Mommie Dearest

Plot synopsis:
Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is a driven actress and compulsively clean housekeeper who tries to control the lives of those around her as tightly as she controls herself. To prepare for a work day at MGM Studios, she rises at 4:00 a.m. and engages in a strict morning ritual: scrubbing her face and arms with soap and boiling hot water, then plunging her face into a bowl of rubbing alcohol and ice to close the pores. When Helga (Alice Nunn), a new maid, thinks she has Joan's living room in spotless condition, Joan finds one minor detail that she overlooked and loses her temper.
Joan is in a relationship with Hollywood lawyer Gregg Savitt (Steve Forrest), but her career is in a bit of a downswing. Despite desperately wanting a baby, she is unable to get pregnant: seven pregnancies when she was married to actor Franchot Tone have all ended in miscarriages. When she is denied an application for adoption, she enlists Gregg's help to secure a baby. Joan adopts a girl whom she names Christina (Mara Hobel), and later a boy, Christopher (Jeremy Scott Reinholt). Joan sometimes lavishes Christina with attention and luxuries such as an extravagant birthday party, but also enforces a very stern code of denial and discipline. When Christina is showered with gifts, Joan allows her to choose only one she likes best that she can keep, then donates the rest to charity.
As Christina rebels against her mother, confrontations ensue. Joan overtakes Christina in a swimming-pool race and laughs at the child. Joan becomes enraged when Christina reacts with anger and locks her in the pool house. Later, Joan discovers Christina wearing her makeup and imitating her. Even though Christina openly denies it and despite her protests, Joan - thinking that Christina is making fun of her, always rummaging through her drawers, trying to find a way to make people look at her, and always looking at herself in the mirror - hysterically cuts off chunks of Christina's hair to humiliate her.
Joan resents Gregg's allegiance to studio boss Louis B. Mayer (Howard Da Silva) and argues with Gregg after a dinner at Perino's restaurant. Joan guzzles down glasses of vodka and throws a drink in Gregg's face after he tells her she is getting old. A physical altercation ensues and Gregg breaks up with Joan. The next day, Joan cuts Gregg out of the family photos. Joan's tantrums grow more bizarre and violent; when Mayer forces Joan to leave MGM after theater owners brand her "box office poison", she hacks down her prize rose garden with a pair of large gardening shears and an axe.
On another occasion, Joan, her face slathered in cold cream, goes into Christina's bedroom in the middle of the night, meaning to return a dress to her closet, but discovers one of Christina's dresses hanging on a wire hanger. Enraged, she screams at the girl, waking her up in horror, then yanks dresses from Christina's closet, throwing them all over the girl's room and beating her with the hanger. Afterwards, Joan wrecks the bathroom as well. Believing the perfectly clean floor is still dirty, Joan throws cleaning powder all over the bathroom before striking Christina across the back with the can of cleanser and then screams at her to clean it up. Christopher offers to help but Christina tells him to return to his own bed as she fears Joan will kill her if she finds out.
Later, Joan sends Christina to the Chadwick School. Years later, when a teenage Christina (Diana Scarwid) is caught in a compromising position with a boy, Joan brings her home. Barbara Bennett (Jocelyn Brando), a reporter from Redbook magazine, is writing a puff piece on Joan's home life. After Joan lies about Christina being expelled from Chadwick, Christina confronts her in front of the reporter. In the ensuing argument, Joan slaps Christina twice across the face. Christina questions her mother as to why she was adopted, and Joan confesses that it was partially a publicity stunt, but then says that she did not really mean it. After the outraged Christina yells, "I am not one of your fans!" Joan throws her to the floor, then throttles Christina, who pleads with her to stop. Joan's live-in assistant and the reporter pull her away.
Joan sends Christina to Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy; under the academy's strict rules, Christina can have no contact with the outside world. Joan then marries Alfred Steele (Harry Goz), CEO of Pepsi Cola, moves to New York City and pressures him to shoulder a great deal of debt to fund their lavish lifestyle. After his death, the all-male board tries to force her to resign, but Joan coerces them into letting her retain her seat by threatening to publicly condemn Pepsi.
