Reel Classics: ‘Mildred Pierce’

I’ll begin today’s review with the ques­tion, “What do you think of when you hear the term film noir?”

I believe most of us would think of the guy in a trench­coat and felt hat, a bit gruff, and involved with a trou­bled woman. As Donald Marshman, in a 1947 arti­cle in Life mag­a­zine, wrote, “...deep shad­ows, clutch­ing hands, explod­ing revolvers, sadis­tic vil­lains and hero­ines tor­ment­ed....”  We think of actors like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, or Dana Andrews. 

Today’s Reel Classic is of the film noir genre, but it is a bit dif­fer­ent from what we may typ­i­cal­ly think. The hero is not a pri­vate detec­tive or police offi­cer. Our hero doesn’t wear trench coats. Our hero is a work­ing-class sin­gle mom who cooks and bakes pies in addi­tion to her day job to sup­port her two daugh­ters. Our hero is Mildred Pierce, who is deter­mined to give all of her­self to make the best life for her daugh­ters. You may say, “This doesn’t sound like film noir!”  Oh, but as the sto­ry pro­gress­es, you will find the “deep shad­ows, clutch­ing hands, explod­ing revolvers, sadis­tic vil­lains and hero­ines tormented.” 

Mildred Pierce was based on a nov­el by famed author James M. Cain. Several of his books were brought to the screen and are high­ly regard­ed in the film noir genre. These include Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

The film Mildred Pierce begins with the “explod­ing revolver” and a corpse, and we find the char­ac­ters in the sto­ry brought into the police sta­tion to be inter­viewed by the police detec­tive. When Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) is brought in, we hear her sto­ry through flash­backs. She shares how she and her unem­ployed hus­band (Bruce Bennett), who was also hav­ing an affair, separated—and how she takes a job as a wait­ress to sup­port her two young daugh­ters. At night, she bakes cakes and pies and sells them to local restau­rants to sup­ple­ment her income. Her youngest daugh­ter Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe) is sweet and a bit of a tomboy. The old­est daugh­ter, Veda (Ann Blyth), is a spoiled teen who is ashamed of her mother’s social sta­tus and is focused on mate­r­i­al pos­ses­sions and her own inter­ests. Mildred focus­es on try­ing to pro­vide every­thing that Veda wants to keep her hap­py. To use the descrip­tion of Veda from the Criterion site, she is “a femme fatale in bob­by socks:  manip­u­la­tive, deceit­ful, self­ish, and cold-blooded.”

Young Kay becomes sick from pneu­mo­nia and even­tu­al­ly suc­cumbs, leav­ing Mildred heart­bro­ken. However, she resolves to do every­thing with­in her pow­er to move up the social lad­der and pro­vide Veda with every­thing she wants. Mildred even­tu­al­ly becomes so suc­cess­ful in her bak­ing efforts that she receives some finan­cial sup­port and opens her own restau­rant. Its suc­cess leads to the open­ing of sev­er­al oth­ers, and Mildred now has the income to pro­vide Veda with her wants. She even mar­ries to gain social sta­tus for Veda—but Veda con­tin­ues to lack appre­ci­a­tion and exhibits con­tempt for her mother. 

As the flash­back sto­ry con­tin­ues, we come to the night of the fatal shoot­ing, and we know that the vic­tim is Mildred’s hus­band, Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott). As with any decent mys­tery sto­ry, twists and turns lead us to the finale. But, as usu­al, no spoil­ers here. 

Other char­ac­ters in the sto­ry include Mildred’s busi­ness part­ner (and con­stant roman­tic pur­suer) Wally Fay (Jack Carson). Mildred’s good friend and assis­tant in run­ning the busi­ness is Ida Corwin (Eve Arden). She also pro­vides a bit of com­ic relief in the sto­ry. A cou­ple of exam­ples of her one-lin­ers include: “When men get around me, they get aller­gic to wed­ding rings” and, “Personally, Veda’s con­vinced me that alli­ga­tors have the right idea. They eat their young.” 

Mildred Pierce was direct­ed by the well-known and respect­ed Michael Curtiz. Other famous films direct­ed by him include The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and his most renowned effort, Casablanca (1943). Curtiz was born in Hungary and came to Hollywood in 1926. Over his career, he worked with many big-name stars, includ­ing Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and Ingrid Bergman.

