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| Mildred Pierce | |||
"Joan Crawford’s stardom faltered in the mid-1940s and from 1943, when her contract with MGM lapsed, until 1945 she was out of work. The consensus was that with her 40th birthday approaching, her popularity was over. Then producer Jerry Wald at Warner’s found her the role of her life. Mildred Pierce not only won her the Oscar but took a box-office fortune and put her back in the front rank, with a career that would extend another 25 years… the most remarkable comeback in Hollywood history." – George Perry, BBC Films "When a single movie turns out as good as Mildred Pierce, there’s a tendency to just step back, list the unpredictable but hindsight-obvious factors that made it a classic, and then fold one’s hands. Mildred Pierce started as a novel by James M Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity) that was considered too oversexed for the page, let alone the screen.… Mildred has her brood to nurture and little else matters. But she has grave faults, favoring one daughter [Veda] over the other.… Audiences had certainly never seen a female reptile like Veda on screen before, but they immediately recognized her from real life. James M Cain didn’t have to invent this contemptuous User for whom any gift is too shabby. Veda greedily consumes luxuries, pretending to love their source while constantly angling for a better deal…. As incarnated by the beautiful, sneering Ann Blyth, she’s insincere and transparently patronizing from the start. Even the fatheaded Wally Fay soon sees the distortion in Veda’s personality, but Mildred stays blindly devoted to the bitter end…. Mildred Pierce is probably Michael Curtiz’s best drama next to Casablanca. It’s directed with bold efficiency, deftly nailing every visual and script point before quickly moving on. The story covers twice the material in half the time of most pictures then or now, and what might have read as too-rushed on the script page unfolds perfectly, with all the emotional touches in the right places. Mildred’s ambition is sketched but not belabored. Through Curtiz’s nervous camera, we get the impression of a world always on the move, never resting, a good filmic approximation of Cain’s unsettled, vaguely desperate characters. Even those under-elaborated (Bert Pierce) or abandoned by the fast pace (Ida Corwin) make indelible impressions. Zachary Scott followed up his perfect performance here by playing a succession of even nastier creeps. Disposable jokester Jack Carson is the big surprise of the film. Tossed off in one stupid Warners comedy after another, he nails the everyday venality of Wally Fay, Hollywood’s first honest (if hardboiled) average American heel. He’s the used car salesman who laughs up his sleeve at the suckers, or the backstabbing business partner who then expects his victim to be a good sport." – Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant |
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| USA 1945 | |||
Director: Michael Curtiz With: Joan Crawford (Mildred Pierce), Jack Carson (Wally Fay), Zachary Scott (Monte Beragon), Eve Arden (Ida Corwin), Ann Blyth (Veda Pierce), Bruce Bennett (Bert Pierce), Lee Patrick (Mrs Maggie Biederhof), Moroni Olsen (Inspector Peterson), Veda Ann Borg (Miriam Ellis), Jo Ann Marlowe (Kay Pierce) 111 mins, 35mm (1,37:1), black and white PG low level violence Waitati Film Society |
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