Joan Crawford

A scheming circus owner finds her authority challenged when a vicious killer targets the show. Monica Rivers is the owner and ringmaster of a traveling circus, and she'll stop at nothing to draw bigger audiences. When a series of mysterious murders occurs and some of her performers die gruesomely, her profits soar. She hires high-wire walker Frank Hawkins, impressed by the handsome and muscular young man. They begin an affair which arouses her previous lover Durando's jealousy. When Durando is found dead shortly afterward, the other performers become alarmed, as a mysterious killer is obviously loose in their midst. Many suspect Monica herself of the killings, especially Matilda, who has set her sights on Monica's new lover. At this point, Monica's unruly 16-year-old daughter Angela is expelled from school for being incorrigible, and Monica is forced to take her into the circus, allowing her to become the partner of knife-thrower Gustavo. Meanwhile, the dead bodies continue to pile up.

Various flashbacks and images introduce Lucy Harbin [Joan Crawford], a young woman who comes home unexpectedly to find her husband in bed with another woman. Carol, their very young daughter, is in bed right in the next room, but she is awake. Heartbroken, Lucy suffers a moment of fury and confusion that leads her to spontaneously pick up a nearby axe and decapitate her husband and his lover while they sleep. Carol watches in terror and shock as Lucy hacks the two bodies to pieces. Lucy is declared insane and sent to an asylum, where she endures traumatic shock treatments for her mental breakdown. The narrator of the flashback is revealed to be Carol, now a young woman. It is twenty years later, and Carol is opening up about her past to her boyfriend, Michael Fields. After Lucy's incarceration, Carol was taken in by her aunt and uncle, Bill and Emily, and the family lives on a farm in a rural location. Carol is revealing the family history to Michael because Lucy is being released from the asylum, and is coming to live with the family. When Lucy arrives, she is skittish. She cautiously acclimates to the farm, exploring the area with Carol and meeting the gritty-looking farm hand, Krause. But she is clearly thrilled to see Carol again, and is touched by the lovely young woman Carol has become. Carol is a sculptress and has a spacious studio filled with her work, and she thrills Lucy by giving her a bust of herself just as she was in her youth. Things quickly start to get strange. Carol shocks Lucy by presenting her with two bracelets she used to wear when she was a young woman, large dangling charm bracelets that jangle when she walks. Carol seems intent on recreating Lucy as a young woman, taking her clothes shopping and buying her a wig that mimics the hairstyle she wore the last time Carol saw her. Lucy is uncomfortable with this, but agrees to dress this way to please her daughter, whom she desperately wants to make amends with. While they are in the wig shop, Lucy hears strange voices, as if children are singing a morbid nursery rhyme about her crimes. She dismisses it as nerves. Later, she suffers a terrible nightmare and wakes up to discover two bloody heads in bed with her, with a bloody axe lying nearby. When she wakes the others, the items are gone from her room. Lucy starts to think she is relapsing. Things get worse when Carol attempts to introduce Michael to her mother. When Michael stops by for drinks, Lucy seems to try and seduce him, all with Carol right there in the room. The embarassing scene is interrupted by Lucy's former psychiatrist, Dr. Anderson, who makes an unexpected visit. When he sees how unstable Lucy seems, Dr. Anderson makes comments to the family that suggest he would like to take Lucy back to the hospital. When the doctor gets Lucy alone, his comments upset her and she runs off. As Dr. Anderson searches for her around the farm, he enters the darkened barn and a shadowy figure corners him--it appears to be Lucy, the silhouette revealing her hairstyle and figure, right down to the jangling bracelets she wears. The figure is holding an axe, and quickly decapitates Dr. Anderson. Carol returns to the farmhouse to find her mother alone in the darkened living room. The doctor's car is still outside, and Carol quickly comes to the conclusion that her mother has killed him. In a panic, Carol drives the doctor's car into a barn and locks it in, but she is spotted by Krause, who is lurking the shadows. The next day, Carol sees Krause painting the car a different color and angrily confronts him, but he smugly suggests that he knows what happened to the doctor, and that he'll turn Lucy in to the authorities if Carol fires him. Lucy overhears the conversation from the window. Later that evening, Krause is stalked and murdered with the axe. Lucy prepares for an evening that she dreads, a dinner party intended to introduce her to Michael's parents. If Michael and Carol are to be married, these will be their in-laws, and Michael's family is very wealthy, his father being the proprietor of a very successful dairy farm. Lucy has a panic attack in the powder room while at the Fields'--after spilling coffee on her dress, she retreats to the washroom and suffers a flashback because of the wallpaper, which resembles the bars of a prison cell. Carol calms her down and takes her back to the party. Mr. & Mrs. Fields are cordial until they plot to get Lucy alone so they can have a private conversation with her: Mrs. Fields is suspicious of Lucy, and poor Lucy makes a terrible misstep by revealing to Mr. & Mrs. Fields that her daughter and Michael are planning to be married. The Fields had not been informed of this yet, and they react disapprovingly. Mrs. Fields in particular gets very haughty with Lucy, making suggestions about her past, and Lucy suddenly snaps at her, revealing that she was in an asylum for twenty years. She says that under no circumstances will she allow the Fields' to interfere with her daughter's happiness, and she storms out of the house. Michael drives Emily and Carol back to their house while he and Bill go out looking for Lucy, who has disappeared. Emily sends Carol to bed, but Carol is restless and cannot sleep. With Michael gone from the Fields' house, Mr. and Mrs. Fields are alone in their house and they hear sounds to suggest someone is prowling around. Mr. Fields is oblivious, but when he goes into his closet to get undressed for the evening, he is attacked by the figure of Lucy, brandishing an axe. Mrs. Fields becomes suspicious and goes looking for her husband, eventually finding his body in the dressing room. Horrified, she retreats, only to be confronted by the figure of Lucy in the bedroom. Before the axe can fall, the bedroom door opens and the real Lucy comes in; after scuffling with the other figure, Lucy tears off a mask to reveal her daughter's face underneath. Carol has been committing the murders while dressing as her mother; scarred by witnessing the double homicide committed by her mother, Carol's mind was unstable ever since. Certain that Mr. and Mrs. Fields would never allow Michael to marry her without a great deal of trouble, she plotted to make it appear as if Lucy murdered them in a rage, which would send Lucy back to the asylum and allow her to marry Michael. Her mind shattered, Carol clutches the mask of her mother and screams at it "I hate you! I hate you! Oh I'm sorry, I love you! I hate you! I love you!" Outside on the porch, Lucy hears her daughter's insane ravings and weeps, perhaps remembering her own moment of insanity. An epilogue reveals Lucy discussing her plans with Bill. With Carol now committed to an asylum just as she once was, Lucy intends to stand by her daughter and be whatever kind of support that she needs.

