Because the performances by Crawford and Robertson were pitched so perfectly—because the hysterics were kept to a minimum and the menace neatly tuned—Autumn Leaves turned out better than it might have in other hands. Perhaps because Alfred Steele had recently dispersed the clouds of her own real-life loneliness, Joan knew how to portray a woman existing in a gray haze of solitude. Her transformation by love never seems incredible, her rapture is poignant and her heartache credibly rendered without exaggerated facial reactions. She was more than competently accompanied by Cliff
