Joan Crawford Dramatic Portrait with Axe

This dramatic black and white portrait features Joan Crawford armed with an axe for her role in "Strait-Jacket". Strait-Jacket is a 1964 American horror-thriller film starring Joan Crawford and Diane Baker in a macabre mother and daughter tale about a series of axe-murders. Released by Columbia Pictures, the film was directed and produced by William Castle and co-produced by Dona Holloway. The screenplay was the first of two written for Castle by Robert Bloch, the second being The Night Walker (1964). Strait-Jacket marks the first big-screen appearance of Lee Majors in the uncredited role of Crawford's husband. The film's plot makes use of the psychological abuse method known as gaslighting. Joan Crawford was an American film and television actress who began her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting as a chorus girl on Broadway. Crawford then signed a motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925; her career would span decades, studios and controversies. In 1999 The American Film Institute ranked Crawford tenth on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.