Mildred Pierce

Plot synopsis:
Following several gunshots, Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) collapses in the living room of a beach house. He whispers the name "Mildred," and dies. His wife, Mildred Pierce-Beragon (Joan Crawford), soon arrives at the police station and acts suspiciously nervous, though denies killing her husband. When the police reveal the man they believe to be the culprit- Mildred's first husband, Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett), who was the owner of the murder weapon- Mildred proclaims his innocence with emotion. Realizing that she knows more than she lets on, the detectives gather information from Mildred.Several years earlier, Mildred was married to Bert and spent her days as a housewife in their middle-class home. Her chief concern was providing all she could for their two daughters, Veda (Ann Blyth) and Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe). Bert loses his job, and reveals his frustration with Mildred's treatment of their children; namely showering them with expenses they cannot afford. Mildred sells baked goods to the neighbors to afford gifts for Veda in particular, but Bert chastises her for spoiling the girl. It is suggested that Bert has been unfaithful, and the two agree to separate. Mildred reveals the news to her daughters that afternoon when they return from school and witness Bert packing the car and driving off. Kay, the younger tomboyish daughter, is deeply saddened that her father had left, but snobbish teenage Veda is more concerned that they will no longer be able to afford any luxuries. Veda's status hunger and greed is shown when she tries on a dress that Mildred had scrimped to buy her, and calls it nothing more than a rag.Desperate for money, Mildred takes a job as a waitress at a local restaurant. She begins to excel at restaurant work, but keeps her job a secret for fear of being judged by Veda. However, Veda finds her mother's waitress uniform and gives it to their maid (Butterfly McQueen) to wear, intending to indirectly reveal her suspicion. Mildred admits her occupation, and Veda acts disgusted by her mother's "common" behavior. Mildred aspires to open her own restaurant, and with the help of family friend Wally Fay (Jack Carson), she locks down a piece of real estate for it. Mildred decides to divorce Bert for the security of her future business. The owner of the building, Monte Beragon, seems to be a well-mannered, intelligent man, and he begins a romance with Mildred after she buys the property.Bert visited his daughters and took them on vacation, but upon their return informs Mildred that Kay has come down with pneumonia. They get her to a doctor, but he is unable to save her. A grief-stricken Mildred puts every ounce of her energy into her restaurant, which quickly becomes successful. Her divorce comes through, and she and Bert part on good terms. Mildred uses her new found wealth to open more restaurants, and to shower Veda with luxurious gifts. Veda grows more and more spoiled and ungrateful, and enters into a relationship with a wealthy young man. Monte, meanwhile, has been using large amounts of Mildred's money to furnish his own playboy lifestyle, and also becoming strangely close with Veda. Mildred leaves him, but gives him a large sum in compensation.Veda claims that she had eloped with Teddy Forrester, a young man from a wealthy family, though she admits to not loving him. Teddy's mother insists they annul the marriage and Mildred agrees, though she does not care for Mrs. Forrester's snobbish attitude. At the lawyer's office, the Pierce's are about to be denied a $10,000 settlement for the annulment, due to Mildred's wealth. To secure the payment for herself, Veda claims that she is pregnant. When she arrives home, she gloats to her mother that her pregnancy was a lie, and that she now has the money to leave home forever. Mildred rips up the check. Veda slaps her, and is turned out of the house.Mildred, deeply hurt and conflicted by Veda's actions, lives in Mexico for several years before returning home to California. She meets with Bert and asks after Veda. He takes her to Wally Fay's bar, where she now performs as a lounge singer. Mildred reunites with her and begs her to come home, but Veda insults her further and claims that she wants the life Monte had described to her years ago. Mildred leaves, determined to win her daughter back. She visits Monte, and asks him to marry her. He agrees, in exchange for ownership of a third of Mildred's restaurant stock.Bert visits Mildred after her wedding, and she admits she does not love Monte, but will do anything to bring Veda home. Bert reveals that Veda has agreed to return, and she shares a tearful reunion with her mother, promising to change her spoiled ways.During a lavish birthday party for Veda, Mildred is held up at the office discussing the financial toll her business has taken, due to Monte's scheming dealings. When Mildred arrives home, she is told that Monte and Veda have gone to Monte's beach house. Mildred follows them there, and discovers them kissing. Veda again acts entitled and cruel to her mother, boasting that Monte had only stayed with Mildred to have access to her daughter, and that they will soon marry. Mildred, incredibly hurt, leaves the house. Monte then rejects Veda's advances, saying he never loved her, and calling her "a rotten little tramp." A livid Veda pulls a revolver (belonging to her father) and shoots him dead. He gasps Mildred's name before collapsing.Mildred returns to the house after hearing the shots. Veda admits to killing Monte, and begs her mother to cover for her and provide her with money and time to escape. Knowing she can provide nothing more for Veda, Mildred calls the police. At the station, as Mildred finishes her interrogation, Veda is led in. After prompting from the police and further evidence, it is admitted that Veda is the true killer. She is calmly led to jail as Mildred weeps. Free to go, Mildred leaves the station, where she meets Bert. They walk away together, leaving their past behind.