Interestingly, Curtiz did not want Joan Crawford in the lead role. Crawford had been in films since the 1920s and had risen in the MGM Studio as one of their top stars. However, in the ear­ly 1940s, she was in sev­er­al flops, and her career was in decline. She left MGM and went to Warner Brothers, hop­ing to rebuild her career. She pur­sued the role of Mildred Pierce when many oth­er actress­es were not interested—the main rea­son being they did not want to play the part of a mid­dle-aged moth­er of a teenager. 

Curtiz resist­ed because he saw her try­ing to make the char­ac­ter too glam­orous. She was well known for wear­ing shoul­der pads, and he chid­ed her for that. Reportedly, they argued open­ly on the set, each want­i­ng the oth­er replaced. However, as the work pro­gressed, they came to respect and appre­ci­ate each oth­er. When the film was com­plet­ed, they were on good terms, and Joan Crawford pro­vid­ed Michael Curtiz with a part­ing gift—a pair of over­sized shoul­der pads. They became friends and worked togeth­er a few years lat­er on the film Flamingo Road.

Other actress­es con­sid­ered for the lead role includ­ed Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell, and Myrna Loy. Reportedly Bette Davis had been offered the role but turned it down. Shirley Temple had been con­sid­ered for the role of Veda, which went to Ann Blyth. Blyth was only six­teen when the film was made.

Another famil­iar face in the cast is that of Butterfly McQueen, who plays the role of Lottie. Most peo­ple will remem­ber her as Prissy in Gone With The Wind and her mem­o­rable quote:  “I don’t know noth­in’ ’bout birthin’ babies!” 

Mildred Pierce was nom­i­nat­ed for six Academy Awards, includ­ing Best Picture, Best Actress (Joan Crawford), and two Best Supporting Actress nom­i­na­tions (Eve Arden and Ann Blyth). Crawford won the Oscar that year. It was her only Academy Award win. The film was also a huge box office success—earning more than 50% of Warner Brothers prof­its in 1945.

Reportedly, after see­ing the film, James M. Cain sent Joan Crawford a signed first edi­tion of the nov­el. His inscrip­tion in the book read, “To Joan Crawford, who brought Mildred Pierce to life just as I had always hoped she would be, and who has my life­long gratitude.” 

Variety’s crit­icwas com­pli­men­ta­ry of the film. He wrote: “...The dra­mat­ics are heavy but so skill­ful­ly han­dled that they nev­er cloy. Joan Crawford reach­es the peak of her act­ing career in this pic. Ann Blyth, as the daugh­ter, scores dra­mat­i­cal­ly in her first gen­uine act­ing assign­ment. Zachary Scott makes the most of his char­ac­ter as the Pasadena heel, a tal­ent­ed performance.” 

In a more recent review, Rotten Tomatoes aggre­gate review states: “Tied togeth­er by a pow­er­house per­for­mance from Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce blends noir and social dra­ma to soapi­ly intox­i­cat­ing effect.” 

In 1996 Mildred Pierce was iden­ti­fied to be pre­served in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. 

Lux Radio Theater broad­cast two adap­ta­tions of the film in June 1949 and again in July 1954. A five-part minis­eries was broad­cast on HBO in 2011 star­ring Kate Winslet as Mildred Pierce, Evan Rachel Wood as Veda, and Mare Winningham as Ida. 

A quote from the National Film Registry site sums up the impact of the film at the time (and today, for that mat­ter): “Audiences, espe­cial­ly women, would iden­ti­fy with Mildred (and with Joan) because she embod­ied the ide­al wartime spir­it. She sac­ri­ficed every­thing she had to keep her fam­i­ly intact, and she stood stronger and wis­er at the end of the bat­tle in spite of the Hell she had been through.” 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates Mildred Pierce at 7.9 out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 88% and an Audience Score of 90%. 

In search­ing my Roku device, I could not find any free stream­ing sites for Mildred Pierce but the Clark County Public Library does have the DVD on the shelf. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below, let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film, usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon. Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed. More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site, Facebook page, and WinCity Voices Facebook page.