Humoresque is a truly overwrought mid-century melodrama. It's so overwrought that it ends with a long sequence set to the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Crawford is glamorous and lovely and spends most of the film being very drunk. John Garfield, on the other hand, is relentlessly stern and sullen. He's completely unlikable from start to finish. Worse yet, the supporting players are no better. Oscar Levant keeps up a steady stream of unfunny jokes, and Ruth Nelson, who starts off as a sweet mother with a tear in her eye, turns into a sternly moral maker of misery. What does this movie think it's about? I couldn't tell you, honestly. Maybe its only function is to give a bunch of actors something to do. No thanks.
This was the last of the Joan Crawford movies I caught before they got kicked off the Criterion Channel. I think I'll be taking a bit of a break from Joan.
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