TCM Pick O’ The Day: Monday, February 9th
by John Nolte
12:45pm PST – Mildred Pierce (1945) – A woman turns herself into a business tycoon to win her selfish daughter a place in society. Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden Dir: Michael Curtiz BW-111 mins, TV-PG
An interesting exercise would be to watch a double feature of the just released “He’s Just Not That Into You” and today’s pick as example number 11,283 of what’s wrong with Big Hollywood. Liberals dominate Big Hollywood and more women are in positions of power than ever before, and yet “Into You,” like most female driven films today, alternately portrays its five female leads as home wreckers, one-dimensional neurotics, or pathetically needy near-stalkers — but all are as emotionally dependent on men as is possible. Compare that to Hollywood 64 years ago when men (many of them conservative) dominated the film industry and created a slew of top-shelf melodramas populated with complicated, flawed, but very human and usually very strong (at least at the fade) women like Mildred Pierce.
For her work here as a mother who goes too far in order to satisfy an ungrateful daughter, Joan Crawford would finally win the Best Actress Oscar she wanted badly enough to leave her home of two decades at MGM in order to sign with Warner Brothers. Good thing too, for this would become her defining role, and rightly so. Crawford’s thoroughly convincing performance carries the picture and makes you believe every melodramatic (in a good way) turn and twist of the plot.
Part noir, part soaper, “Mildred Pierce” is based on James M. Cain’s bestseller about a smart, independent woman blinded by maternal love. The story opens on her making a bad choice and then takes us through the journey required to help her realize that, including failed marriages, the rise and fall of a self-made business, and ultimately murder.
At the end of the film, when we leave Mildred, her life’s pretty much in shambles. However, we also know to what extent it’s possible that “happily ever after” is finally within her grasp. And not because of some man who came to his senses (set to a familiar pop song) to complete her.
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13 Comments
"Mildred Pierce" is an outstanding movie, and Joan Crawford is brilliant. It's pretty amazing how we slowly but inexorably have been led into a world in which movies feature men acting like boys and women acting like girls. James M. Cain created some of the most memorable female characters in the history of moviedom, resulting in films like "Mildred Pierce" and "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice." Dashiell Hammett invented Nora Charles and Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Raymond Chandler gave us Vivian Sternwood Rutledge. Margaret Mitchell produced Scarlett O'Hara. Brave, independent women, daring to fight on their own terms. There are some women in Hollywood today who are at least as strong-willed as Bacall and Turner and Crawford and Stanwyck, but the movies they make just don't match up. Maybe it's just because the stakes aren't as high…women won the battle of the sexes long ago, at least as far as Hollywood is concerned, and so we see a glut of males who either are hyper-macho or virtually emasculated, and females who are hyper-emotional or virtually indistinguishable from their male counterparts. In any event, "Mildred Pierce" deserves watching, if for no other reason than to see how Hollywood used to be capable of producing sophisticated movies.
I'm not so sure I agree with the women's studies take on Mildred. Don't forget we are supposed to empathize with Mildred's sacrifices for her ungrateful daughter- sacrifices that were ultimately for nothing. I always interpreted the cleaning woman in the end to symbolize the millions of Mildred Pierce's everywhere, working their fingers to the bone for their own Vidas. I don't think Mildred is being punished for being independent but rather for giving too much and if anything spoiling Vida. She is so filled with good intentions she is blind to what's going on around her. Ah the masochistic agony that was Joan Crawford at her best!
Yep, yep, yep, pulls you in and you can’t look away. Repulsive characters, greed, sacrifice… Ah, for the days of storytelling.
Inspired a weird and scary Sonic Youth song, too.
Loved this movie. I love it when Joan is “sincere”. Great stuff.
Love this movie, wish they’d put out a better dvd package. Briscoe, I got much the same interpretation as you–Mildred commits the sin of emasculating her husband by taking in washing and making cakes to fund her daughter’s activities which he can’t afford on his salary–meanwhile he’s cheating on her with a wealthy widow–and is ultimately ‘punished’ for being an independent woman (as is Scarlet O’Hara for spending the entire movie lusting after another woman’s husband, and Stanwyck’s Mrs. Dietrichson is punished with death for her adultery as well) as societal conventions and the Hays’ code required. Ah, the good old days!