After graduating from Flintridge, Christina rents an apartment in Manhattan, where she acts in a soap opera. When Christina is hospitalized for an ovarian tumor, she is temporarily replaced on the show by her visibly drunken mother. Joan dies of cancer in 1977, whereupon Christina and Christopher (Xander Berkeley) learn their mother has disinherited them in her will. When Christopher says their mother has managed to have the last word, Christina questions that.

Tags: cult, melodrama

Review:
It made me see What Ever Happened To Baby Jane - it was like watching it for the first time, after "Feud" - and now "Mommie Dearest" - Oh dear, Oh dear - It's not that Faye Dunaway is not very entertaining, she is, but her Joan is a one note, maybe one note and a half, a caricature trying to be taken seriously.
It is true that critics generally considered the film a failure, but many of them admired certain elements of it; it is also true that box office fell below expectations, but it was not a box office disaster in the same sense as the 1980 HEAVEN'S GATE or the 1981 INCHON.It is also true, however, that audiences howled with laughter at the film when it debuted, and although leading lady Faye Dunaway received a number of critical accolades for her performance as Joan Crawford, she also received an equal number of devastating reviews--and it was these that caught the spotlight.
Even so, Water does make several telling points: many of the things that Crawford does which seem so odd (bathing the face in ice, for example) are actually commonplace cosmetic necessities for movie stars; many of the things the film treats as abuse were, although carried to wild extremes in the story, typical of child-rearing practices of the 1940s and 1950s.There are also three short documentaries featuring a number of cast members, most notably Diana Scarwid; these are actually entertaining for the fact that those who appear still seem to regard the film as "a good movie." The only really significant interview is with Lypsinka, an artist who has driven Crawford impersonations to the level of wicked satire and high art, and who offers a number of interesting personal insights into the iconography involved.Like the film itself, the bonus package has two great failures.
A number of people, including actresses Betty Hutton and June Allyson, supported Christina Crawford's accounts, but an equal number, including actress Myrna Loy and Christina's younger siblings, flatly stated that Christina's accusations were largely fictitious.When all is said and done, and in spite of performances and moments that are actually extremely good in isolation, MOMMIE DEAREST is a film that falls under the "so bad it's good" category of cult films.
However, I'm inclined to believe that those who dismiss Joan today as a psychotic harpy and nothing more never even saw the film version of "Mommie Dearest," and only heard secondhand reports of the most infamous scene ("No...wire...hangers!").Most tellingly, Christina Crawford reportedly hated the film version of her book, and wailed upon seeing it, "They turned it into a Joan Crawford movie!" She's right.
With the exception of the two most graphic scenes ("No wire hangers" and the choking scene), Joan's "abuse" of Christina is not all that much different from what passed as "discipline" in those days--just ask your parents or grandparents--and despite Faye Dunaway's full-throttle acting, Joan always somehow comes off in a strangely sympathetic light.What we see is an insecure woman fighting for survival in an age-obsessed, male-dominated industry.
Its lasting legacy, however, is Faye Dunaway's career-ending performance, which, depending on your point of view, is either jaw-droppingly awful or unbelievably brilliant.Dunaway's acting "choices" are nothing if not idiosyncratic: clutching her bosom frantically as she cries, "You...deliberately...embarass me in front of a REPORTER!"; copying the real-life Crawford's facial expressions from the horror flick "Strait-Jacket" in the axe-wielding scene; and, most famously, her odd, cross-eyed pose that she strikes not once, or twice, but three times: holding baby Christina on the staircase, rubbing moisturizer on her elbows after hiding Christina's dolls, and following her wire hanger/cleansing powder attack.It is Dunaway's nostril-flaring, hair-pulling, bosom-clutching style that really sends this film into the camp stratosphere.
