In what is almost a stereotype of her mature public persona, Joan Crawford gives one of her most effective late-career performances in "Harriet Craig." With echoes of "Mommie Dearest" reverberating behind the role, Crawford inhabits Harriet, a woman who perceives marriage as a business deal and runs her home with the efficiency of an office. In Harriet's world, there is no room for clutter, disarray, warmth, comfort, or conviviality. Certainly wire coat hangers were verboten as well. Rooms are embalmed for the rare guest who invades her world. Flowers are an expression of uninvited intrusion into her sphere. Furniture is to be seen, but not used. Harriet is the ultimate control freak.<br /><br />For an unexplained and perhaps incomprehensible reason, poor Wendell Corey has married Harriet, and the couple lives in his ancestral home, which Harriet has evidently redecorated to eliminate any vestige of coziness. The household staff includes a matronly housekeeper, who has cared for Corey since his youth; a skittish, scatterbrained maid; and an unmarried, impoverished cousin of Harriet, who acts like an unpaid servant. Although Harriet bullies all three in both subtle and overt ways, the housekeeper manages to retain her self-respect, while the maid crumbles and the cousin surrenders. Corey, the hapless husband, also buckles under his wife's overbearing personality, until Harriet oversteps the line and tries to manipulate his career.<br /><br />While Corey and the cast, particularly Lucille Watson, perform ably under Vincent Sherman's direction, "Harriet Craig," which was based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play, is Crawford's show. The strong-willed Harriet, who tries to bend everyone and everything to achieve her own ends, is an unlikable character, and Crawford was brave to tackle such a role at that point in her career. Audiences certainly sympathize with her victims, and her ultimate fate would be unlikely to elicit a tear from anyone. Until the publication of "Mommie Dearest," Crawford's performance perhaps elicited more praise than now, when it can be perceived as a rare glimpse into the off-screen Crawford household.