70/100

Watched this nearly back-to-back with Haynes' version (second viewing in both cases; hadn't seen the Curtiz in over 20 years), and could now write an epic piece on the challenges of literary adaptation, as well as a separate epic piece on artificiality vs. naturalism. Strict fidelity to Cain's novel wasn't even remotely an option for 1945 Hollywood, of course, but the choice to reconceive the story as a sort of murder mystery, told in flashback, seems inspired as much by necessary compression as by the dictates of the Hays Code. Like Glazer's Under the Skin, Curtiz's Mildred Pierce is essentially an original work very loosely inspired by its source; useful elements were retained and transformed, while everything else (most…

Film #20 of Project 40

”Personally, I think alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.”

For two reasons Mildred Pierce is a historically significant movie: first unlike most of the male dominant movies of the Golden Age of noir its central character is a woman who is fighting to build her own universe in the middle of a masculine world and second it might be one of the earliest movies to employ flashback technique to tell its story. This is a movie where you can witness the genius of Michael Curtiz in every frame, you can see it in the shadows that like ominous beasts chase characters wherever they go, in the almost faultless narrative of the film…

After twenty-years in the business and eighteen-years at MGM, Joan Crawford went over to Warner where she's make this her first picture and this would win her the only Best Actress Oscar in her career.

In the film she plays the title character, a housewife who is forced to work as a waitress after her husband leaves her. Through hard work she manages to start a chain of restaurants but even this isn't good enough for her spoiled daughter (Ann Blyth) who she most wants to make happy.

Director Michael Crutiz was without question the perfect choice for this picture because he could handle just about any type of picture and this one here has quite a few different genres…