Mildred Pierce (DVD)

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As a kid growing up in the fifties when my experiences with motion pictures in theaters and on TV were just developing, leading female movie stars all tended to merge into one. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Deborah Kerr, whoever--they were basically one to me. It wasn't until much later, after most of them had seen their stars fade, that they began to come alive for me, mostly through cable television and videotape. Therefore, it's good to see that Warner Bros. have given several of these ladies, Davis and Crawford, their special due in individual box sets.

"The Joan Crawford Collection" contains five of the actress's most famous films, each of them also available separately: "The Women" (1939), "Humoresque" (1946), "Possessed" (1947), "The Damned Don't Cry" (1950), and the subject of our review, "Mildred Pierce" (1945).

"Mildred Pierce," titled for its main character, is based on a novel by James M. Cain, the same fellow who wrote "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice," so you have a pretty good idea what the picture is going to be like going in. We're in film-noir territory here. What's more, a glance at the director, Michael Curtiz, and the composer, Max Steiner, and you know you're in further capable hands. You do remember that Curtiz was responsible for directing "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "The Sea Hawk," "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Casablanca," "Life With Father," "White Christmas," and dozens of other hits; and that Steiner wrote the music for "King Kong," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "Gone With the Wind," "Now, Voyager," "The Big Sleep," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "The Searchers," and literally hundreds more. This was a first-rate production for Warner Bros., and they were leaving nothing to chance. It also helped rekindle Ms. Crawford's flickering career when she moved over to Warner Bros. from MGM.

The movie is on the surface a murder mystery, but, more important, it is a story of class warfare, of the struggles between the haves and the have-nots. As such, it provides a fascinating glimpse into two worlds that probably haven't changed all that much in fifty-odd years. Also fascinating is Crawford's role in the film as a slavishly devoted mother, an image strongly denounced by her own daughter's biography of her, "Mommie Dearest."

Things start out in true noir fashion with a murder in the first few seconds of screen time. A man is shot to death in a Southern California beach house by an unseen assailant. His dying word is "Mildred." Shortly thereafter the police arrive, and we find out the victim was a Mr. Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), Mildred's Pierce Beragon's second husband. Most of the rest of the movie is told in flashback as Mildred (Crawford) details to a police inspector (Moroni Olsen) the years leading up to the tragedy.

Seems she was happily married once to a Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett), a Realtor working for one of Mildred's old flames, Wally Fay (Jack Carson). But Bert is let go one day, the bills accumulate, and Mildred has a hard time keeping up with the more demanding of her two daughters, Veda (Ann Blyth), a horrid teenager who wants more from life than her working-class family can provide.

Mildred and Bert separate and later divorce, and Mildred vows to fend for herself and provide for her daughters. But trying to keep up with Veda's requirements--music lessons, fancy dresses, automobiles--proves difficult. Mildred gets a job as a waitress, learns the trade, and with her old friend Wally Fay opens her own restaurant, which soon blossoms into a chain of restaurants and a ton of money. None of which is good enough for spoiled daughter Veda, however, who, now growing into a beautiful older teen, still sees her mother as a lower-class working woman.

Along the way, Mildred meets and marries a ne'er-do-well socialite, the aforementioned unfortunate, Monte Beragon, a fellow who was born into money, never worked a day in his life, but is now destitute. Did Monte marry Mildred because he loved her, because he needed her money, or because he was attracted to her attractive daughter Veda?

Director Curtiz was not especially noted for his noir films, but he does a good job creating all the right shadows; keeping most of the story in dark, nighttime settings; building suspense; and using quiet moments to generate tension. However, he was not working with a script having the noir credentials of other Cain works like "Double Indemnity" or "The Postman Always Rings Twice." The biggest problem with "Mildred Pierce" is that there are too many peripheral characters vying for our attention.