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Mildred Pierce

 

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Click here to see film photos.  And click here to see test shots of the film sets.

 


US VHS.Region 1 DVD.Warner Bros. 111 minutes. US release: 9/24/45 (premiere); 10/20/45 (general). VHS release: 12/5/90. DVD release: 2/4/03.

Cast: Joan Crawford (as "Mildred Pierce"), Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Bruce Bennett, George Tobias, Lee Patrick, Moroni Olsen, Jo Ann Marlow, Barbara Brown.

Credits:  Based on the 1941 novel by James M. Cain. Screenplay: Ranald MacDougall. Producer: Jerry Wald. Director: Michael Curtiz. Camera: Ernest Haller. Art Director: Anton Grot. Music: Max Steiner. Costumes: Milo Anderson. Editor: David Weisbart.

 

Awards:  1946 Academy Awards: Best Actress, Joan Crawford. Nominated for Best Picture; Best Supporting Actress (Eve Arden and Ann Blyth); Best Screenplay (Ranald MacDougall); Best Cinematography, B&W (Ernest Haller).

1945 National Board of Review Best Actress.

1996: Placed in the US National Film Registry by the National Film Preservation Board.

 

Notes:

• Filmed from March to May 1945.

• The film cost $1,453,000; the total domestic ($3,483,000) and foreign earnings ($2,155,000) totalled $5,638,000.

• The home used for Mildred's beach house was located at 26652 Latigo Shore Drive in Malibu. Built in 1929, the two-story house collapsed into the ocean in late January 1983 after an intense week of storms. Click here to view the house as it collapsed.

 

IMDb page.

 


 

Critics' Reviews:

 

Thomas M. Pryor in the New York Times (1945):

    Joan Crawford is playing a most troubled lady, and giving a sincere and generally effective characterization of same....It is a tribute to Miss Crawford's art that Mildred comes through as well as she does.

 

Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant (2002):

     One of the best-made Hollywood movies ever, Mildred Pierce transcends the genre of the high-powered soap opera (tinged with a definite noir flavor) by encapsulating a number of vital American themes, some of them years before the nation knew they existed. The desperate search for identity and property as the key to happiness, and maternal love misplaced on a grand scale, are the twin engines of this lightning-fast entertainment machine. A holy monster of Hollywood who wouldn't stay dead, Joan Crawford made this show a shattering return to the top, in a role she'd more or less repeat throughout the rest of her career. Complete review/essay.

 

TV Guide Online:

     Everything about Mildred Pierce is first-rate, from stellar production values to Curtiz's marvelously paced direction, which refuses to allow sentiment to rule the story. The MacDougall script, adapted from Cain's terse novel, is adult and literate, with plenty of sharp dialogue. The Curtiz string-pulling is greatly aided by Grot's imposing sets, Haller's moody photography and Steiner's haunting score. Bravely cresting the waves of disaster is a mature Crawford in a real tour de force, defying the industry to write her off as washed up. She's matched every slap of the way by Blyth, here giving the performance of her career. ...

 

nicksflickpicks.com:

     Watch Mildred Pierce within the same week as Laura, The Letter, or Double Indemnity, and inevitably the whole thing collapses to bits. But watch it at midnight, with a soft spot for sequences where characters moan out a name with their dying breaths, and you could do a lot worse for glitzy, vulgar entertainment. You know you're in giddy, gimme-a-break Hollywood when a daughter is ashamed to have such a lowly, déclassée mother as Joan Crawford, but maybe you've noticed that Hollywood can be a pretty fun place to spend two hours. Complete review.

 

4/16/07 New Yorker art accompanying Denby's review. By Robert Risko.David Denby in the New Yorker (4/16/07)

    In the early forties, Joan Crawford left the suffocating glamour of M-G-M and entered the noirish shadows of Warner Bros. Her second film there was the startling “Mildred Pierce,” from the James M. Cain novel, which is perhaps more candid about money and social status than any American movie of the period. ...Crawford is the poor divorcée Mildred, who works as a waitress, then starts a restaurant, then a chain of restaurants, and finally marries the quintessential heel, Zachary Scott, all to satisfy the snobbish demands of her daughter, Ann Blyth, who resents her mother’s common origins. Crawford’s performance is convincing and intelligent, and the bitterness feels genuine (Crawford herself was a wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl who struggled for respect). Like other good forties movies, “Mildred Pierce” starts with a murder and then works back to the roots of the crime. The director, Michael Curtiz, keeps the palette dark and rich and the psychological undertones resonant.

 

British Film Institute essay.

The Greatest Films: Tim Dirks essay.

DVD Verdict review.

 


 

Our Reviews:

If you've seen Mildred Pierce and would like to share your review here, please e-mail me. Feel free to include a star-rating (with 5 stars the best), as well as any of your favorite lines from the film.