In 1917, nine-year-old "Baby" Jane Hudson (Julie Allred) is a vaudevillian child star. She performs to adoring crowds and inspires the creation of a rather expensive Baby Jane doll. Jane is shown to have become a spoiled brat whose doting stage-father Ray Hudson (Dave Willock) gives in to her whims and demands while her disapproving mother and jealous, overlooked 11-year-old sister Blanche Hudson (Gina Gillespie) watch from the sidelines. By 1935, the now grown sisters' roles have reversed. Both are movie stars, but Blanche is the successful and glamorous one, while Jane's films have flopped. Unable to establish her talent as an adult actress, Jane has taken to drinking. One night after coming home from a party, their car pulls up the driveway to their mansion and one of the sisters steps out to open the gate. When she reaches the gate, the sister who is driving steps on the accelerator, smashing the car into the gate. In 1962, a wheelchair bound Blanche (Joan Crawford) and a severely aged Jane (Bette Davis) are living together in a creepy mansion in Los Angeles. Blanche lives primarily in her bedroom watching her old movies on television and reliving her former career. Jane is an antagonist who fights with her sister constantly, drinks excessively, and wears caked-on makeup in an effort to appear young again. Blanche is heavily dependent on her bitter, abusive sister, except for her friendly relationship with their cleaning woman, Elvira Stitt (Maidie Norman). Elvira is concerned for Blanches well-being at the hands of "crazy" Jane, but Blanche defends her. Elvira tells Blanche that she has discovered her sister has been opening her mail and dumping it in the trash, but Blanche is slow to condemn her and shows concern for her sister's welfare. In her own world, Jane is reliving her childhood success in a dark, disturbing manner. She is lost in her memories when she sees her reflection in the mirror and is horrified. At that moment Blanche calls for her sister with an annoying, repeated use of a bedside buzzer from her room: She wants to know why she cannot call out on the telephone was it left off the hook downstairs? Jane is annoyed when Blanche informs her she may be selling the house. Jane fights with her sister, fearing what will become of her, and rips the telephone cord from the wall, further isolating Blanche in her room. When Jane brings Blanche's lunch afterwards, Blanche finds under the silver serving dish lies her beloved parakeet, dead on a bed of tomato slices. Jane makes herself up to go out and place an advertisement for a piano player so she can restart her performing career. While she is out, Blanche tries to get the attention of her neighbor, Mrs. Bates (Anna Lee), who is tending her flowers below Blanche's window. When Blanche cannot get her attention, she writes a note pleading for help and throws it from her window. Unfortunately, Jane returns at that moment and the distraction of the car coming up the driveway prevents Mrs. Bates from seeing the crumpled paper. Jane finds the note, however, and when she brings Blanche's dinner up, she argues with her sister again, telling her the house is hers and it will never be sold. Jane mocks her sister's kindly concern and drops the folded note in her lap. Jane leaves the room, and when Blanche goes to her serving tray for dinner, she cannot bring herself to touch it. The next morning when Elvira arrives, Jane tells her she can have the day off. Jane's abuse of Blanche continues and they fight again when she brings Blanche her lunch. Blanche has not touched her dinner from the night before and wants to know why her breakfast had not been brought. Jane responds because she had not eaten her dinner and Jane tauntingly eats from the previous night's plate. As she takes the dinner tray away, she tells her sister they have rats in the basement, and when Blanche goes to eat her lunch, she finds a dead rat on the plate. Blanche screams and Jane laughs evilly at her sister's despair. Meanwhile, a talented, down-and-out, overweight young man named Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) sees Jane's newspaper advertisement and phones the Hudson house to make an appointment for that afternoon. Edwin lives with his mother and hopes to use this opportunity to land some cash for himself and his mother. When Edwin shows up at the house, Jane grotesquely performs her signature song from her childhood, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy," with Edwin playing the piano. Edwin tries to conceal his disgust. Jane brags about who she was as a child and shows him a scrapbook of herself. At this time, Blanche uses her buzzer repeatedly to call her sister, wanting to know who the visitor is. Enraged, Jane goes upstairs, confronts Blanche, and rips the buzzer out of the wall and slaps her sister. Back in the living room, Jane and Edwin agree to his salary and they plot their moves. Jane then drives him home. While shes out, Blanche goes into Jane's room looking for food (by now, she hasn't eaten in a couple of days) and discovers that Jane has practiced forging her signature and is writing checks under Blanche's name. She works her way down the stairs to the telephone. Blanche calls Jane's doctor and tells him that she needs help and asks if he could come to the house right away. Jane comes home to find Blanche on the phone, talking to the doctor. Blanche abruptly ends the conversation and tries to make excuses in front of her enraged sister. Jane beats her as she lies on the floor, kicking her in the head and stomach until she is unconscious. Jane then calls the doctor back and, disguising her voice as Blanche, tells him not to come because "Jane found another doctor". Then Jane drags her sister to her room, ties her by her arms, gags her, and leaves her there. The next day, Elvira arrives to see Blanche. Jane tells her that her services are no longer needed and dismisses her. Suspicious, Elvira sneaks into the house when Jane leaves for the bank to get money to pay Edwin. She finds Blanche's room locked and is attempting to remove the door from the hinges when Jane comes home and catches her. Upon Elvira's demands, Jane gives her the key, and as the maid enters the darkened room to find Blanche bound and gagged, Jane uses a hammer to kill Elvira. Jane sinks deeper into her delusions, saying, "If only they had loved me enough." Edwin rings the doorbell, but Jane does not answer, "Not now Edwin, not now," and when he leaves, she sobs in despair. She drags Elvira's dead body from the house and disposes of it by dropping it some distance away in a garbage bin. One week later, the police phone the Hudson house and tell Jane that a cousin of her maid reported her missing. Jane tells them that she hasn't seen Elvira in a week. A panicked Jane then prepares to leave with her sister, fearing the police will discover what she's done. Suddenly, a drunken Edwin shows up at the house, demanding to receive his first payment. While he is there, a weakened Blanche is able to knock over a bedside table in her room. Edwin hears the noise, goes upstairs to investigate, and finds Blanche tied to her bed. He is shocked at her "dying" condition as she begs for his help. Edwin runs from the house and gets away from Jane. Desperate, Jane puts her sister in the car and drives to the beach. The next morning, the search is on for the missing Hudson sisters. Elvira's body was found by the police, and there are bulletins on the radio. Blanche, starved and dehydrated, is lying on the sand with Jane sitting beside her, oblivious to her plight. Aware that she is dying, Blanche tells Jane the truth of what happened years before. It was she, Blanche, who tried to run over her drunken sister. Jane, however, moved out of the way in time and Blanche had slammed into the gate and snapped her spine, but managed to drag herself out of the car and up to the wrecked gate. Because Jane was too drunk to realize what happened, she has long believed that she was responsible for her sisters condition. Jane sadly asks, "You mean all this time we could have been friends?" However, this revelation comes too little too late for Jane, whose mental health has completely deteriorated by this point. Jane runs to a beach-side concession booth to get ice cream cones for the two of them. Two policemen arrive and intercept Jane as she is returning with the ice cream cones. As a crowd of beach-goers begin surrounding her, Jane realizes that she again has the attention she's long craved, and she dances before the onlookers, joyfully happy at last, in her decayed imagination. The police spot a motionless Blanche lying on the sand and break through the crowd to help her as the deranged Jane continues to dance. THE END