There is no equal to Crawford today. Like Crawford, Angelina Jolie can turn the rage on and off like a switch – but it never seems as real, it always seems more like she’s showing off how versatile she is. Watching “The Changeling,” for instance, all I could think was how much better it would have been with Crawford in it – at any age!
JERSEYDAN–I loved my film appreciation class, but nothing spoils a good flick like over analyzing it. (Loved the soapiness years ago, love looking at her amazing outfits and makeup today. Those furs! WOW! And Eve Arden is great, too) I strongly suspect the cleaning lady is just a cleaning lady: an extra placed to set the time of day as dawn, after the long, dark night of Mildred’s reminisces, and we get the streaming sunlight of a New Day.
The argument that Mildred Pierce was punished for stepping out of the traditional role of a woman in those days makes no sense.
Mildred wasn’t driven by a desire to do anything other than be a mother. Her business success wasn’t a result of her ambition to own a business, it was driven by her desire to be a mother who was loved, respected and appreciated by her daughter.
Finally, Mildred wasn’t emasculating her first husband by providing things for the child he couldn’t, Mildred was spoiling the child and turning her into a monster.
These absurd “women’s studies” attacks and the like, is one of the big reasons films from this era are unfairly stereotyped as “sexist,” “old fashioned,” and worse… It’s a deconstruction based on nonsense.
Especially silly is the scrubbing women as a symbol of Mildred’s crime against men. I see it as just the opposite. What could be more punishing than scrubbing floors on your knees at dawn? Why are these women being punished? Had they stepped out of their traditional roles?
I’ve always found the subtext of the scrubbing women as a symbol that life is hard for women — which, of course, is one of the over-arching themes of the film.
It’s also worth pointing out that when the film’s over, for the first time since we’ve met her, Mildred no longer needs a man. Remember, as soon as her husband left she got into business with Jack Carson and Zachary Scott. She NEEDED them in order to get what she wanted — to fulfill her misplaced goals.
At the end of the film, she doesn’t need her ex-husband. She doesn’t need anyone. She’s finally grown into a truly independent woman. All that’s happened is that she’s learned to appreciate her ex, and maybe they’ll get back together.
But her days of NEEDING men, needing anyone, are long behind her. In no way does MP leave you with the impression that if she doesn’t get back together with her ex she can’t survive.
Just the opposite, which is why if they do get together their relationship will probably be much richer.
Charles: Because ‘The Changeling” was a little schizo and unable to decide what kind of “woman’s film” to wanted to be, I 1/3 agree with you.
Crawford would’ve been wonderful as the mother grinding through the court system, following the killer’s trial and being mis-treated by the cops, but it was Olivia de Havilland who should’ve gone to the mental hospital and Barbara Stanwyck dealing with the domestic stuff. She’d have looked great on roller skates.
Mildred Pierce, one of the great ones.
First off, after the obvious impact that Joan Crawford had on the film, we have to appreciate the work of the director,Michael Curtiz and of DP Ernest Haller. Just look at the movie with the sound turned off and admire it. Really good work there. Admire the opening sequence. Too bad we can’t watch it, just picture and music; the Max Steiner score is terrific too.
Beyond that, there is a sense of balance to the film that I like. I like hearing the Chief of Police tell Mildred “detectives have souls, same as any one else”. That may sound silly, but it is good to know. And I like his analogy that crime-solving is like building an automobile, “you take all the pieces and put them together and you’ve got an automobile — or a murderer.” There is a cosmic proportion and a comforting sense of justice in the story. Mildred works to give her daughter, Vida, every advantage. But she doesn’t give her a set of values. After all that work, Mildred achieves the triumph of Materialism. She’s got a big house, a fur coat and some other woman is scrubbing the floor. Okay, then what?
John said: “. . . example number 11,283 of what’s wrong with Big Hollywood. Liberals dominate Big Hollywood and more women are in positions of power than ever before. . . .”
Um, when you’ve got a website named “Big Hollywood” you might need to find a different name for the other (bad) “Big Hollywood.” Just sayin’.
["Side note: if we were to rank the best American movies of the 1940s, MP might not make the top 10. On the other hand, you could make a decent argument that MP is better than any America movie made in the last 15 years. "]
I can think of a lot of movies made in the last 15 years that are better than MILDRED PIERCE. And I have a slightly high opinion of the latter.
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