After a career lull, 1945’s Mildred Pierce returned Joan Crawford to cinematic prominence. This trend continued via 1950’s The Damned Don’t Cry.

When authorities find the corpse of gangster Nick Prenta (Steve Cochran), this leads to an investigation of socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes (Crawford). This quickly reveals a mysterious past.

Lorna started out poor as Ethel Whitehead, and her first marriage to Roy (Richard Egan) ended badly. This sent her in search of fortune and an easy life, a quest that leads her to use men whenever possible to get what she wants.

The notion persists that Hollywood discards actresses in terms of “sexy” roles once they get too old. While that notion often holds true, Crawford’s career pointed in a different direction.

44 when she made Cry, Crawford seems miscast in terms of age. The role clearly needs a younger woman, as it implies Ethel starts out in her 20s.

Indeed, the script wanted Ethel to start out as a teenager! The screenplay got reworked to make her a bit older, but the film nonetheless still shows that she shouldn’t be more than 25 or so when we meet her.

Crawford barely passes for 40s here, so she seems far too old. While attractive, she also lacks the sexpot appeal the story wants.

For instance, Ethel gets a job as a clothes model who moonlights as an (implied) prostitute. Cry wants us to see Ethel as smoking hot, but it doesn’t make sense that men react as passionately as they do.

Indeed, I suspect the producers cast semi-homely Jacqueline deWit as a fellow model because she makes Crawford look better. Whatever the case, Crawford just doesn’t seem logical as a character who needs to be younger and sexier.

Despite these complaints, Crawford becomes the best thing about Cry, as her star power overcomes the drawbacks. We don’t really swallow her as a sexy babe who uses her looks to get ahead, but Crawford’s talents nonetheless carry the film.

The screenplay doesn’t flesh out Ethel well, and she makes a leap from innocent and unhappy yokel to sassy and cynical city woman too abruptly. Nonetheless, Crawford manages to make these shifts succeed, as even without the necessary exposition, the actor manages to give these changes a sense of believability.

In terms of plot, Cry follows a pretty standard route, so don’t expect anything novel there. That said, the tale still comes with spice and it moves at a pretty decent rate.

Again, Cry doesn’t evolve Ethel in an especially evocative or logical manner, but the tale’s movement means we don’t linger on such issues for too long. As a basic story of an eager social climber, it kicks along pretty well and remains reasonably compelling.

Crawford remains the primary attraction, though. She never really breaks a sweat, as this kind of role feels like part of her standard wheelhouse.

Nonetheless, Crawford gives a fairly “standard issue” film added depth and pizzazz. She may be too old for the character but she makes it work and helps turn Cry into a winning drama.

The Damned Don’t Cry appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.37:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Very few issues materialized in this satisfying transfer.

For the most part, sharpness seemed positive. I noticed slight softness in a few shots, as some elements appeared slightly ill-defined.

Unsurprisingly, most of these reflect soft focus to hide Joan Crawford’s age. Nonetheless, the majority of the flick was pretty tight and nicely delineated.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering marred the presentation. Edge haloes failed to appear, and the film came with a nice layer of grain.

Source flaws were totally absent. This became a clean image, and with natural grain, I saw no signs of egregious noise reduction.

Contrast succeeded, blacks were dark and firm, and shadows seemed fairly good. I felt pleased with this appealing image.

We got a perfectly adequate DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack for Cry. Like most films of the era, speech sounded somewhat thin, but the lines always remained easily intelligible, and they lacked edginess.

Effects were also a bit trebly and without much range, but they seemed fairly concise and didn’t suffer from significant distortion. The score fit in with the rest of the audio, as the music felt reasonably lively. This turned into a more than acceptable mix for a 73-year-old movie.

When we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from director Vincent Sherman. He provides a running, screen-specific look at… not much.

Oh, Sherman occasionally delivers notes about Joan Crawford or other production elements, but these moments remain rare. Most of the track either suffers from dead air or just features Sherman’s narration of the film.

That means we get a pretty useless commentary. You could fit the worthwhile information Sherman provides in a five-minute featurette – and probably have two minutes to spare.

From April 5, 1951, we find a Screen Director’s Playhouse radio version of Damned (59:14). Joan Crawford reprises her lead role and Frank Lovejoy takes on the David Brian part.

Inevitably, the radio production streamlines parts of the story. For instance, it almost entirely eliminates aspects of Ethel’s story before she becomes a clothing model.

However, the program also adds a few bits not in the movie and gives us some alterations. It becomes an interesting take on the story, and it’s good to get Crawford involved.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we conclude with a featurette called The Crawford Formula. It spans 13 minutes, 43 seconds and brings notes from Sherman and film historians Drew Casper, Glenn Erickson, Boze Hadleigh, Karen Swenson, and James Ursini.

“Formula” looks at story/characters and real-life inspirations, the “Warner Bros. style” of the era, and thoughts about Joan Crawford. “Formula” doesn’t deliver a lot of depth but it nonetheless comes with some useful notes.

Despite a fairly predictable tale of a woman who will stop at nothing to rise through the social and financial ranks, The Damned Don’t Cry works due to the star power of Joan Crawford. Though she seems too old for the role, her talent and charisma carry the day. The Blu-ray comes with solid visuals, appropriate audio and a mix of bonus materials. Cry turns into a good character tale.