A corrupt small town sheriff manipulates local candidates to the state legislature but he eventually comes into conflict with a visiting carnival dancer. Carnival dancer Lane Bellamy finds herself stranded in a southern town ruled by corrupt political boss Titus Semple. Lane becomes romantically involved with sheriff Fielding Carlisle, a weakling whose career is being driven by Titus. Seeing Lane as a liability to his own political ambitions, Titus mounts a campaign to get her driven out of town. She finds she can't get a job and even gets arrested on a trumped-up morals charge. Released from jail, Lane finds work as a "hostess" at Lutie-Mae's road house, where she meets Dan Reynolds, another member of the town's political machine. They marry and move to a home on Flamingo Road, the town's social pinnacle. Their marriage is soon marked by scandal when a drunken Carlisle visits Lane at home one evening and shoots himself. —Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com> In Boldon, the corrupt Sheriff Titus Semple rules the town and elects whoever he wants with the support of the powerful group led by the constructor Dan Reynolds. Now he wants to elect his deputy Fielding Carlisle, who is the son of a former judge, to the Senate. When a carnival is forced to leave Boldon, the dancer Lane Bellamy has no place to go and stays in a tent. Titus sends Fielding to the carnival and he helps Lane to find a job as waitress in a diner and a place to stay. They have a romantic relationship, but Titus sees Lane as a liability to the political career of his protégé. So he forces her boss to fire Lane; he does not let Lane get a job; and he frames Lane to send her to prison. When she is released, she finds a job working for Lute Mae Sanders in her roadhouse. She meets Dan and soon they get married and move to the fancy Flamingo Road. But the ambitious Titus has different political plans from Dan and his group and wants to elect Fielding as Governor. Dan refuses the request and Titus uses blackmail to force Dan and his group to support Fielding. Dan does not accept and Titus decides to destroy Dan and Lane. Will he succeed? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Lane Bellamy works in a carnival and finds herself in the smallish town of Boldon. She gets a job as a waitress and starts a relationship with the Deputy Sherriff Carlisle Fielding. Unfortunately, Sherriff Titus Semple has great political ambitions for Fielding and him seeing a waitress would hinder those aims so he has Bellamy fired, arrested and thrown in jail. However, Ms Bellamy isn't one to go quietly or avoid a fight. —grantss

Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure. Verne (Clark Gable) wants nothing more than to escape from a penal colony located off the northern coast of South America. He tries to involve Julie (Joan Crawford), a saloon girl, in his plans but she turns him in to the authorities. On Verne's next try, he piggybacks on the escape of six other convicts and runs into Julie again in the process. One of the convicts is a spiritual figure (Ian Hunter) who seems to know what will happen before anyone else. The group attempts to travel through the jungle, board a boat, and make it to the mainland. —JeanneArmintrout@juno.com

When Mary's fiance elopes with another woman, her friend Jeff seizes his chance with the jilted bride. Her ex returns, forcing a choice between the men. Dill leaves Mary standing at the altar in order to marry his old flame, Connie, instead. Knowing that Mary still has feelings for Dill, Jeff keeps quiet about his own love for her. —Diana Hamilton <hamilton@gl.umbc.edu>

A Salvation Army worker recruits a suicidal cafe dancer. Cafe entertainer Ivy Stevens falls for sleazy salesman Howard Palmer and jumps from a bridge when he dumps her. Saved by Salvation Army officer Carl, Ivy reforms and joins the Army. When she runs into Palmer she falls for him all over again. Carl beats up Palmer and gives a speech to Ivy which induces her to return to the Army and to Carl.