Tags: melodrama, romantic, murder, flashback

Review:
With those broad shoulders, those wall-to-wall eyebrows, that steely look on her face, and wrapped in those expensive clothes, the inimitable Joan Crawford exudes glamour and resolve as famed Mildred Pierce, housewife turned businesswoman, in this Michael Curtiz-directed film, part mystery, part melodrama.The film's story, told in flashbacks, begins with mystery, and it is helped along by terrific B&W lighting.
Mildred tells how she differs from her husband, working upward as a business woman and how she is willing to do absolutely everything to their already spoiled daughter Veda.Mildred Pierce literally sparkles.
Then there is a former spouse who is living his new life in the periphery, the friend who is helpful, but not without being sure to reap the rewards of Mildred's success and even a new one that might not be what he appears to be.Crawford got a well-deserved Oscar for this film..
Her daughters were her whole life, doting unhealthily on Veda, the older one, especially (a very young Ann Blyth, herself nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this film).
Joan Crawford, one of the world's great movie stars, truly shines in "Mildred Pierce", a tense, prickly film noir full of suspense and drama!Joan is Mildred, a hard working pie and chicken maven who becomes a successful restuaranteur.
The lighting, the costumes, the sets, and most importantly, the writing all help this gem of a film become a true classic.Joan won an Oscar for her breathtaking performance, but the tour de force powerhouse in "Mildred Pierce" was Ann Blyth.
James M Cain's novel 'Mildred Pierce' was much tougher, dirtier, violent and cynical than the gorgeously mounted movie it became, but the film still manages to maintain enough of the flavor of the book to be interesting.
Within its first hour MILDRED PIERCE captures something anxious about American life and marriages and families that is more true than most of what movies had shown up to that time, and it would prove to be even more so in the postwar world to come.
The movie actually becomes more false and synthetic as it moves into Mildred's rise in life, but by then the plot and characters have taken hold.And so has the film's increasingly bleak look at what women can expect when they live and work alone in a man's world, beset by men who want to exploit them, sexually and otherwise.
Crawford gets able support from Ann Blyth, Eve Arden (as comedy relief; she is almost appearing in another movie entirely), Zachary Scott and especially Jack Carson, dead-on as a sweaty hustler and low rent lothario, bringing nuance to what could have been a one-note portrayal.
Bruce Bennett isn't really a good actor in the role of Mildred's first husband, but he's perfectly cast -- he looks like an Okie from one of Dorothea Lange's photographs who went west to 'make it' and never did.And as has been frequently mentioned here, Ernest Haller's cinematography (especially in the brilliant prints now being shown on cable) is consistently evocative and beautiful.
Directed by Michael Curtiz, and based on James M.Cain's steamy novel, "Mildred Pierce" is a slick stylish sudser that ranks among the best.After a decade-long streak at MGM, Crawford, made her way over to Warner Bros.
