Mildred Pierce (film)
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Mildred Pierce (film)
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1996.
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Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American melodrama/film noir directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, and Zachary Scott, also featuring Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, and Bruce Bennett. Based on the 1941 novel by James M. Cain, this was Crawford's first starring role for Warner Bros., after leaving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Why It Rocks
- The film's based on a 1941 bestselling novel by James M. Cain, who's famous for his pulp novels. However, due to the Production Code being in place, a fair number of changes to the story had to be made for a film adaptation. Yet somehow, those changes manage to work for the most part.
- The novel many sordid, racy elementsâsuch as Mildred finding Veda in bed with Mildredâs new husband, Monte. The seamiest story points were eliminated for the film and the murder and flashback structure were concocted, which were key to imparting the fatalistic and cynical atmosphere.
- The flashback structure allowed the filmmakers to "punish" the villains in a way that the novel didn't.
- The film struck an immediate chord with filmgoers. A tantalizing mix of sex and crime served up as a cautionary tale, the film also tapped into many of the concerns of working women and returning veterans.
- Mildred Pierce would not only bring Joan Crawford back from the dead professionally but also cement her reputation as a true actress and star. Her role as the titular character would leave a lasting impression on Crawfordâs legacy as a great mid-career highlight and it proved during wartime that womenâs experiences are as vital as a manâs, making the film essential viewing on several levels.
- Her character is extremely sympathetic and relatable to audiences (especially women who believed she embodied the ideal wartime spirit) as she's a newly-divorced mother, who sacrifices everything for her ungrateful teenage daughter, who's pretentious, haughty and spoiled; the opposite of her sweet, tomboy younger sister Kay. Mildred works her fingers to the bone for her girls, parlaying her expert baking skills into a waitressing job while learning the restaurant business in order to open her own pie and chicken joint with the help of playboy polo player Monty Beragon.
- At the time of its release, a fair number of critics and even Crawford herself, noted that Mildred Pierce's life, was surprisingly similar to Crawford's off-screen life: A hardworking single mother strives to earn a living and sacrifices for her children in a manâs business. Crawford called Mildred one of the best parts she ever had, claiming that even before reading the script that the character was one she strongly identified with, and understood that it was the best chance she had of restoring her flagging career.
- Compelling characters for the most part.
- It's already been mentioned that Mildred Pierce herself was a sympathetic and relatable character, due to all the hardships she went though and sacrifices she made. But she's also a pure noir protagonist, as doomed as any male noir antihero, as she makes futile sacrifices for the love she craves from Veda. Having a film noir with a female protagonist is very rare, on top of her being a selfless noble hero, rather than the typical jaded anti-hero.
- Her spoiled brat of a (teenage) daughter Veda, is a pure noir femme fatale, luring her mother along and bringing her down. Her actress, Ann Blyth had only appeared in three movies but found a ferocity that made the character one of the most venomous and memorable in film noir. Blyth famously slaps Crawford at one point, and Blyth later reported that the slap was âvery realâ.
- The cast was rounded out with Zachary Scott in a typically oily role as rich playboy Monte, Bruce Bennett as Mildredâs stolid first husband Bert, and Jack Carson as an annoying, lecherous business associate. That those are the three men in Mildredâs life speaks volumes about the sorry world sheâs forced to inhabit, but luckily the outstanding Eve Arden is also on hand as Ida, Mildredâs acid-tongued friend and restaurant partner, who is always ready to lend support, crack wise, or sit for a shot of bourbon and lament the male sex.
- Curtiz, cinematographer Ernest Haller, and the numerous adaptors of James M. Cain provided many of the visual and narrative tropes of what would become film noir. The jagged angles, the half-hidden faces, the shadows that seep across many of the frames all reach back to German expressionism, but they also refer to the graphic art found in pulpsâhow Zachary Scottâs corpse splays out in a diagonal receding from the camera, for example.
- Much of the picture plays out like any domestic melodramaâin fact, like Crawfordâs MGM movies from a decade earlier. The characters may be seething underneath, but on the surface they are all good manners. Even the love scenes are dispassionate, rote. Itâs only when the violence erupts that the turmoil within the plot can be glimpsed. Curtiz films the shooting and the slaps in a sensual style, the camera darting toward the bodies involved.
- An early scene at the beach house shows Warner Bros. production values creating superbly effective atmosphere. Mildred lures Wally there and surreptitiously leaves, in an attempt to frame him for murder. His growing panic as he scampers through the locked house trying to escape is enhanced by visual choices: Anton Grotâs mazelike, multilevel sets, David Weisbartâs disorienting editing, and Ernest Hallerâs Oscar-nominated cinematography, with high-contrast lighting and ominous shadows. The house is made to look and feel like a prison, with Max Steinerâs tense music the perfect capper.
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