLY SEE JENNY BECAUSE HE'S SEEN HER BEFORE. I MEAN, HE CAN'T SEE HER NOW BECAUSE HE'S FUCKING BLIND. BUT HE REMEMBERS WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE AND SO HE LOVES HER????? THIS OLD IMAGE OF HER FROM YEARS AND YEARS AGO??? Tye and Jenny fucking deserve each other. 

Can we just talk about when Jenny goes to see her mom and her mom is like "man troubles?" and Jenny explains her man troubles by basically being like "he's blind". ??? And then Jenny's mom proceeds to tell a story about her...bald husband? HOW THE FUCK DOES BALDNESS EQUATE TO BLINDESS?? And then I have to feel bad about thinking either of these things are dealbreakers, as this movie clearly wants me to. And I can't tell if we're supposed to look at Jenny's vaguely shitty mom as being shallow and obtuse and then...Jenny is supposed to see she's being sort of like her mom and to stop being like that??? I do not fucking know, nor do I really even want to, but what I do know is that immediately following this Jenny starts listening to "Tenderly", a record of hers she supposedly sung with her not at all Rosemary Clooney's voice. And it's just so weird. Who listens to their own music, and, in like, a depressed manner? Kanye West only. This is way too corny, Jenny. Pull your fucking self together. 

I suppose she does this by going to get her--vomit--man. Tye is at his too nice for a blind person apartment playing ~~Jenny's song~~ on the piano and his female friend is sitting on the couch listening. Someone needs to get a fucking clue. Someone receives it in the form of Jenny turning up with that fucking viking helmet for a hairdo ready to beat a bitch into the ground if she don't come correct. We don't really get to see any of this. Jenny shows up, That Bitch immediately rises from the couch and disappears into some back room. Jenny follows her. We get to watch dumb and blind Tye just tinkering on the keys while some actually legitmatelty interesting shit is going on in some room off-screen. Likely the kitchen, as this is 1953, and these are ovary bearers. Anyway, Tye's friend emerges from probably the cocina, and leaves the apartment. Jenny wordlessly takes her spot on the couch. I think it's a yellow couch? And did I mention that all this is going on without Tye's knowledge? As if...he is deaf? Or devoid of all his other senses? I mean, yeah, he's engrossed in piano playing the entire time...and I guess his peripheal vision is sort of shot from total blindness, but...can't he sense...movement in the room? Because seriously when Jenny goes to light his cigarette or whatever he basically shits his pants. Like: WHERE IS THE OTHER ONE?? (He actually says Other One's name but I'm too lazy to look it up. She had blonde hair, so let's say her name was Urine). Anyway, this creepy/gross scene culminates in...I think an embrace. Some sort of violence happens first, I believe. I think maybe Tye protests or gets angry and falls. They definitely end up on the floor, in the least sexiest way. Like, the carpet in Tye's apartment is probably hypo-allergenic. And then maybe they joke about how Jenny can't cook?? Ha. The only way this ends is someone is pushed down the stairs in a wheelchair. Someone, at some point in this gross, sad union will end up in a wheelchair (Jenny from ~dance injuries~?) and then they will be pushed down a Tara-style staircase by the other partner (Tye). He blames his non-seeing eyes for the whoopsies. No jury will convict him. The end.

Oh, and there was blackface. It's weird how it's basically a footnote in this mess. I love how Joan doing blackface is basically completely crowded out by the ridiculous/amazing performance she does blackface in and then the subsequent wig rip-off sequence that follows it. Like, it's basically Joan had on maybe too much foundation while slaying the shit out of "Two-Faced Woman", then ripping off her fucking wig in a jealous rage OVER A FUCKING BLIND MAN.

I really love this movie omg

and this^ robe. It was everything. And how Jenny wore fucking heels to bed. Like, I know those were a thing ~back then~ but omfg why. 

Should I talk about Jenny's random black secretary person? Nope! Good night!!!!!!