Blyth was the ultimate bitchy daughter and deserved the Oscar as supporting actress.I learned later of Crawfords huge comeback with this film, and not knowing her successes previously, it made perfect sense.
Although some of the situations and scenes suffer from the passage of time (the modern audience in the cinema, myself included, couldn't help laughing at some of the more ludicrous things said/done), the film as a whole worked, mostly on the strength of the performances.Joan Crawford won her only Oscar for her role, and it was well-deserved--she held the film together with a confident performance that ranged from charming and sassy, to desperate and almost frightening.
Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) is a tiring housewife living with his husband and two daughters .
Jack Carson as the way-too-horny slob and ruthless businessman/lawyer .IN THE MIDDLE - The lead character, Mildred Pierce, played by Joan Crawford.
Then, once rich and successful, Veda behaves much like Louise Beavers' daughter did in IMITATION OF LIFE--she had no respect or appreciation of her mom's hard work.This film garnered Joan Crawford an Oscar for Best Actress and while she did do a good job in the film, I couldn't help but think that this was not a great but more of a very competent performance.
It also has the standard issue noir look; veteran director Michael Curtiz knew his way around a movie set, and gives his film a moody, shadowy look perfectly at home among the "Maltese Falcon's" and "Double Indemnity's" of the decade.
That said, Mildred Pierce is a film noir character because she has secrets from the past that implicate people she loves in murder.
It was nominated for 6 Academy Awards and won just the one for Crawford in the Best Actress category.Plot finds Crawford as Mildred Pierce, a devoted Mother of two girls who struggles to not only make her marriage work, but to also keep her eldest daughter, Veda (Blyth), in the luxurious life she demands.
But Crawford, just entering her forties, took the role on, and in spite of initial protestations from director Curtiz, gave a terrific performance that landed her the coveted golden statuette and prolonged her film career for another 25 years.Blending the psychological aspects of the woman's picture with the physical edges of film noir, Mildred Pierce is something of a unique picture.
As film noir was becoming a telling genre in film making, Mildred Pierce also coincided with the later stages of WWII; A time when the role of the Woman, either in the service or at home, was under scrutiny.
One of the great things about the film, and the performance of Crawford, is that it cobbles together many character strands of the 40s woman: in life and in film noir.
Shifting from sunny suburbia one moment to shadowy expressionistic bleakness the next, the photographer of such notable film's like Gone With the Wind and Rebel Without a Cause, is integral to the moody excellence of Mildred Pierce.A murder mystery flanked by asides of class distinction, bad parenting, dubious sexual leanings and pure greed.
His wife Joan Crawford (Mildred) is one of those arrested and relates her story in flashback to Inspector Moroni Olsen (Peterson) but Olsen is playing a cat-and-mouse game with his interview technique in order to catch the killer.I liked this film.
It was a pure genre-film in which the basic realizations and bases of film-noir were internalized perfectly.In the title role stars Joan Crawford, who won herself an Oscar for this performance, as Mildred Pierce: a strong independent woman who, after her husband leaves her, tries to attain an affluent lifestyle on her own.
The true nature of this tragedy starts to reveal itself when Mildred's daughter begins to show interest for Mildred's new husband.When writing about Mildred Pierce, we could easily start analyzing and interpreting the entire genre of film-noir -- as it is one of its finest blossoms.
All the people are double-crossing each other and try to fix their desolate situations by money and success but only to find themselves from worse tragedies.At its heart, Mildred Pierce is a mother-daughter drama and all the film noir-like crimes are actually done on personal level: in the relationships which are filled with greed, betrayal and passion.
Joan Crawford stars as Mildred Pierce,a divorced mother who spoils her daughters in the hope of there love and approval, especially her oldest daughter Veda.
I truly felt bad for Mildred Pierce in the movie but at the same time I realized how naive and soft she had become with her daughter veda who was spectacular in playing a seductive,spoiled brat who was hungry for money.
