448 Queen Bee

[MichaelB]

QUEEN BEE
(Ranald MacDougall, 1955)
Release date: 17 February 2025
Limited Edition Blu-ray (World premiere)

Pre-order here

Joan Crawford (Berserk) and Barry Sullivan (Framed) lead the cast of the atmospheric melodrama Queen Bee.

Domineering socialite Eva (Crawford) and her alcoholic husband Avery (Sullivan) are trapped in a hostile and loveless marriage. When Eva’s cousin Jennifer (Lucy Marlow, A Star Is Born) comes to stay, she is sucked into a dangerous whirlwind of lies and vengeance...

Reuniting Crawford with Mildred Pierce screenwriter Ranald MacDougall, and featuring cinematography by the great Charles Lang (The Shepherd of the Hills), Queen Bee is a riveting slice of Southern Gothic.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• High Definition remaster
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with film critic David Jenkins (2025)
• Lies Lanckman on ‘Queen Bee’ (2025): the academic and film historian discusses the making of the film and its place within Joan Crawford’s career
• Nathalie Morris on Jean Louis (2025): the film historian and curator explores the career of iconic Hollywood costume designer with a special focus on his work at Columbia Pictures from 1944 to 1960
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image galleries: French photonovel; and promotional and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with new essay by Imogen Sara Smith, a making of piece focusing on Crawford, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies for the UK
• All features subject to change

#PHILE448B
BBFC cert: PG
REGION B
EAN: 5060697924831

[Altair]

This has a great cover for a film I've never heard of - anyone have thoughts on it?

[Aunt Peg]

This has a great cover for a film I've never heard of - anyone have thoughts on it?

Trashy fun with a little camp. Joan gets to deliver her greatest screen slap ever.

I'll be upgrading from the DVD release to this.

[domino harvey]

Finally unsealed my Joan Crawford in the 50s DVD TCM box set (remember those?!) to watch this and it's an exceptionally well-lit film. Beyond that feint praise, this is just a decidedly less than clever riff on the Little Foxes coated in the fashionable miserableness of "adult" entertainment from this period. Unpleasantness that exists solely for an audience to be goaded into cheering on Crawford's imminent petard-hoisting sounds more fun in theory than it plays out here, and there's never a moment that anyone could buy these manipulations as anything but the meager prizes of a schematic claw machine that the script keeps feeding quarters into.

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

[MichaelB]

Queen Beever.

[The Curious Sofa]

I have never seen Queen Bee, but always have been massively intrigued by Crawford's hairdo in this.

[domino harvey]

Queen Beever.

Huge spoiler in those screen caps, for those planning to watch this