New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 443250" data-attributes="member: 8">Mildred Pierce (1945)[ATTACH=full]59466[/ATTACH]I'm not sure if these images are taken from the film itself, but it's what the DVD looks like. Since I didn't know if Mildred Pierce was going to be a film-for-keeps I opted for the cheaper European version instead of the luxurious Criterion release (which always comes with luxurious shipping fees). But, never mind.The first thing to notice about this film is the incredible light & shadow galore, and how they put the "art" in artificial.The beach house in which the story begins is delightfully surreal. Every room leads to more rooms and doors and it just becomes bigger and bigger. It's almost as if the Wally Fay character played by Jack Carson becomes The Incredible Shrinking Man.[ATTACH=full]59467[/ATTACH]Needless to say, I was reeling.The second thing to notice is that Mildred Pierce is the complete opposite of Johnny Guitar. I had to literally pause a few times to catch my breath because everything in this film moves fast and it moves non-stop. I wonder how much the PAL system has contributed to this effect.The dialogue is whip-crack-away snappy and most of it is written in old-fashioned American slang. Even with subtitles on I sometimes struggled to follow the conversations between characters, but I love it anyway.I had already seen a few clips on youtube (probably Veda's worst moments) but the film was much funnier than I expected it to be. And Mr. Pierce, I had no idea he was going to be in it.Veda is a monster, yes, but she's not completely wrong when she tells Mildred "you made me like this".If you're saying "I want the very best for my children!" and then demonstratively wipe the sweat off your forehand then it looks very passive-aggressive to me.She doesn't give  Veda the new dress, she just tosses it on Veda's bed. There, my duty done. Now love me, dammit.Mildred Pierce features the shortest and cleanest marriage breakup in movie history, and also the shortest and cleanest losing-a-child sub plot. And I'm being generous calling it a sub plot.The kid coughs (therefore I knew what was coming), quickly followed by a two minutes deathbed scene and then we move on to the next thing and she's never mentioned again.To be fair, the history of pneumonia and life expectancy needs to be taken into account. That doesn't make the death of a child less horrible, but it does make it more regular. Anyway, the little actress was delightful in the few scenes she's got to do.Almost immediately after the soon-to-be ex-Mr. Pierce leaves the property, his ex-partner Wally Fay waltzes into Mildred's living room/cake bakery and puts his hands all over her.I mean, the consensual aspect is one thing, to blatantly disregard the possible traumatic outcome of a marriage breakup is quite another.It's almost like a Carrol Burnett soap parody, and speaking of which, Joan Crawford sometimes sounds   like Carrol Burnett.Then there's also the murder plot and Mildred's casual way of framing Wally, and again, this doesn't have any consequences. It all feels like playing an LP at 45 RPM, but at least it's better than the sluggish stop-and-go vibe of Johnny Guitar.However, the biggest surprise was hidden in the DVD special features. "Joan Crawford - The Ultimate Movie Star". It could be even older than the DVD itself and I'm sure it's available on youtube.It's an account of extremes and contradictions. When I think of European actors it's usually about talented people getting plucked from a stage, they become successful and even have significant national fame. But of course that doesn't compare to the larger-than-life, corporate and almost religion-like fame of Golden Age Hollywood.Joan is not only the ultimate movie star, she is  Hollywood, and I hang my head in shame for my casual and uninformed "what made her such a celebrated powerhouse in the first place" comment. Hollywood was the perfect cradle for rags-to-riches stories - the hard work, lobbying and relentless optimism. The failures and disappointments and the ability to bounce back. The glamour and the hedonistic underbelly. The whoring and the affairs, and the affairs within the affairs, but also the power to create your own aristocracy. It's a miracle that any of these Hungry Big Egos maintained his/her sanity for such a long time.And yet, just as quicky as a Mildred Pierce plot twist, they are without money and need a job. And maybe that's the difference between American and European royalty: the Americans have to keep working. It's almost brutal and I was actually quite moved by Joan's story.She was not an actress, she was a dancer who taught herself to be an actress, and after that she taught herself to be Joan Crawford.I'm not sure if I knew she had adopted more than one child, and I get the impression that she was jealous of them.  Joan had known extreme poverty and these kids were raised in mansions.And maybe she had to be a control freak to achieve all the things she achieved, sleeping with men to further her career, and putting up with bitches like Norma Shearer and Bette Davis (the nasty gaslighter).Extremely devoted to her fans which, at least, indicates a level of humbleness, her good relationships with the film crew, but also the openly disagreeable attitude towards several or many of her co-stars which comes across as being unprofessional. It's hard to make any sense of it, but maybe it's just a matter of compensating one thing for another, to balance out the good and bad.Either way, she's had a wild ride and showed many different personalities, and as Betsy Palmer points out in this Special Feature "they don't make great parents".We've had Mommie Dearest  but honestly you could make a film about every stage in Crawford's career (I'd love to see Cliff Robertson's casting couch moment).I'll try to find some of her earlier work, the stuff she did before she became the Joan Crawford phenomenon.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?