Meine liebe Rabenmutter

I saw this movie the first night it opened in Las Vegas in 1981. The large theater was packed, SRO. What may come as a surprise today, the film was received seriously by the audience, who sat transfixed throughout. I don't recall inappropriate laughter (well, maybe a muted laugh or two when little Christina muttered "Jesus Christ" at the end of the wire hanger scene), and I remember hearing favorable comments from people around me, although many were horrified by the depictions of child abuse.

Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to the high expectations at the box office. After all, it was based on a best-selling book that sold 4 million copies.

A few weeks later, Mommie Dearest was re-released and was being advertised as a campfest in the vein of Rocky Horror, and patrons were urged to bring wire hangers to the theater. The studio turned against its own movie in order to milk more money out of it. That's a shame, because Faye Dunaway gave the performance of her life and deserved an Academy Award nomination, if not the award.

Mommie Dearest is a film based on the book of the same title written by Joan Crawford's daughter, Christina Crawford. This film and the book it is based off of tells the story of how Joan Crawford behaved behind closed doors with her children, how she abused them, had crazy/wild outbursts, which sometimes turned violent. In my honest opinion, mommie dearest is very well acted, Faye Dunaway blew me away in her brutally honest portrayal of Hollywood legend Joan Crawford. In the beginning, we are introduced to ms Crawford as a young actress, at the height of her career, working at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, no children, and two divorces. She applies to an adoption agency, but her application is denied, so she goes through some loopholes, pulls some strings, and adopts her daughter, Christina, and then her son Christopher. Throughout the film Joan is depicted by Dunaway as a self obsessed, selfish, child abusing alcoholic that never really gives her love to her children. In many scenes, a teenage Chrisrina tries desperately to gain her mothers love, but she never really receives it. The chemistry between Joan and Christina is good here and the acting is very dramatic and very intense, as it should be. I don't exactly understand some of the negative reviews this movie has received both when it first came out and over the years. I think mommie dearest is a well made and well acted film telling the very sad true story of actress Joan Crawford and her private life and strained relationships with her children with with whom she woefully mistreated. 8/10 for mommie dearest.

Oh Lord, Here it comes..... This is the big one. Never before has there been (and probably never will there be again) a camp monstrosity as huge as this. An over-the-top "true story" about Christina Crawford being adopted, raised and tormented by the legendary film star Joan Crawford, the film is an amazing exercise in excess. Virtually every line in the film is a quotable hoot (and legions of people can almost recite the script!) It is an overabundance of comedic riches. It's almost impossible to pick a favorite scene. First, though it is likely that certain aspects of this film have a seed of truth, there is no way that this is an authentic film biography.......NO WAY. So, while a few incidents are loosely derived from fact, most of it is guilt-free hilarity. Christina's book was striking, but contained nothing as wild and vicious as this film presents. And it's entirely probable that some of Christina's memories were exaggerated by childhood perspective (although there's no denying that her mother was an obsessive, neurotic, steamroller of a woman.) Even Tina explained, in her book, certain aspects of the bad behavior which shed some light on Joan's actions. None of that is presented here. For example, the infamous rare meat scene...the film doesn't disclose that Joan paid high black market prices for the beef (during wartime rationing) and was appalled that Tina turned her nose up at it and wasted it. Also, the violent night raid scene is actually a compilation of two different occasions, etc.... The film tries to maximize and sensationalize everything and over-do everything to the point where it turns comic. Dunaway (who has, herself, described her mesmerizing and ferocious performance as "Kabuki") is beyond fascinating to watch. She imbues the role with an intense, stunning magnetism which blows everyone else off the screen. It's amazing that the sets were left intact! Despite an explosive, unforgettable performance, Faye actually looks almost nothing like the real Joan Crawford. Her eyes are not nearly large enough and nothing is done to make them appear so, her eyebrows are ridiculous, her chest is not as pronounced as Joan made hers and her hair is almost never the way the real Joan wore it! And both women have HIGHLY unique voices, but which are not alike at all. Still, she radiates all the necessary star quality for the role. Anne Bancroft would have LOOKED the part more, but who knows what the film would have been like? Better? Duller? It certainly could not have been wilder! Highlights of the Faye Dunaway circus act include: the legendary cold cream-faced night raid with the iconic screech, "No Wire Hangers!", her tirade with the scissors when she catches Tina mocking her, her showdown with the boarding school principal, the resultant wrestling match with Tina back home and the magnificent face-off with the Pepsi Board of Directors. It would be impossible to list the many quotes which make this film required viewing (only the surface has been scratched in the Memorable Quotes section.) "I fought worse monsters than you for years in Hollywood. I know how to win the hard way" immediately followed by "Don't F*CK with me fellas!! This ain't my first time at the rodeo", isn't a bad start. Too hilarious! Young Hobel really holds her own as Tina and though Scarwid is less successful as grown Tina, she still gets in a few good licks. In any case, the film has provided untold hours of enjoyment and allowed for some instant bonding whenever people start spouting off the hilarious lines. WHEN is someone going to adapt this into a stage show?!