Michael Curtis the director of the film did a great job of using flashbacks and different lighting and scores to signify the mood of the people involved in each scene while leading you to the climatic action that surprises you and a twist that you would have never seen coming..
In all other ways Mildred Pierce follows the model for a great film noire.
Joan Crawford is astonishingly great in the title role, and so is Jack Carson as the smiley-faced Wally and Ann Blyth as the sadistic Veda.
Every time I watch Mildred Pierce I can't conceive of myself or any of my siblings treating our mother the way Ann Blyth treats Joan Crawford.
But Ann Blyth may very well be the Queen of all bad seed children ever put on film.Crawford won her Oscar in 1945 for Best Actress and this gave her career a fifteen year lease on life.
It begins with anintroductory sequence that shows a man being shot, a woman(Mildred Pierce herself, as played by Crawford) walking across abridge in tears, making almost as if to jump off before beingstopped by a police officer, and then finding an acquaintance(Wally Fay, played by Carson) at a restaurant and taking him to anelaborate beach house-the one where the man was shot, wherehis body still is.
The power of Mildred Pierce is that it makes a common trope or type or just one of those things that people associate the Film-Noir picture with - the "Femme Fatale" dame who ruins things for the man, usually leading in death - is given the personal treatment; "every girl's got a mother," says even the co-'headliner' at the small club that daughter Veda is singing at after being kicked out of her house by her mother of the title, and this is about, I suppose one could say, that character's mother as the protagonist.
I don't suppose one could've made the film from the man's point of view, as this isn't the sort of story like Double Indemnity where we can at least kind-of-sort-of relate to slick Fred MacMurray getting in over his head; Zachary Scott's Monte is a scoundrel, and in a way is not the 'Average Joe', but the kind of rich pile of crap that, sadly, women sometimes aspire to have - and maybe the same man throws interest as well.So we have the story as told from the point of view of Mildred Pierce.
Actually I have to think one of the appealed to Warner and Crawford and Curtiz is that it gets to have multiple cakes and eat it: it's a story of a woman finding the sort of independence that men take for granted (or, for a long time, remember it's not too long in modern times women could even *own* property of their own or have their own bank accounts, not even allow or look down upon), while at the same time Veda is one of the snottiest bitches in the history of that period of film.
If I could describe it with one word, I think the best I could come up with would be "sturdy." It's well acted, with Joan Crawford giving an excellent performance as a leading lady in a genre filled mainly with leading men, and the technical aspects of the film are good (although certainly not striking or memorable at any point) but none of this can really make up for the film's overall inability to be thrilling, or even compelling for that matter.After seeing Mildred Pierce for the first time I don't think it even affected me enough for me to feel the need to form an opinion on it.
Alas, it's all for naughty Ann Blyth (as Veda), the mother of all selfish and ungrateful daughters."Mildred Pierce" is one of the model woman's movies of the 1940s.
Michael Curtiz directs this great drama about a woman Mildred Pierce(Joan Crawford)and her struggles to become a success in the business world.
But what Mildred really wants  the love of her daughter Veda is still not received, and despite going to extreme lengths, never receives it.In the lead role, Joan Crawford is superb.
Although Cain's novels are somewhat turned upside down and all around when it comes to making one of his books into a movie(witness "The Postman Always Rings Twice) - this is a wonderful melodrama that puts Joan Crawford in an unusual role as a self-sacrificing mother who will do anything to protect her selfish, manipulative daughter, so well-played by Ann Blyth.I could watch this movie about once a year, it's so good.
One of the factors in that style of film making is that none of the main characters are up to any good - they all have some hidden agenda and/or some dark secret."Mildred Pierce" fits under drama, soap opera, etc.
Now I know what it feels like to be tipped." And the noir lighting, as many fans of the movie have noticed, is first rate (even though Mildred Pierce is nothing more than a noir-wannabe, one with way too much sunlight, scenes of California beaches, restaurants that are cheerful and busy and profitable--and of course the leading lady's wardrobe.
