Movies You May Want to Miss - TROG (1970)

Tuckers gave me some lovely housewarming gifts when I moved (and recently visited us here--so good to see him). One of the gifts was TROG, Joan Crawford's last film (1970). And it's a doozy. I'm sort of amazed it was put out on DVD at all, but there it is, another perplexing object to add to our universe.

Joan Crawford is completely out of her mind as "world-renowned anthropologist," Dr. Brockton. Clad entirely in Easter-egg pastels, she argues the case for studying TROG, a murderous half-man/half-ape Troglodyte, discovered in a cave in the English moors. It's hard for me to muster any admiration for Joan Crawford who was always such a phoney-baloney actress, albeit one with weird charisma. As mannered as she could possibly be, she did pull off a certain melodramatic charm very well in her prime (and again, in her come-back, Mildred Pierce). Just look at her:


Nice and, Yikes! That same creepy glamor infuses TROG, if you like over-the-hill alcoholic acting. I do. But I felt a little sorry for her too. It can't be good to be demented and an egomaniac.
I don't recommend that you watch this, but here are some stills that caught my attention. Even within the worst cinematic garbage, I find some nice compositions. It's always a shocking little pleasure. And now:






















TROG trailer - more entertaining than the movie.



Classic glamor shot of Joan Crawford courtesy of The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia.