Le roman de Mildred Pierce

Joan Crawford plays the title role, a mother who will do anything for her selfish daughter Veda, played by Ann Blyth. Mildred even goes into business, becoming a successful restaurant owner, but Veda is still ungrateful even as her mother has provided her opportunities in society.

Jack Carson plays Wally Fay, a man Mildred manipulates; Zachary Scott is Monte Beragon, another who gets involved in a tragic love triangle of sorts with Crawford's and Blyth's characters. Eve Arden plays Ida Corwin, a friend of Mildred's who later becomes one of her employees, that gets to say some great sassy lines including "Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."

Eventually, the daughter gets herself in deep trouble and the mother's sacrifice is made even greater. Directed by Michael Curtiz, and based on the James M. Cain novel with a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, this essential drama also features Bruce Bennett, Lee Patrick, Veda Ann Borg, and Butterfly McQueen (uncredited).

Joan Crawford's Academy Award winning Best Actress performance on her first (!) of three nominations. Also Supporting Actress Oscar nominations for Arden (her only!) and Blyth (her only as well). The film, its B&W Cinematography, and MacDougall's (his only) screenplay were also nominated. Added to the National Film Registry in 1996.

With those broad shoulders, those wall-to-wall eyebrows, that steely look on her face, and wrapped in those expensive clothes, the inimitable Joan Crawford exudes glamour and resolve as famed Mildred Pierce, housewife turned businesswoman, in this Michael Curtiz-directed film, part mystery, part melodrama.

The film's story, told in flashbacks, begins with mystery, and it is helped along by terrific B&W lighting. Most of the rest of the story is sheer melodrama, with talky dialogue that erupts from confrontations between various characters. The most important confrontations occur between Mildred and her ungrateful, scheming daughter Veda, who requires tons of money to be happy. As the story moves along, Mildred buys and successfully operates a restaurant, but it's not enough to win approval from her odious daughter. Mildred's love for Veda is deep. But Mildred, we learn, is also a take-charge woman who won't take any guff from anyone, at least from caddy suitors or prospective in-laws.

It's a great story. And in addition to the topnotch cinematography, the film has great production design, costumes, and editing. We're also treated to some pleasantly nostalgic music from the 1940s. Crawford gets good support performances from Ann Blyth, Eve Arden, and Jack Carson. I also liked Butterfly McQueen, the little lady with the high-pitched voice who plays Mildred's maid.

I suspect this film would have been worthy of praise, even with someone else playing the title character; the film is that good. But no other actress would have had the stage presence of the impressive Joan Crawford. It's mostly because of her that "Mildred Pierce" will be remembered and loved, for generations to come. It's also partly because of "Mildred Pierce" that Joan Crawford will be admired as a Hollywood legend, for generations to come.

James M Cain's novel 'Mildred Pierce' was much tougher, dirtier, violent and cynical than the gorgeously mounted movie it became, but the film still manages to maintain enough of the flavor of the book to be interesting. The portrait of working class life in Southern California works well, as does the depiction of a marriage that breaks down because of disappointment and resentment rather than anything melodramatic. Within its first hour MILDRED PIERCE captures something anxious about American life and marriages and families that is more true than most of what movies had shown up to that time, and it would prove to be even more so in the postwar world to come. The movie actually becomes more false and synthetic as it moves into Mildred's rise in life, but by then the plot and characters have taken hold.

And so has the film's increasingly bleak look at what women can expect when they live and work alone in a man's world, beset by men who want to exploit them, sexually and otherwise. This too, though softened from the book, would have seemed refreshingly frank to many of viewers at that time.

What raises the film to the level of classic is the first class work from every professional in every department. Joan Crawford is not much more expressive here than she was in her later MGM pictures, but this character suits her limited talents so well that she seems better than in almost anything else she did. All her Warners pictures used her more effectively than MGM usually managed to do, perhaps because in them she is invariably exploited, abused, maligned, even tortured. The bad behavior her Warners characters inspire in others is so extreme that she doesn't need to be. These plots do what Adrian's sometimes garish clothes did for her at MGM: they give her a personality, make her seem more interesting than she really was, and they make her sympathetic despite her essential coldness. Crawford gets able support from Ann Blyth, Eve Arden (as comedy relief; she is almost appearing in another movie entirely), Zachary Scott and especially Jack Carson, dead-on as a sweaty hustler and low rent lothario, bringing nuance to what could have been a one-note portrayal. Bruce Bennett isn't really a good actor in the role of Mildred's first husband, but he's perfectly cast -- he looks like an Okie from one of Dorothea Lange's photographs who went west to 'make it' and never did.

And as has been frequently mentioned here, Ernest Haller's cinematography (especially in the brilliant prints now being shown on cable) is consistently evocative and beautiful. So many of his shots live in the memory: in the scene where a mink wearing, gun wielding Mildred comes upon Monte and Vida kissing, the image is an almost primal one of betrayal and glamor -- the way their profiles are in darkness, the way Ann Blyth arches back against the bar, the hard, dim glitter of lame and the billows of tulle from her gown. The way Vida tumbles forward into almost blinding lamplight while Monte's face hardens behind her -- these are the kinds of wonderful images the best old films regularly delivered. Also excellent is Anton Grot's art direction, opulent but still managing to help create the particular SoCal atmosphere of this picture. And as usual, Max Steiner's score is effective, but as an earlier poster noted, he recycled a couple of motifs from his Oscar-winning score to NOW, VOYAGER. And director Michael Curtiz must be praised for keeping everything in perfect balance. This is one of the most admired '40s pictures and well worth a look.

Six shots fired and a man falls down dead. Shortly thereafter, we meet a desperate Mildred Pierce who walks along the streets of the night. After a policeman prevented her from jumping into the river, she ends up at a bar where an old acquaintance flirts uncontrollably. They go to her house on the beach, from Mildred suddenly quickly departs. It turns out that it was in this house that the man was shot and soon the police on the spot. During interrogation begins the story of what led up to that fateful night. Mildred tells how she differs from her husband, working upward as a business woman and how she is willing to do absolutely everything to their already spoiled daughter Veda.

Mildred Pierce literally sparkles. Director Michael Curtiz, probably best known for Casablanca, knows how to get the luxurious feel of a grand noir drama. Elegant small transitions, meticulous and dramatic lighting applications, all in classic Hollywood manner, where nothing is left to chance.

The dialog is fabulous. Mildred's right hand Ida is so cool, with the hatching of witty one-liners. Even the ever-swarming Wally Fay is constantly exciting to listen to.

The story in itself is exciting, where you always know roughly how it will end, but not why or what role some of the characters will play. The characters are the driving force. It's about Mildred's efforts to give their daughters the life she had wanted, although it also means she does not listen to what they really want. Then there is a former spouse who is living his new life in the periphery, the friend who is helpful, but not without being sure to reap the rewards of Mildred's success and even a new one that might not be what he appears to be.

Crawford got a well-deserved Oscar for this film.

Mildred Pierce is directed by Michael Curtiz and adapted from the James M. Cain novel by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner and Catherine Turney. It stars Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Bruce Bennett and Eve Arden. Music is by Max Steiner and the cinematographer is Ernest Haller. It was nominated for 6 Academy Awards and won just the one for Crawford in the Best Actress category.

Plot finds Crawford as Mildred Pierce, a devoted Mother of two girls who struggles to not only make her marriage work, but to also keep her eldest daughter, Veda (Blyth), in the luxurious life she demands. Murder, treachery and heartache is about to dog the Pierce family.

This is of course the film that is often remembered for being the film that saved Joan Crawford's career. After being dumped by MGM, and tagged with being box office poison, Crawford, it seemed, was destined to be the latest visitor to the acting scrap heap. But Jerry Wald over at Warner Brothers had other ideas. The part of Mildred had been offered to some of the big hitting ladies on the Warner studio lot, Stanwyck, Davies and Sheridan are just three of the names known to have shied away from the role. The feeling was that playing a woman with a mid-teen daughter was a no go for the age proud ladies. But Crawford, just entering her forties, took the role on, and in spite of initial protestations from director Curtiz, gave a terrific performance that landed her the coveted golden statuette and prolonged her film career for another 25 years.

Blending the psychological aspects of the woman's picture with the physical edges of film noir, "Mildred Pierce" is something of a unique picture. Very popular on release (it was a box office smash), it was thought that Cain's source novel wouldn't transfer well to the screen. Credit then to the writers for managing to create such an intriguing and watchable piece. True, they have had to tone down aspects from the book, and even added incidents and changed characters, but the essence is right and the timing couldn't have been more perfect for such a story. As film noir was becoming a telling style of film making, the pic also coincided with the later stages of WWII - a time when the role of the Woman, either in the service or at home, was under scrutiny. One of the great things about the film, and the performance of Crawford, is that it cobbles together many character strands of the 40s woman - in life and in film noir. She's a Suzy homemaker type, asked to be mother and wife, yet driven to be a business woman because she feels she's lacking in the necessary family home department. Where the film gets its noir flecks from is that Mildred may also be a murderer, a femme fatale, a woman whose every decision spells trouble. It's as if the makers (not just here but many others at the time) are saying that a woman's place is in the home, doing homely family stuff. Intriguing for sure, not necessarily in good taste, but an added spice into the melodramatic cooking pot that already contains greed and obsession.

Told with a flashback structure, the film is smoothly directed by the versatile Curtiz. But both he and Crawford are aided considerably across the board, not least by a truly great "Bitch" performance from Blyth. Veda is at one detestable, spoilt and mean, the daughter from hell, a status-seeking brat whose love comes at enormous cost to those who dare to get close to her. Blyth revels in it and her play off with Crawford is one of the film's major strengths. The support cast of Scott, Carson, Arden and Bennett are excellent value, while Steiner's music is unobtrusive and able to shift freely with the narrative twists. Finally it's left to Hallers photography to capture the feel and mood of the unfolding story. Shifting from sunny suburbia one moment to shadowy expressionistic bleakness the next, the photographer of such notable film's like "Gone With the Wind" and "Rebel Without a Cause", is integral to the moody excellence of "Mildred Pierce".

A murder mystery flanked by asides of class distinction, bad parenting, dubious sexual leanings and pure greed. Yep, "Mildred Pierce" is no ordinary movie - and hooray for that. 8.5/10