Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce (1945) starts with a callous cop accosting Mildred as she's about to leap off a bridge: an incident that sets the tone for the whole movie. Coming out the year World War II ended, this not-quite noir is an apotheosis of the Old Hollywood factory ethic, the sort of glamorous movie-star filmmaking that you're simply meant to assent to, no questions asked. But to a modern viewer, the conventions are so bald-faced that any pretense to "realism" falls by the wayside. I've seen a lot of movies from this period, but, somehow, this was one of the worst at drawing me in. Perhaps it's the pacing: There are leaps in time between scenes (probably a way of thinning out the James M. Cain source material) so characters have dramatic fallings out that must be resolved in the interstices, as they always end up back together -- always a mistake. Or maybe it's the implicit attitudes toward women (Joan Crawford can only palely imitate one, though, to be fair, she's pluming the shallow depths of movie-queen opaqueness), because Mildred seems like way too much of a chump if she's supposed to be a wildly successful restaurateur. This must be hard to do, given her company: a brassy assistant who always has some sassy, disdainful remark ready for whatever man enters the room (Eve Arden); her maid (Butterfly McQueen), who'd be a painful, walking stereotype if it wasn't for her Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks voice; her sleazo business manager (Jack Carson), whose idea of romance is demanding that she makes him a drink the minute she splits with her husband (an immediate and painless separation, mind you, that's decided upon within five minutes); her sleazo playboy boyfriend (Zachary Scott), who's a pencil-neck despite his pencil-thin mustache; and, of course, her daughter: the flashily named Veda (Ann Blyth), winner of the coldest-bitch-ever-to-appear-in-a-movie award. It's one thing for the blue-blood Scott to look down on Mildred for working for a living; it's quite another for her social-climber daughter to. (The Pierces aren't rich at the beginning, but they sure don't look poor . . . ) Their condescension is morally repugnant (and completely un-American) -- something that the filmmakers don't let you forget. But the obviousness of the delivery obscures the message. This is no mean theme for forties Hollywood, so often accused of trafficking in escapism, but the style is stultifying. (This must not have been the case for audiences of the time.) It's an unbelievable string of tawdry implausibilities, but it's all of a piece -- Crawford's imperious helplessness included -- and one admires all of its touches, down to every last shade of perfectly glimmering gray. But the movie may be worth watching simply for the gratification of seeing Mildred tear Veda's extorted $10,000 check; it's Joan's best scene because even she wants to give that snob a smack.