Female on the Beach
| Female on the Beach | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Joseph Pevney |
| Produced by | Albert Zugsmith |
| Screenplay by |
Robert Hill Richard Alan Simmons |
| Based on | the play The Besieged Heart by Robert Hill |
| Starring |
Joan Crawford Jeff Chandler |
| Music by | Joseph Gershenson |
| Cinematography | Charles Lang |
| Edited by | Russell Schoengarth |
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Production
company |
Universal International
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| Distributed by | Universal International |
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Release date
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Running time
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97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Female on the Beach is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Joseph Pevney starring Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler in a story about a widow and her beach bum lover. The screenplay by Robert Hill and Richard Alan Simmons was based on the play The Besieged Heart by Robert Hill. The film was directed by Joseph Pevney and produced by Albert Zugsmith.
Lynn Markham (Crawford) visits a beach house that once belonged to her dead husband. There, she meets real estate agent Amy Rawlinson (Jan Sterling) and Drummond "Drummy" Hall (Chandler), an attractive beach bum who wanders in and out of the house as though he owned it.
Lynn learns the house was once rented to Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn), an older woman whose cause of death (suicide, accident, or murder) remains undetermined. Lynn later discovers "Drummy" is the accomplice of card sharps Osgood and Queenie Sorenson (Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer), and that he heartlessly pursued Crandall in order to set her up for card games with the Sorensons. Lynn's physical attraction to Drummy is overpowering and she marries him. Events on their honeymoon lead Lynn to believe he murdered Eloise. It transpires, however, that Amy Rawlinson killed Crandall because she wanted Drummy for herself.
The script was based on an unproduced play.
Film critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review, writing, "Their progress is rendered no more fetching by the inanities of a hackneyed script and the artificiality and pretentiousness of Miss Crawford's acting style. At the end, the guilty party is revealed in a ridiculous way. Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer are the supporting players you may remotely suspect."
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