Jeanne Crain --an overlooked star?

I don't don't know why, but I have a certain weakness for State Fair 1945.
Gene Tiereny made such a strong impression in Leave Her to Heaven 1945, that I had totally forgotten she was in it.

Since her name usually was on the posters she must have had a star vallue that attracted audiences.

In The Fastest Gun Alive 1956 and The Joker is Wild 1957, the other actors had such dramatic and flashy roles, I had there too forgotten she was in them.



Though she was appropriately cast as Nerfertiti in Queen of the Nile 1961, an Italian made spectacle.

Hmmm...should I share this opinion or not? Well, you asked, so...

Jeanne Crain, along with her contemporary Eleanor Parker, would top my list among the most bland, colorless, by-the-numbers actresses to make names for themselves during the studio system years of the '40s-'50s. Given their longevity, there was obviously a market for "All-American Girls" more than pretty enough to grace the big screen but neither so intimidatingly beautiful or glamorous nor of outsized or unique personality that their acceptance might be limited in any way.

Capable enough and always adequate but in no way remarkable or possessed of a special spark that set her apart, she just left me pretty much cold. The one exception I'd make where Crain was concerned was a first season appearance on Burke's Law ("Who Killed the Eleventh Best Dressed Woman in the World," one of three she made on the show), a series in which every episode featured a collection of "guest suspects" and provided opportunities for familiar, maturing players to strut their stuff, throwing off restraints and having fun with the sorts of colorful, against-type characterizations their film roles didn't normally accord.      

That being the case, I'll allow that there may have been a much more interesting actress lurking under her surface that was never allowed to emerge during her heyday, and that's something I'd consider a shame and a loss.   

Dog, I would put Anne Baxter at an even lower level than Crain and Parker.
IMHO, she was more wooden than Howdy Doody!
I can't imagine how she became a star, much less won an Oscar.
But then, in the '40's, anyone who played a drunk was assured of at least an Oscar nod, if not the award itself.
Which may explain why Baxter, Ray Milland, and Van Heflin all won and Dan Dailey was nominated.

They used to show 'Dangerous Crossing' (1953) all the time.

Oh, no, you're not alone. But being completely honest, even Baxter doesn't bore me the way Crain and Parker do. Some players are watchable even when doing poor work. Ginger Rogers, for example: in the '30s, she exhibited fresh and creative spontaneity that stood out; in the '40s, her performances became mannered and cloying; by the '50s, she was doing some cringe-worthy work. Joan Crawford and Loretta Young followed similar trajectories, losing much of their early electricity and becoming grandly ossified. But they were always magnetic and watchable, even when over-the-top, trying too hard or not trying hard enough.

I realize my impressions are purely subjective, and enough ticket-buyers must have seen something in Crain and Parker to keep them on the screen for so long. It's just that whatever it was, it mostly escaped me.