 

James (June 2005)
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Of the numerous movies produced in the "film noir" style during the 1940s, only three 
of them stand out in my mind:
Laura starring Gene Tierney, The Strange Love of Martha
Ivers
starring Barbara Stanwyck, and Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford.
"Mildred," based on a novel by James M. Cain, is easily the best of the three, holding 
up as a classic by which all other films of this genre are compared to. As a definitive film
of its type, it defines an era. As a comeback vehicle for Crawford following her two year
hiatus from movies, it permanently established her screen persona and subsequently
influenced every other role Miss Crawford played for the remainder of her long career. After twenty years of shopgirl, showgirl, and society girl roles,
Mildred Pierce allowed
Crawford to dramatically switch gears and portray a common, lower-middle-class
housewife saddled with two kids, a mortgage, and a husband who prefers the company
of the flashy divorcee up the street. Joan portrays Mildred's drab existence in an
unpretentious, world-weary manner, which perfectly reflects the unhappiness of her
marriage and her life. After Mildred kicks her philandering husband out, she quickly
realizes she's got bills to pay and that she needs to make some changes in her life.
After finding a job as a waitress, Mildred begins to blossom and discovers previously
untapped strengths and talents that she wasn't aware she possessed. With each new
success, she comes more and more alive, culminating in a successful chain of
restaurants where her former employer becomes her employee, and where she finds
love with a dashing, albeit oily, society heir.

Playing opposite Joan are many talented actors and actresses: Eve Arden as the 
amusing, hard as nails Ida, Jack Carson as the lecherous Wally Fay, Zachary Scott
as the morally (and fiscally) bankrupt Monty Beragon, Jo Ann Marlowe as spunky Kay
Pierce, Butterfly McQueen as scatterbrained Lottie, and (most importantly) Ann Blythe
as Mildred's spoiled, conniving daughter Veda. Much of the movie's plot concerns the
relationship between Mildred and Veda, and Miss Blythe adds just the right note of
willful spite and malice to her role, playing beautifully opposite Joan as they spar and
jab at one another like every good love-hate relationship demands. Mildred isn't perfect,
but everything she does she does out of love. Veda, on the other hand, is an
unmitigated little bitch who only cares about money and social stature. Her mother
works hard to give Veda everything she desires, but Veda remains blatantly disdainful 
of Mildred, thoroughly embarrassed that her mother makes money running a chain of
greasy spoons. The acting between Crawford and Blythe is electric, and they
compliment each other perfectly. Joan's costumes in this movie firmly established her as an icon of the twentieth century.
Her style in this film is the one she held on to for the rest of her life, rarely deviating
from the broad padded shoulders, bold jewelry, upswept hair, heavy eyebrows, and
ankle strapped "fuck me" shoes that she wore as Mildred Pierce. The look virtually
defined the 1940s, and the tailored, mannish "power-suits" worked extremely well both
for the character and for Joan. 

With a top-rate cast, an excellent script by Ranald MacDougall, visually riveting 
cinematography by Ernest Haller, a haunting score by Max Steiner, and strong
direction by Michael Curtiz,
Mildred Pierce succeeds as a highly entertaining movie
that one can watch repeatedly and never grow tired of. Joan Crawford outdid herself
as Mildred, and she wholeheartedly deserved her Academy Award.
Memorable lines: Veda:
"You think just because you made a little money you can get a new hairdo and
some expensive clothes and turn yourself into a lady. But you can't. Because you'll
never be anything but a common frump whose father lived over a grocery store and
whose mother took in washing."
Mildred: "Veda, I think I'm really seeing you for the first time in my life and you're
cheap and horrible."
Veda: "With this money I can get away from you. From you and your chickens and
your pies and your kitchens and everything that smells of grease. I can get away from
this shack with its cheap furniture. And this town and its dollar days, and its women
that wear uniforms and its men that wear overalls."
Mildred: "Get out, Veda...get out before I kill you!" Ida: "Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat
their young."
Ida: "When men get around me, they get allergic to wedding rings." Wally Fay to Ida: "I hate all women. Thank goodness you're not one."
 
 

 

Movie Posters:

 

Original Release, 1945

 

Argentina one-sheet (29 x 43 inches).       France.      Germany.

 

 

Italy. 39 x 55 inches.      Spain.      Belgium.

 

 

      US one-sheet.       US 3-sheet. (41 x 81 inches)      US half-sheet.

 

 

 

Re-Release Posters

 

  US 1956 re-release. One-sheet, 27 x 41 inches.      1956 re-release poster. 14 x 36 inches.

 

 

 2001 UK re-release quad poster.

 

 


 

Lobby Cards:

 

US title card.        

 

             

 

   

 

 

  Country unknown. UK? Canada?   Country unknown.

 

 

1956 re-release title card.

 

 


 

Misc. Images:

 

US magazine ad.        US trade magazine ad.      Pressbook cover.

 

 

       US ad.

 

 


 

Books:

For more information, see the Books Related to Joan Movies page.

 

 

Original 1941 HB cover.        1946 Tower movie tie-in edition.         Penguin PB, 1947 2nd printing.        Signet PB. (Mildred as Bettie Page!)