This is an absolute hoot. It is one of the worst films I have ever seen. The joy of seeing this film, other than the unintentionally hilarious dramatic moments, is to get a clear picture of the type of world that director Todd Haynes envisioned in "Far From Heaven."<br /><br />Barbara Stanwyck, while possessing a hot figure for a 50 year old woman (at the time), was definitely pushing the borders with her looks. It is fascinating that studio heads were still giving her "leading roles" -- but then, once you hear the lines she had to say, you'll come to the conclusion that she must've owed somebody something, because this film is absolutely atrocious. My own poor mother, who's dying of cancer, had enough energy to say, "This one stinks!"<br /><br />Probably the most exciting thing about this movie is the big kiss between Barbara and Raymond Burr, both who were purported to be gay. It's just exciting to imagine them thinking, "Well, since we are getting paid for this, let's make it look good!" Poor Sterling Hayden is saddled with the worst lines, all of them sounding like they were written for a woman starring in a bad B-movie from the 1950s... which is oddly what this is.<br /><br />It is, I suppose, interesting to note that "Kathy" (Barbara's character, and the same name of the character that Julianne Moore played in "Far From Heaven") was not content to sit at home and bake pies. She was a rabble-rouser and was going to stir up trouble no matter what. In one hysterically funny scene, Kathy is a prisoner in her own home when her husband and "the guys" are playing cards on one side of the house, and their wives, "the girls" are gossiping on the other side of the house, going on and on and on and on about "cheese and olives." Kathy, rightfully so, rushes off to the bathroom saying, "I'm sick!" Ditto, girlfriend! <br /><br />Raymond Burr was a wonderful Perry Mason, but in this film he's deadly. But then, so is everybody else.<br /><br />It also seems strange that not a single couple (of course all "heterosexual") in this film has a child. Everyone is somewhere between 35-50 and no one has a child? I don't believe it.<br /><br />More fun can be had just by viewing a few vintage shots of Los Angeles in its '50s heyday.<br /><br />The script, as I mentioned before, is absolutely deadly, a laugh fest almost from start to end. Barbara desperately tries to rhythmically alter her lines to imbue them with deeper meaning, but when she's stuck with stupid, gushy conversation like, "Oh Bill darling!" it doesn't matter what she tries to do to dress this garbage up. It stinks.<br /><br />Again, it's a blast just to sit through and laugh at, and even if you get up 10 times to use the facilities or grab some cold pizza, you won't have missed a thing. An absolute must for dateless Fridays when you don't care about being fat and lonely.