Very daring, very watchable by today's standards. Little known gem.

Okay

"Though all of its craft is accomplished, Mildred Pierce never gets deep under one's skin the way it ought to." - Jeremiah Kipp

543

Great opening and the story's pretty entertaining, but the acting mostly sucks and Joan Crawford is annoying and pathetic as hell. Nice cinematography.

Well shot, and some very good performances, but the whole thing's a bit silly in the end.

The story of a working woman, too smart in bussiness, too fool emotionally, that cares about everyone while she's surrounded by selfish idiots that worries more than necessary about her daughter. A great performance by Crawford and nice one of Blyth too (I think it maybe could be a bit better, maybe due to being against Crawford, but the character really works anyway).

#595

a nearly perfect written screenplay is what we have here.

Good cast (and Joan is very good indeed). Ann Blyth makes Eve look like a powder puff here; yikes, but she's evil! Eve Arden is a hoot throughout, casting off drolleries in her trademark deadpan vein.

Say what you will about "mommie dearest", but this was a solid movie all the way around. The writing was good, but the cast was better. There were a few unexpected plot twists, but the cast pulled the whole thing off. This is one of those rare flicks that I'll watch whenever it's on, no matter what mood I'm in. Joan Crawford earned her Oscar that year.

# 534

Crawford lives up to the hype and delivers a tour de force performance in this remarkable noir film, one of the best of the era.

Besides the great performance from Joan Crawford, there isn't much else that's too remarkable.

The only good Joan Crawford movie besides Grand Hotel.

Has a lot going for it. The dialogue is sharp, the photography is fantastic (excellent use of shadows), and the cast is superb. Blyth is great as the rottenest child you're likely to see. But the plot falls short of greatness: it's watchable, but doesn't offer much that lingers with you. The voice-over is also really overdone and utterly fake in context (it's hard to swallow someone using such flowery prose during a police interrogation). Worth a watch, but not a keeper.

A great film. Joan Crawford is fantantasic and Eve Arden is absolutely hilarious. A tragic tale of a capable woman breaking the shackles of depending on the men in her life. Only to have the one thing she treasures most and worked so hard to provide a good life for, her daughter, turn out to become a terribly selfish person.

More historically important than entertaining in my opinion. She and husband divorce which was unheard of in the 40s. Her daughter's death meant to be heart-wrenching comes off as comical due to awkward acting.

Mildred Pierce had one of the best opening scenes I have ever seen in any movie, if it didn't pull you in then I really don't know what will.

Like a classy soap opera, this movie is a highly entertaining bit of family drama. The characters are real and fleshed out, due mostly in part to the great acting. Crawford is really good, as is the actress playing her bitchy spoiled daughter. Once again Curtiz shows his versatility.

Curtiz does an excellent job mixing the bright and sunshiny sets of suburbia and the work environment with the dark and damp sets of Mildred's time away from the relative safety of those areas. Crawford's performance is always compelling, as she portrays a certain hardness underneath her beautiful exterior, a quality that drives her through the melodramatic trials her character faces throughout the film.

Joan Crawford is of course always a delight, and this is one of her defining films... And while there are plenty of memorable villains in many movies, but I urge anyone to come up with a character more loathsome than Veda Pierce.

I really don't think I've ever wanted to slap someone in the face as much as that daughter.