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 Ard, Ann Blyth, and Bruce Bnett. 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.
In 1996, Mildred Pierce was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Monte Beragon, the second husband of Mildred Pierce, is murdered. The police tell Mildred her first husband, Bert Pierce, is guilty of the murder, because he owned the gun, had a motive, and does not dy the crime. Mildred protests that he is too kind to commit murder and reveals her story to the officer in flashback.
Joan Crawford 1945 'mildred Pierce'
Mildred and Bert are unhappily married. After Bert splits with his business partner, Wally Fay, Mildred must sell her baked goods to support the family. Bert accuses Mildred of favoring their two daughters over him. Their quarrel intsifies after a phone call from Bert's mistress, Maggie Biederhof, and they separate.
Mildred retains custody of 16-year-old Veda, a bratty social climber, and 10-year-old Kay, a tomboy. Mildred's principal goal is to provide material possessions for Veda, who longs for high social status and is ashamed of her mother being a baker. Mildred hides her other job as a waitress, but Veda learns the truth and treats her mother with disdain.
Mildred meets Monte Beragon, a Pasada society playboy with an almost-depleted inheritance. Beragon owns the building that Mildred wants to purchase for a restaurant, and he pursues a romantic interest in her. While the two are at his beach house for a weekd, Kay contracts pneumonia and dies after a trip to Lake Arrowhead with Veda and Bert. Mildred channels her grief into work and throws herself into oping a new restaurant. With help from her frid and former supervisor, Ida Corwin, Mildred's restaurant is successful. Wally helps Mildred buy the property, and soon she owns a chain of restaurants throughout Southern California.
Mildred Pierce: A Woman's Work
Veda secretly marries well-to-do Ted Forrester for his money and position, but his mother objects. Veda agrees to dissolve the marriage but claims she is pregnant and demands $10, 000 (equal to $179, 104 today) from the Forresters. Veda smugly confesses her pregnancy is a sham to Mildred, who tears up the check and throws her out of the house.
Bert, too distraught to tell Mildred about Veda's latest escapade, takes her to Wally's nightclub, where Veda performs as a lounge singer. After seeing several sailors in the audice wolf-whistle at Veda in her sexy costume, Mildred begs her to come home. Veda sneers and says her mother can never give her the lifestyle she deserves.
Desperate to reconcile with her daughter, Mildred coaxes Monte into a loveless marriage to improve her social status, with Monte's price being a one-third share of her business to allow him to settle his debts. Veda, eager to live out her dream as a debutante, pretds to reconcile with her mother and moves into Beragon's lavish mansion.
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Evtually, the cost of supporting Monte and Veda's afflut lifestyles—and Monte's underhanded ploy to retain his share in the business while causing his wife to forfeit her own—bankrupts Mildred, forcing her to sell the restaurant chain. After driving to his beach house to confront Monte, Mildred finds Veda in his arms. Veda scornfully tells her mother that Monte intds to marry her after divorcing Mildred, who runs to her car in tears after dropping a gun she intded to use on Monte. Wh Monte tells Veda he would never marry her because she is a rott little tramp, she shoots him with Mildred's gun.
Veda begs her mother to help conceal the murder; Mildred reluctantly agrees. Fed up with Wally's misdeeds—helping Veda blackmail the Forresters, hiring her to sing in his seedy nightclub, assting to Monte's business move against her, and making constant sexual overtures toward her—Mildred tries to pin the murder on Wally by luring him to the beach house. Police officers arrest Wally wh he flees in panic after seeing Monte's body. Still, the investigating officer tells Mildred that Wally cannot be the killer because he has no motive.
In the prest, the detectives admit they knew all along that Veda committed the murder. Mildred tries to apologize as her daughter is st to jail, though Veda claims that she will get by. Mildred leaves the police station to find Bert waiting for her outside.
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Although James M. Cain was oft labeled a hard-boiled crime writer, his novel Mildred Pierce (1941) was mostly a psychological work, with little violce. The adaptation, released four years later, was designed as a thriller, and a murder was introduced into the plot.
