Goodbye, My Fancy (1951)

Right off the bat I'll say I hated this movie. But it was refreshing to see Joan playing a part in her own age range instead of trying to pass for younger and more beautiful, as she had been doing for most of her parts since turning forty. This is a soft drama with a few comedic touches about a congresswoman (Joan) who returns to her college to receive an honorary degree. Actually, she really returns to see old beau Robert Young, now the president of the college. She's followed along by her annoying reporter ex that's in love with her.Crawford's performance is mixed. Most of the time she's solid but there are scenes where she acts like she's never been in a movie before. Particularly the more sentimental scenes. Young is good, even with the added gray to his hair and the mustache designed to make him appear older. Robert Lovejoy is terrible. His character type -- the guy who won't take no for an answer but if he just keeps pushing eventually the woman will give in -- is a gross one that unfortunately popped up often in older films. Modern day stalkers must watch movies like this and long for the old days when no meant yes. I couldn't stand this obnoxious a-hole. The saving grace of the film is Eve Arden. How many times has that been the case? If I made a list of great actresses who played supporting parts but should have been leading ladies, she would be number one. The only bad thing I'll say about her is this: Eve and Joan were apparently having a "worst hair" contest in this movie and Eve won. Anyway, this is a poor effort with few bright spots and a huge downer of a romantic plot.

A very good Joan Crawford 1951 vehicle. As a successful Congresswoman, she returns to receive an honorary degree from her Alma Mater. There she meets up with an old flame, her former professor, now the college president, a widower with a daughter in the school. They keep hidden the secret that she was expelled from the school years before, but left so as to avoid his embarrassment with the school.You would think this is a definite comedy when Frank Lovejoy enters the story as a Life camera man sent up to the school to photograph the issue. Appears that the Lovejoy character and Agatha (Crawford) had something going when they were war correspondents. This along with Crawford uniting with Eve Arden, her co-star in 1945's "Mildred Pierce." Wise-cracking as ever, Arden plays Crawford's secretary.The picture is a good one as it soon turns into one talking about academic freedom and the right to teach what one wants taught as opposed to the stuffy college administration, represented here by Howard St. John.There is definitely a relation here to the McCarthy witch hunt which was sweeping the nation at the time.

Goodbye My Fancy finds Joan Crawford taking over a role popularized by fellow film star Madeline Carroll on stage as a member of the House Of Representatives coming back to her former college to accept an honorary degree. She's invited by college president and former boyfriend Robert Young.There's a lot of history here and this is the only degree she'll have from the College Of New Hope for women located in rural New England. Back in the day apparently Crawford was a wild child, at least wild by those standards back then. She got into a compromising situation with Young and she took the fall by herself and got expelled for it. In the interim Young in addition to rising to the presidency of the college married a woman who died and has a daughter, Janice Rule, who is going to be one of the graduates at the ceremony Crawford gets her degree.Crawford went into journalism and then politics. She's combining the two at this point having produced a documentary about the current social problems of Europe and how Fascism by curtailing free speech contributed mightily to them. She's hoping to show the film while she's at the college. Her opponent in this endeavor is the chairman of the board Howard St. John who also happens to be now married to Crawford's former roommate Lurene Tuttle. He's got the part that actors like Eugene Palette and Charles Dingle normally were cast in, the arrogant, self righteous right wing blowhard who thinks he ought to be controlling the educational process. Not that he's against free speech mind you, but he feels that kids should not be exposed to this kind of serious work. He in fact donated the campus movie theater and he'd like for them to show entertainment that he approves of, such as his favorites Abbott&Costello.Young's dependent on St. John's good will for his job. But one who isn't and is also a rival for Crawford is Frank Lovejoy, a Time&Life war photographer who is covering this event. He'll expose Young's timidity if for no other reason than to shame him in front of Joan.Goodbye My Fancy was written by Fay Kanin and ran for 446 performances on Broadway during the 1948-49 season and was directed by Sam Wanamaker who also played the Frank Lovejoy part. The college president was played by another former movie name, Conrad Nagel. The play took home a Tony Award for Shirley Booth who played Crawford's Congressional aide and has some really funny Eve Arden type lines. When the film came out the Eve Arden part was played by Eve Arden.The play draws heavily on themes expressed in James Thurber's The Male Animal. If anything it's more serious here because whereas in The Male Animal, trustee Eugene Palette objected to the content in reading Nicolo Sacco's letter in class, St. John just objects to the idea of material that is mind challenging in the classroom in general. What does this imbecile think they're going to college for. In fact there's a minor role played by Morgan Farley as a physics professor who is intending to leave the college because of the limits he's being put under and Farley plays it well.Coming out as it did during the House Un-American Activities Committee days and after Joe McCarthy started finding Communists in all kinds of places, Goodbye My Fancy was quite the courageous project for Warner Brothers at the time. It's a timeless tribute to the value of free speech and the marketplace of ideas that a university is supposed to be.This is a film that I think needs a remake. Can you see some trustee on a university today throwing his weight around and maybe filling the campus cinema with reruns of Saturday Night Live in order that students not concentrate on serious issues?I think it could be done.

This was one of Crawford's last films under her Warner Brothers contract and was probably here first big box-office failure since her MGM days eight years earlier. The film is not too bad, but not as good as "Mildred Pierce," "Possessed" or "Flamingo Road." Crawford plays a congress woman who returns to her alma mater to receive an honorary degree, but finds romance with professor Robert Young.