She tells the police the story of their marriage where Bert left her alone with two children  the tomboyish Kay and the materialistic Veda; how she started to work in a restaurant before eventually being able to open up her own place and making the money that she needed to give Veda everything she wants out of life.Despite knowing that it is one of Joan Crawford's better films I didn't know a great deal about it and decided to make good use of Christmas television by catching up on older films that I had never gotten round to seeing.
The film starts many years into the main story, using a murder to trigger a flashback into a rather melodramatic story where Mildred's maternal instincts are directed towards the pursuit of money for her demanding daughter Veda.
Joan Crawford plays the title role, a mother who will do anything for her selfish daughter Veda, played by Ann Blyth.
Mildred even goes into business, becoming a successful restaurant owner, but Veda is still ungrateful even as her mother has provided her opportunities in society.Jack Carson plays Wally Fay, a man Mildred manipulates; Zachary Scott is Monte Beragon, another who gets involved in a tragic love triangle of sorts with Crawford's and Blyth's characters.
And it retains that compelling grip right through to its final, climatic twist-ending.Told mainly in flashbacks (with voice-over narration by Joan Crawford), Mildred Pierce's story tells the tale of a devoted mother and house-wife, who, after divorcing her two-timing husband, proves that she can become independent and successful in the world of business.
But through all of her toil and trouble she cannot win the approval of her spoiled-rotten daughter.Filmed in b&w, Mildred Pierce features a really first-rate cast headlined by Jack Carson, Ann Blyth and Bruce Bennett.Joan Crawford's performance (playing the title character) won her an Oscar for "Best Actress".This picture was adapted from the novel of the same name written by James Cain whose other notable works include - Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice..
The film is renowned for featuring Joan Crawford's signature role, earning her the Oscar for Best Actress after she was fired from MGM, but although I was sensible to the poignancy of her role, I thought she was so melodramatic at times that Ann Blyth, could easily steal her thunder by remaining so horribly phlegmatic.A great villain always makes a film, the more you hate him or her, the most chances you have to appreciate the film, and "Mildred Pierce" is no exception.
For the most part the plot is decent, but the acting is what really did it for me.Joan Crawford was unbelievable (in the good way) as Mildred, a successful working mother who is overly devoted to meeting the demands of her her child and may or may not have been involved with a murder.
Mildred, portrayed by Joan Crawford is the mother who is trying to win the approval of her selfish, self-centered daughter.
Cain, Michael Curtiz's production of the 1945 film, "Mildred Pierce" was good.
Throughout the whole film you wanted to reach in, grab Mildred (Joan Crawford) and shake her for being so giving and nice to her horrible, spoiled, selfish daughter Veda (Ann Blyth).
A solid blend of mystery and melodrama, "Mildred Pierce" is probably best remembered for Joan Crawford, but it also has a talented supporting cast and some good atmospheric sequences.
Ann Blyth succeeds in her role as Mildred's scheming daughter, even holding her own in her scenes with Crawford.The production is good as well, and it is somewhat interesting in that it takes what at first appears to be a film-noirish story, and casts it more as a melodrama.
Joan Crawford gives an Academy Award winning performance in the title role of this melodramatic film noir.
Crawfords character, Mildred Pierce, spends her life trying to please her greedy selfish daughter Veda, and eventually this all comes to a sudden tragic end.
In these Film Noir movies, women are also shown as having a bad sad, which we see in Mildred Pierce, because she kills her boyfriend to have his home.
Mildred Pierce is your classic example of a film Noir.
The acting was great, the story was really good i thought, but the best thing about this movie was the way it looked.
"Mildred Pierce" is a unique film noir in that it features a woman as the main character, but the movie pulls this off very well and stays true to the film genre.
A classic film noir in Mildred Pierce.
A classic film noir in Mildred Pierce.
Joan Crawford was brilliant as Mildred Pierce and the audience is able to feel her struggles throughout the film.
Mildred Pierce is a classic film noir, and I like the fact that the main character was a female, as were some of the more compelling characters.