It seems almost pointless for me to add any comments here, since everyone else who's posted has done such a great job of summarizing this film's merits, but I can't resist. How do you rate a movie like this? On the one hand, it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen: completely lacking in coherence, shameful acting, writing so bad it seems to be making fun of itself. In fact, I'm still not convinced this movie isn't supposed to be a parody of Christina Crawford's book rather than a serious attempt to adapt it to the screen. On the other hand, it's such a rip-roarin' good time of a show that I'm tempted to give it 10 stars on the strength of its sheer entertainment value alone.

Faye Dunaway gives the most jaw-droppingly mesmerizing freak out ever captured on screen, whose bizarreness cannot even be topped by Halle Berry's Oscar acceptance speech. Dunaway must have realized early on that she was a rat in a sinking ship, but instead of deserting, she decides instead to devour the crew. I don't know if her performance comes anywhere close to capturing the real Joan Crawford, but if Crawford was even a tenth of a percent as loony as Dunaway portrays her here, I would have been high-tailing it to Canada if I were either of her children. The fabulous lines, many of which are quoted on this site, can't really be done justice when removed from the context in which they appear, and you really have to see the faces of the actors as they're delivering them to get the full effect. The wire hanger scene is of course a classic, but it's really the floor scrubbing scene immediately following, with Dunaway in kabuki makeup squatting on the floor like a Sumo wrestler, that remains more memorable. Watching Joanie jog is a sight to behold, especially when she starts talking to herself and scrunching her face up as if she's imitating Alvin or one of his chipmunks. There's the "I can handle the socks" moment, one of the most seductive moments (hee, hee) in film history, and of course the coup de grace comes when Joanie tackles Christina across the coffee table and begins banging her head into the floor like she's in a women's prison movie.

The editing in this film is atrocious. There's no sense of time; events follow each other in a loosely chronological fashion, but they don't make dramatic or narrative sense. Frank Perry, the director, must have been dozing off through much of this production; either that or his film crew carried out a mutiny, tied him up, threw him in a shed, and went ahead without him. But it seems churlish to criticize a film like this for its poor film making. It's like kicking a dead horse.

All I can say is, if you watch this movie with the right people in the right frame of mind (i.e. with alcohol), you will be howling. I watched this with a group in college, and we had to periodically pause the movie in order to allow everyone to recover before continuing. Thank you, Ms. Dunaway, for giving us "Mommie Dearest." The world will never be able to repay you for your kindness.

Grade: F or A+ (depending on your perspective and level of sobriety)

There is no doubt that Christina Crawford's scathing 1978 memoirs did much initial harm to her late mother's reputation. The subsequent 1981 film has eclipsed even the bestselling book to become the standard by which the real-life Joan is judged. However, I'm inclined to believe that those who dismiss Joan today as a psychotic harpy and nothing more never even saw the film version of "Mommie Dearest," and only heard secondhand reports of the most infamous scene ("No...wire...hangers!").

Most tellingly, Christina Crawford reportedly hated the film version of her book, and wailed upon seeing it, "They turned it into a Joan Crawford movie!" She's right. With the exception of the two most graphic scenes ("No wire hangers" and the choking scene), Joan's "abuse" of Christina is not all that much different from what passed as "discipline" in those days--just ask your parents or grandparents--and despite Faye Dunaway's full-throttle acting, Joan always somehow comes off in a strangely sympathetic light.

What we see is an insecure woman fighting for survival in an age-obsessed, male-dominated industry. Such scenes as Joan's heartless dismissal from MGM invite sympathy; while her snarling, veritable takeover of Pepsi Co. elicts cheers for her ballsiness and strength. Christina, on the other hand, is invariably depicted as either gratingly whiny or cardboard stiff. It's difficult to empathize with such an annoying character.

"Mommie Dearest"'s grandest artistic achievement is through the impeccable art direction, which truly makes the audience believe they are watching a film unfold in the 1940's and 1950's. Its lasting legacy, however, is Faye Dunaway's career-ending performance, which, depending on your point of view, is either jaw-droppingly awful or unbelievably brilliant.

Dunaway's acting "choices" are nothing if not idiosyncratic: clutching her bosom frantically as she cries, "You...deliberately...embarass me in front of a REPORTER!"; copying the real-life Crawford's facial expressions from the horror flick "Strait-Jacket" in the axe-wielding scene; and, most famously, her odd, cross-eyed pose that she strikes not once, or twice, but three times: holding baby Christina on the staircase, rubbing moisturizer on her elbows after hiding Christina's dolls, and following her wire hanger/cleansing powder attack.

It is Dunaway's nostril-flaring, hair-pulling, bosom-clutching style that really sends this film into the camp stratosphere. On paper, such scenes as Joan swatting Christina on the butt for defying her orders, or Joan insisting that Christina finish her rare steak, would seem bland. In Dunaway's hands, they become something else altogether!

Actually, Christina Crawford should thank Faye Dunaway; if not for her crazed, unforgettable portrayal, "Mommie Dearest" would have been just another trashy Hollywood memoir that eventually would've been forgotten (does anyone really care about B.D. Hyman's book about Bette Davis anymore?). And a film version without Dunaway would've been rightfully panned, forgotten, and relegated to cut-out bins at your local video emporium. Instead, Faye Dunaway has ensured its place in film immortality. It still stands alone among camp classics, but perhaps some re-evaluation of it (and of Joan Crawford herself) is due.