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Joan Crawford sacrifices everything for a daughter who doesn't deserve it in Mildred Pierce |
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford (Mildred Pierce), Jack Carson (Wally
Fay), Zachary Scott (Monte Beragon), Eve Arden (Ida Corwin), Ann Blyth (Veda
Pierce), Bruce Bennett (Bert Pierce), Butterfly McQueen (Lottie), Lee Patrick
(Mrs Maggie Biederhoff), Moroni Olsen (Inspector Peterson)
There are few things that classic Hollywood did quite as
well as a melodrama. Adapted loosely from a James M Cain novel – its murder
plot line is a flourish solely for the screen – this is a triumphantly entertaining
picture that mixes themes of sex and class with good old-fashioned family
drama. It’s got psychology and it’s also got the high-concept family feuding
around the building of a restaurant business that you could find in Dynasty. Put simply, Mildred Pierce is a prime slice of
entertainment.
After her second husband Monte (Zachary Scott) is shot dead,
Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) is brought in by the police for questioning.
After the collapse of her first marriage to Bert (Bruce Bennett), Mildred has
expanded her home-baking business into a full restaurant chain, with the support
of Bert’s old business partner Wally Fay (Jack Carson). Mildred’s goal is to
provide for all the needs of her eldest child Veda (Ann Blyth), a selfish snob
who despises her mother for having to work for a living. The tensions between
self-sacrificing mother and demanding, unloving daughter, lead Mildred to take
a series of disastrous personal and business decisions, culminating in her
wastrel, upper-class, Veda-approved, second husband Monte going down in a hail
of bullets. But who pulled the trigger?
The murder mystery plotline adds effective spice to this
very well directed (Michael Curtiz is at the top of his game) melodrama. Full
of domestic thrills and spills, it races along like a combination page-turner
and soap, perfectly matching a deeply sympathetic, self-sacrificing heroine
with a host of deeply unsympathetic wasters, chancers and bullies. It’s capped
by giving our heroine possibly the least sympathetic child in film history, the
deliberately selfish and greedy Veda.
Sure you could argue that its psychology is either pretty
lightly developed, or thrown in only for effect. It’s never clear when or why
exactly Veda and Mildred’s relationship went south so completely, or where
Veda’s deep resentment and ideas above her station come from. It also avoids
looking at how Mildred’s complete devotion has probably completely spoiled a
child who clearly needed to be told “no” a lot more, a lot sooner. But it
doesn’t really matter as the film follows the logic of an event-filled plot-boiler,
throwing revelations and cliff-hangers at you left, right and centre.
In the lead, Joan Crawford took on a role that many had
turned down before her – stars at the time were not keen to be seen playing
roles that suggested they were old enough to have mothered children as old as
Ann Blyth. The decision to push for the role paid off as she netted an Oscar and
it’s the finest performance of her career. A somewhat haughty actress, Crawford
here demonstrates depths of vulnerability and tenderness as a much-put upon woman
who, despite everything, will stop at nothing to give her daughter what she
wants. Crawford dominates the film, her air of self-sacrifice never once
tipping over into self-pity, even as the character so desperately seeks for the
sort of love and affection that is denied her from those around her.
Around her most of the cast – with the exception of Eve
Arden’s entertaining, wise-cracking best friend (Oscar nominated) – are
basically a bunch of sharks. None sharper than Ann Blyth’s (also Oscar
nominated) sweet-faced but dead-inside daughter. Rarely has a display of more
naked grasping, snobbish disdain ever been captured on film, matched with
unapologetic greed. Veda has no compunction about the moral consequences of her
actions and, like Zachary Taylor’s archly lazy Monte, is as interested in
spending Mildred’s money as she is contemptuous of its source.
Curtiz’s film constantly however plays with our judgements
and expectations of people. Veda has more than her share of moments of pain and
vulnerability as she shares some of the more painful travails of her mother. Similarly,
Wally Fay (very well played by a roguish Jack Carson) oscillates between being
a trusted confidante of Mildred, and a lascivious greedy creep. First husband
Bert (a somewhat dry Bruce Bennett) starts as a love rat but may have more
decency about him than anyone else (except Mildred).
The film is wonderfully shot in luscious black-and-white by
Ernest Haller, in a dynamic noirish style. Water reflections lap across
ceilings. Smoke from fires and cigarettes rises up and seems to dance and swirl
in the light. There are some beautiful shots of faces – the camera work in
particular perfectly locates a vulnerability in Crawford’s superior features –
and there is a beautiful shot late on when two people caught in an illicit kiss
roll their heads back from the shadows to emerge into the light. The entire
design of the film is spot-on, and it looks and sounds fabulous today.
Mildred’s struggles make this a brilliant example of the
stereotypical “women’s picture”, a tale of a woman struggling against all the
odds to make her way in the world, with the twist that the daughter she is
straining to support is a monster and the men she chases are feckless wasters.
Mildred makes chronically terrible decisions throughout but for the best of
motives – and part of the film’s appeal is that you are so invested in her
fundamental decency you are willing her not to make the same mistakes again and
again.
Curtiz’s melodrama is brilliantly enjoyable and never lets
up. It’s also a feminist icon of a sort – Mildred is never punished for having
a career, indeed she’s celebrated for it (and is far more savvy about it than
nearly all the men). She leaves her husband, runs her own household, pushes for
her own divorce all while protecting and providing for her child (not her fault
the child ain’t worth it). Mildred Pierce
is ahead of its time, and still a fabulously entertaining film.
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