Mildred Pierce

Joan Crawford is just so perfect as the title character in 1945's MILDRED PIERCE.  I've only seen a handful of her films, but it's probably safe to say that this is one of her finest hours.  For most people of my generation, Crawford is best known via Faye Dunaway's portrayal in MOMMIE DEAREST, sadly.  More of a cartoon character.  Maybe it was accurate.  Maybe she was a monster.  Onscreen, she owns this part and shifts emotions like a master. The Oscar was well earned.

Director Michael Curtiz, working from Ranald MacDougall's screenplay, an adaption of James M. Cain's same named novel, immediately commands audience attention with a beautifully rendered murder scene.  The next fifteen minutes or so are also quite stellar.  Every beat is correct, as they say.  Had the film sustained this level of craft, I would rank it with the Finest.  

The rest of the film, told mostly in flashback, is still quite good.  Mildred Pierce finds herself before a detective after her second husband, Monte (Zachary Scott) is gunned down.  He and even the viewer are not so sure she isn't the assailant.  The police have Mildred's first husband, Bert (Bruce Bennett) as the prime suspect for this crime, to which he even confessed.  

But Mildred can't believe such a gentle soul could've done it.  She tells the detective the long, sad story leading to the brutal shooting.  Bert had walked out on her and their two children, the bitchy Veda (Ann Blyth) and younger, tomboyish Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe) after a quarrel involving her favoritism of the girls over him.  And his infidelity.  Veda is a wannabe society matron who is ashamed of their middle class life.  A true brat, but Mildred will spend the movie doing anything she can to support the illusion of upward mobility, the only thing that may gain the love and approval of her ungrateful daughter.  

Mildred will become a waitress, later a restaurant magnate.  She will meet the playboy heir/good-for- nothing Monte.  Sparks fly, at first.  But by the time Mildred Pierce marries him, it's a last ditch effort to reconcile with Veda.  Another loveless marriage.

A fair amount of tragedy unfolds in MILDRED PIERCE, and Curtiz frames it like a first class soap opera.  His film is also a noir, and the elements blend favorably.  There are some maddening implausibilities.  When Veda fakes a pregnancy to get money from the family of the wealthy guy she marries and divorces, why doesn't anyone actually verify that pregnancy?  More questions we aren't supposed to ask.

But the film is quite absorbing and striking at times.  And Crawford's sympathetic, well modulated performance is all the reason needed to see it.