A biography celebrating the acting career of Barbara Stanwyck is a very good thing. After all, she was a really great actress and dominated the theaters in the 1930s and 40s. And, the list of her great films is mighty impressive, such as "Meet John Doe", "Double Indemnity" and "Lady Eve". Unfortunately, while this Turner Classic Movies produced film is pretty good, it also is a bit sloppy. Too often, the film tried to make statements about her career but to make their point, the often showed films out of sequence or used examples from the wrong decade. The casual fan might not notice this, but insane film buffs (and I definitely count myself as one) will notice these inconsistencies. I really think instead of trying to lump her pictures into categories that represented her work from a particular period in her career, they should have just done everything sequentially--and not tried to create artificial categories. As for the narration, Sally Field was especially good for this sort of film--and seemed to have been touched by Stanwyck's work. Worth seeing.
Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire
(1991 TV Movie)
Good, but read the Goofs section to see why it wasn't better.
23 January 2013