Johnny Guitar

 

Director Nicholas Ray

Ray with Joan Crawford

Crawford (left) with Mercedes Cambridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHNNY GUITAR         A                                                                                                             USA  (110 mi)  1954  d: Nicholas Ray

Never seen a woman who was more of a man.  She thinks like one, acts like one, and sometimes makes me feel like I’m not.    —Sam (Robert Osterloh), one of the blackjack dealers

Easily Nicholas Ray’s most subversive film, coming after They Live By Night (1948),  In a Lonely Place (1950), and On Dangerous Ground (1952), doing well at the box office but trashed by the critics, completely misunderstood at the time, refusing to conform to expectations of the male-dominated Western genre, which is typically an amalgamation of racism, sexism, and xenophobia, viewed by Ray as the biggest failure of his career, a continuance of his brooding outsider theme while also an indictment of mob psychology.  Conceived as a blatant response to the Hollywood blacklist and the witch hunt period of McCarthyism, this was a Cold War-era pursuit of men and women who were accused of being communists, most were falsely accused and imprisoned, their livelihoods and careers ruined by men who blatantly pushed the conspiracy theories of the day, yet the film’s reputation has been resuscitated by Martin Scorsese and other film scholars, beloved in Europe, including François Truffaut, who hailed Ray as “the poet of nightfall,” describing this film as “the Beauty and the Beast of Westerns,” listed at #9 for best picture in 1955 from the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, Cahiers du Cinema: 1951-2011, with many now praising this as among Ray’s best work.  Based on a 1953 novel by B-picture screenwriter Roy Chanslor, with a script largely credited to Philip Yordan, though blacklisted writer Ben Maddow may have contributed, heavily revised by Ray, it was written for Joan Crawford, who bought the rights for the movie, basically the producer for her own picture, the one calling the shots, often altering the script to suit her, with Crawford at the time an aging film star who grew paranoid about her fading career, constantly making demands that only heightened her insecurity, where there was constant friction on the set between her and her leading man, Sterling Hayden, with Crawford calling him “the biggest pill in Hollywood,” while Hayden exclaimed, “There is not enough money in Hollywood that could lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford.  And I like money.”  Yet within this cauldron of Hollywood combustion and turmoil lies a truly magnificent script, among Hollywood’s greatest poetry, as the dialogue is crisp and fiercely antagonistic, filled with shots and counter shots at one another, where this is the epitome of a town that’s not big enough for the two competing interests, with Joan Crawford as Vienna representing the new world dream of the railroad, hoping to cash in on the future, and Mercedes Cambridge as Emma Small representing the old world of cattle interests, where they don’t believe in fences or anything restricting the far reaches of vast and unlimited lands.  Vienna even has a miniature model of a town in her saloon, destined to become a railroad stop, referenced by Sergio Leone when he created Claudia Cardinale’s character in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968).  Subverting the Western as a male vehicle, Nicolas Ray pits two women against one another, both detesting the other, with the film seething with their outright contempt, becoming an eroticized antagonism, with both distinguishing themselves in the roles, while Hayden as Johnny Guitar serves as the love interest, a role usually reserved for a woman, yet his pretty boy image is mocked by his direct and straightforward approach, standing up to any man, though often from the shadows.  Due to the camp nature of the film, wildly flamboyant with exaggerated stereotypes and operatic melodrama, some may question the feminist intent, but that’s the baffling nature of the film, examining the costs of a woman’s independent action through lurid, violent exaggeration, where Vienna isn’t willing to sacrifice her autonomy for Johnny, and just as surprisingly, he never asks her to.  Described as “a revisionist western, a feminist polemic, a vibrant fairy tale, a subversive cold war parable, maybe even a queer cult classic, ReFramed No. 23: Nicholas Ray's 'Johnny Guitar' (1954),” it has a beloved stature in the gay community (who loved to do Crawford in drag), openly embraced for how it has undermined the sexual roles, leaving audiences confused at the time of its release, with Vienna bitterly reminding Johnny, “A man can lie, steal, and even kill, but as long as he hangs on to his pride, he’s still a man.  All a woman has to do is slip – once, and she’s a ‘tramp!’  Must be a great comfort to you to be a man.”  There are also lesbian undercurrents, with Emma having a delusional fantasy about the Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady), yet her real interest, it seems, is Vienna, yet the sentiment is not reciprocated, which only leaves her more incensed, subconsciously repressing that interest and wanting her dead if she can’t have her.  It’s a strange alignment of stars, certainly among the most mysterious of all Westerns, yet it has all the standard conventions, a stagecoach holdup, a bank robbery, a hired gun, a posse turned into a lynch mob, a villain’s lair, a barroom brawl, a woman with a past, and a kid trying to prove himself.  Hayden’s tough guy persona is used to brilliant effect, as he doesn’t carry a gun, carrying a guitar on his back instead, introducing himself as a disinterested bystander at one point, “I’m a stranger here myself,” completely confounding the outlaw gang who don’t know where he stands, making the barroom confrontation even more wonderful, as the standoff isn’t with guns but with words, a delightful turn of events, and the rapid-fire dialogue doesn’t disappoint, ever more mythologized over time, endlessly quoted and repeated, including his maxim for living, “When you boil it all down, what does a man really need?  Just a smoke and a cup of coffee,” a line that diffuses armed conflict from escalating. 

