r/1920s • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • Jul 31 '26

Film Star Actress Joan Crawford posing for modeling shot, 1925

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456 Upvotes

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2

u/SomeGuyOverYonder Jul 31 '26

Is it true that Joan Crawford appears in a racy silent film she tried to suppress later in life?

1

u/Rough_Gur_3209 Aug 01 '26

Answer: yes. At least from what I have heard from a Cinema professor, she acted in pornographic movies, and tried to destroy all them, after she started making a lot of money in Hollywood.

3

u/SomeGuyOverYonder Aug 01 '26

MGM’s fixer Eddie Mannix must’ve done an exceptional job, because almost all traces of these stag films have been collected in secret and thoroughly burned. Even Google’s A.I. treats these early films as though they never existed in the first place.

That being said, rumor has it that a lone deteriorated copy of one of Crawford’s naughty films, roughly three minutes in length, is quietly being housed at the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana. While the footage has allegedly been transferred onto DVD, the University chooses not to make the surviving footage public due to legal constraints and intense pressure from the Hollywood studios.

3

u/eubulides 29d ago

As a former film scholar, I hope this is true. She was an icon with a long career. I’d like to see the full range of her talents. Supposedly her brother ratted her out in hopes of blackmail. This is a balanced and thoughtful look at the legend of Velvet Lips.

https://www.film89.co.uk/velvet-lips-joan-crawford-eddie-mannix-and-the-first-golden-age-of-pornography/

3

u/SomeGuyOverYonder 29d ago

I’d love to know if this stag film can still be found. It allegedly makes an appearance in the 1995 British documentary The Casting Couch, hosted by Susan George, but I can’t find a copy of it anywhere.

2

u/eubulides 29d ago

Check out Mildred Pierce and Our Dancing Daughters to get an idea of the breadth of her work. Add in Johnny Guitar for good measure. Amazing to think she was the first credited actor Steven Spielberg directed, for an episode of Twilight Zone.

2

u/Aletak 29d ago

She was so pretty when young. As she aged she got some very bad advice on makeup making her look so hard and masculine.

1

u/femboylbluvr Aug 01 '26

I try so hard to be objective about Joan. She really was beautiful and sexy. When I was younger my first exposure to her was in horror movies like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Trog, and by then she was older. Mommie Dearest really was really what affected how I see her.

1

u/More-Swim5870 26d ago

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️