Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire

Choosing film clips from someone's career is a very exacting task if you want to show the actress at their very best.

Unfortunately, although this has a nice narration by Sally Field and shows a good many Stanwyck clips, it concentrates too heavily on the melodramatic overwrought roles the actress specialized in for a long period of time from the late '30s to late '50s, with only a few clips showing her work as a comedienne.

I would have preferred a more generous sampling that showed the breadth of her talent. There are plenty of vintage Stanwyck clips here, but most of them have her screaming madly as the victim of abuse or dishing out plenty of physical punishment to the men who co-starred with her.

Interesting commentary, but the clips could have been better.