The last film shot on Trucolor, a highly saturated two-strip, red and blue process, much of it shot in some stunning outdoor landscapes of Sedona, Arizona by Harry Stradling Sr, while other scenes were filmed near Oak Creek Canyon between Phoenix and Sedona, where the rocks have a reddish tint, yet Crawford refused to subject herself to the desert setting, so all her outdoor close-ups were actually shot in studio, using a double for long shots.  Shot at Republic Pictures, Ray’s first after leaving RKO, a smaller low-budget studio known primarily for B-movies that was a step down from Crawford’s days as the glamorous star at MGM and then Warners, so she let Ray and everyone else on the set know it, making their lives a living hell with temper tantrums and constant demands for more scenes and close-ups, even attempting to sabotage actress Mercedes Cambridge, bullying her on the set while ripping her costumes to shreds, thrown along the side of a highway in a drunken spree.  Ray reportedly vomited several times before arriving to work each day, as the heightened tension working with Crawford was unbearable.  Not like any other cowboy drama, playing havoc with Western conventions while reveling in sexual role-reversals, where in the middle of it all is Victor Young’s enchanting musical score, Ray sets his film shortly after the Civil War, taking place outside a fictitious town of Red Butte, Arizona (identified by the bank), as a stranger wanders into town by the name of Johnny Guitar, but along the way he witnesses a stagecoach robbery from high above a mountain vista, unable to see details, while all around them explosions are going off to make way for the coming railroad.  Entering town is like entering a dream, arriving during a sandstorm, where all you can make out is the name of the saloon, Vienna’s, with a casino inside, yet it is eerily empty, with no customers, yet the barkeep and dealers are all eyeballing the man who walked in out of a storm, discovering Vienna, now the owner, is a former saloon hostess, with short cropped hair, dressed entirely in black boots, pants and shirt, with dark red lipstick, yet carrying a holster, just like a man.  Seen early on having a business meeting with a railroad executive, she more than holds her own, viewed as a domineering force who is defiantly self-reliant, even barking out orders in her low voice to her casino workers, yet this establishment is peculiarly built right into a rock, which accounts for some of the jagged walls.  The leisurely pace of the opening is interrupted by the arrival of an angry mob led by Emma, including John McIvers (Ward Bond), a cattleman mayor, Marshal Williams (Frank Ferguson), and a motley group of men, providing a dead body as evidence, calling out for Vienna to be charged with the murder of her brother in the stagecoach robbery, though no evidence points to her.  Emma claims it was done by the Dancin’ Kid gang, friends of Vienna, claiming she’s harboring a gang of criminals and needs to be run out of town.  Vienna starts out on the top of the stairs, eyeballing the group, calmly proclaiming her innocence, indicating “Down there I sell whiskey and cards.  All you can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head.  Now which do you want?”  But when Emma makes it personal, making threats, she walks down the stairs, with Emma warning, “I’m going to kill you.”  Vienna answers, “I know.  If I don’t kill you first.”  And therein lies the dramatic theme, radiating a persistent anxiety about change, as the two protagonists are dead set in their intentions, both fiercely independent, yet stubbornly persistent.  Emma’s hysteria is matched by Vienna’s calm restraint, never backing down, but holding her own against heavily stacked odds.  McIvers gives her and her ilk 24-hours to get out of town if they want to avoid trouble, an ultimatum at odds with the Marshal’s law, but he means business, with threats setting the stage for future hostilities.  In the midst of this showdown in the saloon, Johnny distinguishes himself as the only man without a gun, yet his calmness and good humor belies the situation, egged on by Bart (Ernest Borgnine), one of the Kid’s gang, and the two get to tussling, mostly happening offscreen, as the camera stays on Vienna and the Kid, who stand around a blackjack table discussing their feelings, returning to the fight only when it’s over, a forgettable brawl of no consequence whatsoever, with Johnny beating him senseless.  While no one says it out loud, this stranger seems surprisingly at ease, appearing out of nowhere, raising the question, “Who is this guy?”  Johnny and Vienna have a history together, yet broke it off five years ago, with Vienna calling him back as hired protection, yet her underlying motivation is to rekindle that love affair.  She hides her feelings, however, behind the bravado of the brawl, with each dancing around the inevitable, creating a mysterious ballet of emotional standoffishness, yet then instantaneously they apparently reconnect, awakening the next morning with their relationship reassured.  Vienna has some unfinished business, making a withdrawal from the bank to pay off her staff, as she’ll be closing down.  But they’re met by the Kid and his gang, who are there to rob the bank, thinking so long as they’re run out of the premises, they’ll at least have some traveling money.  While the timing couldn’t be more peculiar, the outlaw escape is equally harrowing, as they head into the mountains at the same time as dynamite explosions are closing down the pass, making the crossing impossible, returning to their hideout tucked away from it all, perched atop a mountainous rock, yet completely out of sight behind a waterfall, with the anxious men seething in anger and discontent.