Actually, Christina Crawford should thank Faye Dunaway; if not for her crazed, unforgettable portrayal, "Mommie Dearest" would have been just another trashy Hollywood memoir that eventually would've been forgotten (does anyone really care about B.D. Hyman's book about Bette Davis anymore?).
Okay, I did think the young Christina Crawford was a little over the top, but I can completely believe that any daughter of a glamorous and pampered movie star would behave in much the same way.
I would ask the critics who poke fun at the film to go back and watch "Sunset Boulevard" again, a brilliant movie I've never heard a bad word about, go and revisit Norma Desmond and all of her vanity and psychosis, so haunting and unforgettable, and tell me again if Faye Dunaway's performance is over-acted..
There's no in-between.Character behavior that is weird to begin with, combined with poor film direction, and an exaggerated, over-the-top performance by Faye Dunaway results in plot sequences that are campy and outlandish, thus robbing the story of subtle truths that may be buried under all that bombast.Excise the rose garden sequence, the wire-hangers/bathroom cleaning sequence, and several other embarrassing parts, and we "might" have a film that could be taken seriously.
I don't recall inappropriate laughter (well, maybe a muted laugh or two when little Christina said "Jesus Christ" at the end of the wire hanger scene), and I remember hearing favorable comments from people around me, although many were horrified by the depictions of child abuse.Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to the high expectations at the box office.
The movie doesn't do justice to the riveting book by Joan's adopted daughter Christina, committing to film the book's highlights, the talked-about bits where Crawford freaked out, but skimping on the details.
I mean that some - most - of the dialog is written not how people...actually...TALK (the highlight for me is when Joan tells the Pepsi husband that he is the soda-king or something like that - as if we didn't KNOW!) In that first hour we see those years in childhood for Christina (how the girl doesn't seem to age or change is one of the great mysteries of life I guess, not unlike Joan up until near the very end of the film).
My favorite decade has always been the eighties and it always will be, thanks to mommy dearest.Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is a driven actress and compulsively clean housekeeper who tries to control the lives of those around her as tightly as the self-control she exhibits.
In Mommie Dearest, we watch Faye Dunaway portray Joan Crawford as portrayed in Crawford's adopted and later disinherited daughter Christina's (necessarily?) one-sided and tendentious memoir.
All she wants to round out her life is a baby (or two); Steve Forrest plays an attorney and current paramour who helps her to acquire them, like a pair of occasional tables.The rest of the movie depicts the ambivalent - almost bipolar - relationship between Joan and Christina (the actual Crawford adopted four children, whom the script cuts to two - just one, really, for son Christopher is seen only a few times tethered to his bed and once again, at the fateful reading of the will).
No little pitcher with big ears was nearby when Joan, in gingham apron and high-heeled white work shoes, scrubs the floor and bellows to the maid `I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt' or when, in one of Dunaway's rip-the-envelope-open scenes, emasculates the entire board of directors of Pepsico.Dunaway's impersonation of Crawford is in many ways unforgettably overripe (and her performance been received as both extraordinary and execrable; she herself is on record as regretting that she did the movie at all).
Mommie Dearest is a fun movie leaving me (?strangely?) unsympathetic for Christina and understanding and appreciating Joan Crawford even more.
If you've never seen this 1981 adaptation of Christina Crawford's hatchet job on her late adoptive mother, Hollywood legend Joan, chances are you've heard about Faye Dunaway's unhinged lead performance.
After an hour or so of watching Faye chop the hair off, beat and insult poor little Mara Hobel (few movies are simultaneously so ridiculous and so disturbing), Scarwid shows up as teenage Christina, dressed like the Statue of Liberty and reciting lines from Jean Anouihl's "Antigone" (cute, guys) and somehow manages to get less believable from that point onward.
Even though she was the first runner-up for the New York Film Critics Award, Faye Dunaway disavows her performance as screen icon Joan Crawford because the camp following this 1981 potboiler has developed over the years has probably been overwhelming.