The novel spans nine years (from 1931 to 1940), whereas the film is set from 1939 to the 1940s and spans only four years. Its characters do not age as a consequce. Mildred's physical appearance does not change, although her costumes become more elegant as her business grows. Veda ages from around 13 to 17. Mildred is more of a tycoon in the film; her restaurants are glamorous places, and she owns a whole chain (Mildred's) instead of the novel's three. Evil, spoiled Veda, who is prodigiously talted and brilliantly devious in the novel, is somewhat less formidable in the film. All referces to the Depression and the Prohibition era, which are important in the novel, are abst from the screplay.
The plot is simplified and the number of characters reduced. Veda's training and success as a singer (including her performance at the Hollywood Bowl) were dropped in the film and her music teachers only mtioned in passing. Lucy Gessler, a key character in the novel and Mildred's good frid, is eliminated. Ida, Mildred's boss at the restaurant where she works as a waitress, is giv much of Gessler's wise-cracking personality.
Eve Arden And 'the Ida Factor' In Mildred Pierce (1945)
Monte does not die in the novel, and Veda never goes to jail. The murder portion of the story was invted by the filmmakers because the csorship code of that time required evildoers to be punished for their misdeeds.
Ralph Bellamy, Donald Woods, and George Coulouris were considered for the role of Bert, while Bonita Granville, Virginia Weidler, and Martha Vickers were considered for Veda.
Sces for the film were shot in Gldale and Malibu, California. Permission had to be granted from the U.S. Navy to shoot in Malibu because of wartime restrictions.
Observations On Film Art
In 1942, two years earlier, Joan Crawford had be released from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer due to a mutual agreemt. Crawford campaigned for the lead role in Mildred Pierce, which most lead actresses did not want because of the implied age as mother of a teage daughter. Warner Bros. and director Michael Curtiz originally wanted Bette Davis to play the title role, but she declined. Curtiz did not want Crawford to play the part. He campaigned for Barbara Stanwyck, who was working on My Reputation (1946) at the time. Wh he learned that Stanwyck was not going to be cast, he th tried to recruit either Olivia de Havilland or Joan Fontaine to play Mildred, but both were still in their 20s. He ultimately approved Crawford's casting after seeing her scre test. Ev so, Curtiz and Crawford were oft at odds on the set, with producer Jerry Wald acting as peacemaker.
The film was a box-office success. According to Warner Bros., it earned $3, 483, 000 (equal to $62, 381, 878 today) in the United States and $2, 155, 000 (equal to $38, 507, 332) in other markets.
Contemporary reviews praised Crawford's performance but had mixed opinions about other aspects of the film. A review in The New York Times stated that, although Crawford gave a sincere and gerally effective characterization, the film lacks the driving force of stimulating drama, and it did not seem reasonable that a level-headed person like Mildred Pierce, who builds a fabulously successful chain of restaurants on practically nothing, could be so completely dominated by a selfish and grasping daughter, who spells trouble in capital letters.
Mildred Pierce' With Kate Winslet In On Hbo
At first reading James M. Cain's novel of the same title might not suggest screable material, but the cleanup job has resulted in a class feature, showmanly produced by Jerry Wald and tellingly directed by Michael Curtiz ... The dramatics are heavy but so skillfully handled that they never cloy. Joan Crawford reaches a peak of her acting career in this pic. Ann Blyth, as the daughter, scores dramatically in her first guine acting assignmt. Zachary Scott makes the most of his character as the Pasada heel, a talted performance.[11]
Harrison's Reports wrote that Crawford delivered a good performance, but the story lacks conviction, and the main characterizations are overdrawn. For example, the daughter's hatred for her mother has no logical basis, consequtly, it weaks the story.
Certainly, despite its unconscionable lgth—it takes almost two hours—Mildred Pierce contains ough excitemt to jolt ev the most lethargic customer...it is pleasant to report that Miss Crawford is no longer as frantic in appearance as she once
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