While this is a Joan Crawford picture, Mercedes Cambridge steals the show as a raving psychopath, insanely over-the-top, serving as the town instigator, stirring the men into a frenzy, underscoring the men’s sheepishness, quickly forming a posse headed by McIvers (which mirrors Ward Bond’s anti-communist role in spearheading the McCarthy attacks), but she spurs them on at every turn chasing after the Kid and his gang, banishing Vienna from town, and even worse, instilling the men with a lynch mob hysteria, veering into territory explored by Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936) and William Wellman’s The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), where ordinary citizens can be bullied into a psychotic rage, completely transformed into a communal bloodlust for killing.  While McIvers is the man in charge, she is the pathological force that actually drives this picture, playing an unforgettable role of pure evil incarnate, getting a maniacal reaction after torching Vienna’s business and burning it down, and while the community may be responsible for carrying out a hanging, she goads them all along the way, pushing them further and further into following their worst instincts, crossing the line into criminality and even murder.  The half-crazed, pathological mania behind her neurotic vengeance is at the heart of the picture, standing for the ruthlessly corrupt power behind the McCarthy hearings, whose rigid standards are driven by a delusionary, Puritanical repression, matching Emma’s own deeply repressed sexual identity, with Vienna explaining that the Kid “makes her feel like a woman, and that frightens her,” instead instilling a poisonous venom over every frame of the film.  Identity fluctuates throughout this picture, as Vienna changes from pants to dresses (butch to femme), Johnny goes from being unarmed to wearing a gun, Johnny has changed his name, while Vienna has changed her profession.  Moreover, the Kid and his gang are charged for a stage holdup they didn’t commit, Vienna is repeatedly charged with masterminding crimes she had nothing to do with, while her sexual role from male to female also fluctuates with the costume she wears.  She is financially independent, owning her own business, and is always in control of her relationships, whether it be with the Kid or Johnny, always choosing the man she wants rather than be chosen by them.  Meeting an angry lynch mob in her saloon after the bank robbery, she’s alone in a cavernous saloon wearing a flowing white dress of innocence, seen calmly playing a sad song on the piano, an astonishing yet remarkably unforeseen image with the interior rocks adding an eerie backdrop, but when the vicious mob overruns her claim of guiltlessness, she’s hauled off for a hanging with her saloon gleefully burned down by Emma.  The lynch mob possesses evil intent, consumed on getting vengeance, browbeating a terrified kid into implicating Vienna (pressuring many well-known actors and directors into naming names is precisely what was so heinous about the McCarthy hearings), promising him immunity, but breaking every promise they make, hanging him anyway while Vienna is gallantly rescued by Johnny with the noose still around her neck, a last second reprieve from the gallows’ rope.  A figure of female power in a traditionally male-dominated West, she maintains her composure even after her business is burned to the ground, viewed as a rugged, tough individual, an equal in every respect to Johnny Guitar, or any other man, switching back into pants afterwards, easily exuding both masculine and feminine traits, but what’s missing is any sense of vulnerability or female mystique, where any romance is more suggestive than real or visibly expressed onscreen.  While Mildred Pierce (1945) breathed new life into Crawford’s flagging career, this film coincided with a downturn in her star status, where the exaggerated fever dream of this film only heightened a prevailing view of her as camp.  Figuring into this public descent was Crawford’s open attack on Marilyn Monroe’s flaunted sexuality, which she likened to a “burlesque show” unsuitable for the screen, claiming her films weren’t doing any business.  The story was a sensation in Hollywood, with most defending Monroe, who would, of course, become a huge box office star, while Crawford was viewed as an over-the-hill actress whose star had faded, openly revealing her jealousy of Monroe’s quick ascent into the Hollywood mainstream.  Even during the filming of this film, the press viciously attacked her, claiming her behavior on the set was unprofessional, accused of bullying Mercedes Cambridge, with Sterling Hayden echoing that thought, so her personal life matches a character that hates all other women, viewing them all as rivals, which greatly accelerates her exaggerated view as camp.  The finale, however, really tops it off, where there is an inevitable shootout between the two female stars, taking place at the outlaw hideout, while the men are reduced to secondary characters who simply watch it all happen, but the film begins and ends with Johnny, elevated to an intoxicating degree with a lover’s kiss in front of a waterfall to Peggy Lee’s wistful and melancholic rendition of the final theme song, Johnny Guitar (Title Song) YouTube (3:11), singing “There was never a man like my Johnny, like the one they call Johnny Guitar,” as if the entire film has been narrated by her.  Out of nowhere, viewers are reminded that the title of the film is in name only, as Crawford is the one wearing the pants and pushing all the buttons.  Described as part fatalism, part romanticism, the cinema of outsiders and loners, and also the cinema of gun fighting women, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum described this as the “first existential western.” 