Dunaway's snub in participating (as well as director Frank Perry's death) means having flamboyant director John Waters pinch-hit on the commentary track, and he manages to be both funny and insightful as he shares lots of apocryphal gossip and zingy one-liners to bring a whole new flavor to the execrable film.Among his many errors in judgment, Perry decided to film the story of Crawford's mid-to-late years (or more appropriately, her adopted daughter Christina's version of it) as if the movie was one of Crawford's own overripe films.
The 14-minute "The Revival of Joan Crawford" shows the genesis of the movie from Christina's red-hot best seller with contributions from Scarwid, Alda and producer Frank Yablans, who speaks candidly about Dunaway's tempestuous perfectionism.
The thing that makes the movie float above the rest of camp classics is the fact that it is based on an informative book by Joan's daughter, Christina.
Scarwid broke the movie by vice of her apathy to the role she played (I would have thought in all accounts that if a child was abused, they would come out of it with a newfound understanding of their own inner strength and fight like hell to survive, which is what the real Christina did, according to the book.
However, if you have read the book, the film version of MOMMIE DEAREST stands alone as one of the worst (and most enjoyable) movies that scream out, "What was anybody thinking???" This is basically the plot: Joan feels that her movie career is in a donward spiral.
I will admit his movie has little to no happy moments, but life is not always happy and doesn't always end happy.Mommie Dearest is realistic in way that you would not expect coming from the home of a Hollywood legend.It features Faye Dunaway in, what I consider, one of her best roles.
This culminates in an appropriately loosely edited, one-dimensional view of a mother who just happens to be an actress and film star.The film star status of women actors during Hollywood's golden-era was a result of a hard fought and won career pitted against a then chauvinistic Hollywood film industry where the likes of Ms. Crawford were in fact second-class citizens.As such they were treat accordingly of Victorian male values ingrained in business film moguls such as Louis.B. Mayer who would not take the financial risk of challenging largely,culturally conservative audiences' perspectives of women.For a career woman in a chauvinistic industry this has the potential to bring out the negative side of frustration of any film actor, the traits of which are then portrayed and interpreted as that of abusive behaviour from Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest.
Kudos also go to the brilliant performance of Faye Dunaway whose acting abilities in the role of 'Mommie dearest' would be the pride of the legendary Joan Crawford as a tribute to her acting skills..
When "Mommie Dearest" was made into a movie, I was invited to a press screening but skipped it when a friend of mine at Paramount told me it was utter garbage (I was never a Faye Dunaway fan anyway, finding her as cold and off-putting as the middle-aged Joan Crawford).
The reviews of the film were terrible, but within weeks, journalist friends informed me that a phenomenon had taken place--the movie had become an instant camp classic, with audience-participation unrivalled since "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."  Moviergoers flocked to the theaters showing "Mommie Dearest," armed with wire hangers and cans of Ajax.
Mommie Dearest is a film based on the book of the same title written by Joan Crawford's daughter, Christina Crawford.
This film and the book it is based off of tells the story of how Joan Crawford behaved behind closed doors with her children, how she abused them, had crazy/wild outbursts, which sometimes turned violent.
In my honest opinion, mommie dearest is very well acted, Faye Dunaway blew me away in her brutally honest portrayal of Hollywood legend Joan Crawford.
I think mommie dearest is a well made and well acted film telling the very sad true story of actress Joan Crawford and her private life and strained relationships with her children with with whom she woefully mistreated.
The movie doesn't stray far from the book but what Christina Crawford wrote is acted by Oscar winner Dunaway like she was never going to act again.
Mommie Dearest is a movie adaptation of a book written by Christina Crawford the adopted daughter of Joan Crawford.
I will admit later in the film we see an older Christina Crawford and yeah that acting is slightly odd but if you were beaten with coat hangers, yelled at then sent off to a boarding school cause you were the one being "bad" you would be slightly off too.I don't really like drama movies, hell I'm a comic book nerd.
