Joan Crawford Blogathon – The Story of Esther Costello (1957)

This is the second of three posts dedicated to the Joan Crawford Blogathon being hosted by Crystal over at In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. Tnx for letting me take part Crystal!

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“You did a wonderful job…does she know I’m sitting here?” – Harry

Number of Times Seen – 1 (26 Jul 2016)

Brief Synopsis – A teacher meets a blind, deaf and dumb orphan girl in Ireland and brings her to America in order to teach her how to understand the world around her.

My Take on it – When I heard that Crystal was doing a Blogathon dedicated to Joan Crawford, I wasn’t really sure which movies to choose to review since as far as I could recall, I’d never seen any of her films and also had no clue as to which would be good and which would be a waste of time, so I just went with my gut based mostly on titles that hadn’t been chosen yet.

I had no clue what this one was about until it began to unfold before me and I quickly seemed to realize how similar the basic idea was to the story of Helen Keller.

They actually touch upon some pretty controversial and interesting themes, but unfortunately they don’t expand on them enough and the film feels a bit lacking due to this.

Although Joan Crawford gets top billing here, her character and everyone else for that matter are outshone by Heather Sears who plays the young girl.

This is great because we quickly care more for the girl because of Sears’ charismatic style.

Bottom Line – Feels too much like a fictional copy of the story of Helen Keller. The young girl played by Heather Sears completely outshines every one else here (even star Crawford) and we care much more for her well-being because of it. Some of the themes touched upon here are pretty good but the fact that they are only touched upon and not explored enough makes this film feel lacking a bit.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Joan Crawford, then on the Pepsi-Cola board of directors, demanded that product placement shots be included in all her films of this era. Look for it here prominently displayed in signs in an airport lobby. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)