Female on the Beach

Female on the Beach is a 1955 feature film starring Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler in a story about a widow and her beach bum lover. The screenplay by Robert Hill and Richard Alan Simmons was based on the play The Besieged Heart by Robert Hill. The film was directed by Joseph Pevney and produced by Albert Zugsmith.

Lynn learns the house was once rented to Eloise Crandall Judith Evelyn, an older woman whose cause of death suicide, accident, or murder remains undetermined. Lynn later discovers Drummy is the accomplice of card sharps Osgood and Queenie Sorenson Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer, and that he heartlessly pursued Crandall in order to set her up for card games with the Sorensons. Lynns physical attraction to Drummy is overpowering and she marries him. Events on their honeymoon lead Lynn to believe he murdered Eloise. It transpires, however, that Amy Rawlinson killed Crandall because she wanted Drummy for herself.Film critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review, writing, Their progress is rendered no more fetching by the inanities of a hackneyed script and the artificiality and pretentiousness of Miss Crawfords acting style. At the end, the guilty party is revealed in a ridiculous way. Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer are the supporting players you may remotely suspect. ........

Source: Wikipedia