For those who have actually seen Joan Crawford movies will agree that Faye Dunaway's performance was the closest thing to the real Joan, you can see this in her later performances in movies like "What ever happened to baby Jane?", "I saw what you did", and "Straight jacket", if people think Joan Crawford portrayal in Mommie dearest was exaggerated and overacted should do a little bit more research, some old articles mention her obsession with cleaning and her overwhelming fear of germs, if you think that today's divas are unbearable remember they didn't name it the Hollywood golden era for nothing, those days were when true glamor began.
If you think you know everything there is to know about Joan Crawford just because you saw "Mommie dearest" then you been missing out on many, many great performances by one of Hollywood's best actresses that ever lived..
Both Faye Dunaway (as Crawford) and Mara Hobel (as Christina) unarguably deserved Oscars for their stunning portrayals of a mother who was constantly teetering on the edge of insanity and a daughter forced to bear the brunt of her mothers violent and often disturbing outbursts.Despite the film losing momentum in the years of Christiana's adulthood (Diana Scarwid gives a lacklusture performance) it is in the early years that we see the full, horrifying power of this disturbing mother/daughter relationship.
It's interesting to note that the performance of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford -Cristina's titular "Mommie Dearest"- earned her the 41st place in the American Film Institute's Top 50 list of movie villains.
In a certain way, the opposite treatment can be used for movies that were so good they became boring, the very reason why "Mommie Dearest" might be more popular than an objectively superior film like say, "Reds", Beatty's epic from the same year or "The English Patient".
"Mommie Dearest" is the adaptation of Christina Crawford's controversial yet best-selling confession of the abuse she was victim of, as the adoptive daughter of Joan Crawford, during the years where the legendary icon faced sentimental troubles, struggles with major studios and alcoholism.
The only problem is that the director, whatever his name is, didn't intend to make a B-movie and I suspect he probably imagined his film consecrated in the Oscar's ceremony.The main handicap of "Mommie Dearest" is not Faye Dunaway's performance, she does a good job and so does the actress who plays the little daughter (inexplicable Razzie nomination), the problem relies on the script and the narrative structure.
It has scenes of raging tempers and even disturbing scenes of Faye Dunaway's Joan Crawford abusing her daughter in despicably psychotic ways, but the film is completely devoid of any recognizable pace, and if a pace is not recognizable, then what good is it?
But it certainly trashes the movie star with incidents that seem exaggerated to hold the attention.FAYE DUNAWAY's Joan Crawford is the sort of caricature that would be more appropriate on the Carol Burnett Show, where famous screen heroines were often ribbed in their award-winning roles.
There have been many movie biographys of film stars, but this one leaves a lasting impression.Faye Dunaway gives a completely over-the-top performance as Joan Crawford.
Faye Dunaway was superb as Joan Crawford, portraying her as a domineering, abusive and neglectful mother of her two adopted children (at one point admitting to Christine that she adopted them mainly for the publicity.) Apparently not one to let her parental responsibilities get in the way of her movie career, Crawford is shown as obsessed with trying to remain on top, demanding perfection and total obedience from all around her.
I got halfway through the famous "no more wire hangers!" scene, and turned it off at the point when Joan Crawford, played by Faye Dunaway, starts beating her daughter with a can of scouring powder; the most over-the-top portrayal of child abuse I've ever seen.
Faye Dunaway stars as movie queen Joan Crawford in this head-scratching film that leaves the viewer bewildered.
This movie is based on the book by Christina Crawford, Joan's adopted daughter.
MD is currently spending its half-life on HBO and several other cable stations that, for all this film's camp and unintentionally generated laughs, continue to intrigue and fascinate new generations of fans.On the upside: "Mommie Dearest" sports excellent production designs, makeup, costumes (worn mostly by actress Faye Dunaway as "Joan Crawford"), sets, a supporting cast and a sincere effort to capture the years between WW2 and 1977 (the year the Queen of Hollywood died).
Watch this movie for only one reason - Faye Dunaway's over-the-top performance as the legendary actress Joan Crawford.
When people ask me what scares me, I always tell them Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest."  I mean, just look at the way the swings that ax when she's p*****!