Mildred Pierce
There is trouble in paradise and Mildred knows it is over between her and her husband. Her husband is a player, and in my opinion a loser of a husband. He wants the easy way out of financial stress…marry a rich woman. What is wrong with working and taking care of your family? Mildred takes off her house coat and decides she will wear the pants. “Desperation is the Mother of Invention”…she bakes cakes and sells them from her home. That alone isn’t paying the bills so she becomes a waitress at a diner. I thought the scene in the diner to be very inspiring. Mildred is sipping a cup of coffee, and sees the manager (Eve Arden) stressing with the staff; Mildred offers her services and practically begs on her knees for a job. This is a woman with zero experience in the restaurant business. Don’t know whether the manager felt sorry for her, or saw an ambitious woman, but she hires her. Mildred quickly puts on her uniform and gets to work.
Mildred does what she has to do to put food on the table. She works in a “greasy” and “smelly” restaurant business. Mildred’s oldest daughter Veda, played powerfully by Ann Blythe, isn’t proud of what her mother does for a living. She tells her mother how upsetting, and degrading it is to have her mother work in this type of business. She has nothing but contempt and disdain for her mother. You’d think her mother was a whore at a brothel! This only makes Mildred work harder to prove herself to her daughter, or rather to be accepted and loved by her daughter.
Mildred meets a cad, Monte, played by Zachary Scott and falls head over heels for him. Her youngest daughter dies of pneumonia and only makes Mildred try harder and harder to please Veda. She learns all there is to know about the restaurant business, works hard, and saves up enough money to open up her own place. Ah, the sweet smell of capitalism… Mildred was a woman way ahead of her day. Only I think she was ambitious for all the wrong reasons. Veda accepts her mother’s success with a few reservations; she distances herself from the dirty restaurant business as much as possible. However, she happily accepts the life it affords her mother and her. Veda wanted to erase her past, her dirty little past and pretended to be born a very rich debutante.
Mildred marries Monte to only find out he really doesn’t love her, but only wants her money. Veda gets drunk with money and manages to fool a rich young man into thinking he has gotten her pregnant. She is willing to settle accounts without scandal if he pays her a large sum of money. She later starts to sleep with her step-father Monte. But this still does not stop Mildred from protecting her daughter. Veda later kills Monte in a fit of rage and begs her mother to take the blame for it! And Mildred does!
This movie left me with mixed emotions. I think a lot of the strong side of Mildred. But I hate the weak side of her. And in a sense it is an oxymoron. How can a strong woman be so weak? What can a mother expect from a child that is given everything? Why did Mildred work hard to please Veda? I think that Mildred was very strong in one sense. She worked hard, and was smart enough to start and run a business. But her motherly instincts were completely warped and got the best of her. Yes, it’s ok to protect our children from harm, but if we protect our children to the point where he or she can do no wrong, we are setting them up for catastrophe. And today our society teaches that we should give our kids everything, and if we don’t we are bad parents. This is totally wrong. If I were to write a book on child rearing, I’d say that the only thing I have to give my kids is the following: love, shelter, and food. Period.
I can tell you, that it is the kids that work for what they want, who make it in life. I can personally attest to that. I can also tell you that it is the kids which get everything, we see play out their lives in the tabloids, magazines, and news every day.
In the end, Mildred learned her lesson, a day late and a penny short.
7 Responses to “Mildred Pierce: Strong or Weak Woman?”
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This is one of my favorite classics; Joan definitely gives a primo performance, as does Ann Blythe. I have a clip of one of their exchanges on my Decades profile.
I remember the first time I saw this movie – my God the emotions! I was so angry at Veda, and at the mother for letting her get away with so much crap! I loved the scene where she slapped her! LOL
Great post! Have featured it in the – 40′s Lounge
Millenia
Milenia I too love the part where Joan smacks her…
Veda deserved it! If Mildred would’ve kept her distance after that smack, Veda would’ve turned out differently. I am so sure of that.
Thanks for stopping by!
Ann Blythe always impressed me in her role. Whenever I finish watching the film I feel like strangling her!
This is one of the Joan Crawford movies I really liked. The others being Grand Hotel, The Women, The Damned Don’t Cry and Possessed with Van Heflin. I like this movie version better vs the recent HBO mini-series starring Kate Winslet. Although I heard that the mini-series was from the original book, the Joan Crawford movie was much sharper and I loved the ending. The recent mini-series via the book had a diff ending and was dragged out and you wondered why you would even like Mildred.
Thank you T. Simmons for dropping by. I see you left a few comments here, sorry for the delay in putting them up. I heard about the remake, I personally do not like remakes at all. I say leave the classics alone, they do not need any help.
Mildred Pierce is my Crawford fave! Although it’s tough to really understand the wiring in Mildred’s head when it came to men and raising children, one can’t help but love her!
I’m really late to this discussion. Love the article!! I first saw Mildred Pierce on WTBS (the SuperStation!) back in 1981 during summer vacation when I was 13. This is when I first really discovered older movies and what hidden joys they are.
As the years passed and I saw MP again and again (twice at the Castro Theater! Yay! With all sorts of hissing and catcalls from the audience!), I began to wonder why JC would take such a demeaning role.
Then, in a used bookstore, I found the book. Two days later, I had finished it and was AGHAST! I kept checking the copyright date to make sure it really was as old as it purported to be and that it had not secretly been written by Jackie Collins on a cocaine-induced bender (which I’m sure has never happened). I mean… this story… wow! Incest, murder, chicken and waffles! Oh my!
I could almost imagine the huddle (if I may use such a word) between JC, Jack Warner, and Michael Curtiz amidst a gaggle of writers as they try to figure out what to cut out, what to keep, and what to try and slip past the Hayes Office.
The MP in the 1945 movie is heroic and powerful compared to the one in the book. In the scene where Veda tells her off and complains about Glendale and its tawdry suburbanness, JC is obviously contemptuous of Veda and lets her know. In the book, on the other hand (and this says it all), MP spends some time trying to figure out what she did wrong and, although she does throw Veda out, she feels like she’s cutting off a piece of herself. This anguish, which is described in great detail in the book, is really only barely addressed (in comparison) in the scene where MP asks Ida if she has “seen anyone I know lately.”
And, in the best re-write I’ve ever been aware of, the movie Mildred finds Veda dancing in Wally’s dive bar doing probably unspeakable things after the show. NOTHING could be further than what Veda does in the book, where she finds her way onto the radio, gets a contract with a sponsor for her own show, and ends up singing at the Hollywood Bowl.
IMHO the HBO mini-series is not a re-make. It’s a (mostly) faithful adaptation of the book done in the style and color that the James M. Cain painted of Glendale, pie wagons, radio deals, and the end of Prohibition (which is actually a big part of the story of Mildred’s and partially the reason for the restaurants’ successes).
My one disappointment with the mini-series is that there was a very small but delicious scene when Mildred is sitting in the audience at the Hollywood Bowl waiting to see Veda in her big debut. There are two gossipy opera queens sitting behind her who keep making snippy comments about “La Pierce.” Mildred manages to be secretly thrilled and appalled at the same time. A very interesting insight into the place and time on so many levels.
OK — End Thesis. Thanks again for the awesome article!!
Thank you Frank for your “thesis!” The book sounds delicious! I’ve not given the remake, or the “new” MP a chance, I think I will now. Thanks for dropping by, and please come back again! I enjoyed your comment immensely!