JLRMovieReviews Here, in "Autumn Leaves," Joan Crawford is a writer who prefers her own company over having just anybody – unlike so many today. She has been burned. So, when Cliff Robertson asks to sit down at her table, (the only seat in a packed restaurant,) she replies, "I'd prefer it if you didn't." But he stands right beside her table, waiting for an available table. She meant for him to go away. She can't have him stand there. She couldn't enjoy her lunch. She gives in. They get to talking and they start to form a relationship, quickly. He's a jovial and nice-lookin' guy, but there's something not quite right there. It seems that everything he says can't be taken at face value. Despite the fact she hasn't been this happy in years, there's something wrong. He has mood swings, and she takes it all on her shoulders, taking care of him. Then Vera Miles and his father Lorne Greene show up, telling her that he should be in a "home." If you love someone, you take care of them, she says. You can't just throw them away. Then an unsavory truth comes out. All actors are excellent in their roles, especially Cliff Robertson, who gives an eerily and captivating off-balanced performance. The quiet moments of his desperation and depression are most convincing. "Autumn Leaves" is not your usual romantic movie. Maybe it's not trying to be. Can love cure? Can one's sanity be found through the thick fog of muddle? "Autumn Leaves" is for those who appreciate good performances in good movies and who know that love can be found in dark places.

Tad Pole In a movie deeply flawed by excessive psychobabble, not to mention letting the evil-doers get the "last laugh," Joan Crawford is convincing playing an aging cougar. She not only evokes Mary Todd Lincoln; she dresses like the former First Lady as well, especially with her omnipresent white gloves. As Millie, Joan plays MOMMIE DEAREST to husband Burt, portrayed by pre-PT-109 youngster Cliff Robertson. That is, when Burt doesn't pull his T-Rex role reversal by smashing professional typist Millie's fingers with her bulky work tool, or blackening her eyes with his short, little atrophied punches. At one point someone on the committee of screenwriters for AUTUMN LEAVES has Pops Cartwright (Lorne Green) hatching an elaborate scheme to wrest away son Burt's birthright maternal inheritance through long-term torture by incest with Burt's wife. But excruciating bouts of Electro-Shock Therapy (shown here with loving detail) inexplicably convince Burt to sign away his financial future without a fight. This leaves Papa Hanson with BOTH Burt's high school sweetie\wife AND the late Mama Hanson's fortune. The idea that Joan Crawford could make suddenly penniless\prospect-lacking Burt forget about the charms of his Virginia (Vera Miles) is preposterous enough to prompt a barrage of wire hangers at the screen!

Naught Moses She's the typical co-dependent, stand-by-your-man, til-death-do-us-part product of the in-doctrine-ations of the adjust-til-it-kills-you, (supposedly) Greatest Generation. He's (ostensibly) the product of a narcissistic (and crazy-making) father and the equally narcissistic -- and father-resembling -- woman he married in late adolescence. The drama is mid-century pulp fiction, and, of course, (delusionally) hopeful. (Hey! She's getting her @$$ kicked, seemingly forgetting it, and coming back for more.) (But... "Love cures all!") (Please.)High-voltage / high-amperage / long-duration electroconvulsive and/or coma-inducing insulin therapy had =no= such effect upon psychotic patients of the heroic sort depicted here. Patients treated thus tended to emerge with wholesale memory loss and not know their own parents or spouses for months, years, or... forever. But they =were= easier to manage. Was he looking for a "good enough mother" in Joanie's character? Maybe so. One thing's for sure, though: Joanie at =50= was downright =amazing= looking. (I know. "The best that money can buy" and all that, but even so...) she was looking pretty good. (Ditch those eyebrows, though, Joan. Ya looked so much better in "The Women.")

edwagreen Getting older and lonely, Joan Crawford falls victim to the charm of Cliff Robertson in this terrific 1956 film. After their marriage, it becomes evident that the Oedipus complex is in full bloom. Robertson needed a mother-like image to try and soothe a terrible trauma he had discovered earlier.Robertson starts off talking as if he came from a chicken farm in Arkansas. Does he ever develop as the movie moves forward and gives a compelling performance as a psychotic man victimized by his father and former wife, both played well by Lorne (Bonanza) Greene and Vera Miles, respectively.With his mental illness blooming in full, there is no other alternative but to institutionalize him. Shepard Strudwick, the psychiatrist, warns Millie, yes Crawford's a Mildred again, that in being cured he may no longer psychologically need her.Truly a wonderful film with memorable performances by all. Veteran pro Ruth Donnelly, who was so funny in the films of 1930s, comes across as a sympathetic, wise landlady.