Martin Scorsese introduces Johnny Guitar (USA, 1954) dir. Nicholas Ray YouTube (3:27)

Mildred Pierce

 

Actress Joan Crawford publicity photo

MILDRED PIERCE           B           

USA  (111 mi)  1945  d:  Michael Curtiz

If you’re going to be a star you have to look like a star, and I never go out unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star.  If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.

—Joan Crawford quote from A Star is Born: The Moment an Actress becomes an Icon, by George Tiffin (400 pages), 2015

Falling somewhere between a trashy melodramatic soap tearjerker and an independent women’s picture, the film copies the success of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) in bringing a second work of crime writer James M. Cain to light while also infusing the film with a similar film noir dramatic structure, largely insisted upon by producer Jerry Wald, telling the story almost entirely in flashback, using an intriguing retrospective voiceover and narration, all swirling around a shocking murder that occurs right at the outset, none of which happens in the book which is told in chronological order and contains no murder.  The version that meticulously follows the book is the Todd Haynes HBO television mini-series of 2011 starring Kate Winslet in the title role.  What’s also different from the novel is the postwar setting, where women got a taste of entering the workforce out of necessity during wartime, with the lead character driven to make a success of herself, while the book takes place during the Depression when work was scarce.  In fact, part of the financial success of the film was due to the studio holding back the release until a month after V-J Day ending WWII, unleashing waves of unbridled euphoria to experience plenty of free time suddenly opening up along with newfound freedoms where families were able to return to having activities together which they were prevented from experiencing during wartime, like going to the movies, where this was a Hollywood blockbuster, seen almost entirely as pure popcorn movie entertainment, with Southern California locations by the sea, viewed as sunny and optimistic, a land of promise, and a place where one could actualize their dreams.  Yet the film takes a dark turn, touching upon subjects of greed, lust, betrayal, and personal ambition, deviating substantially from the novel, which was viewed as overly sordid and repellent to meet motion picture censor requirements, instead transformed and filtered through a Hollywood sensibility, directed by Warner Brothers studio favorite, Hungarian director Michael Curtiz, getting his start in Silent pictures, notable for such diverse works as CASABLANCA (1943) and the underrated Elvis movie KING CREOLE (1958), where there are signs of a fading aristocracy, like the Old South of GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), which this resembles tonally with its exaggerated tragic overtones (also sharing the same cinematographer), where selfishness, depraved moral values, and warped business practices contaminate the world they live in. 

Murder sets the gears in motion, alerting viewers that something is dangerously wrong, but just what that is remains an open question that lingers until the end, and while most of the film is bathed in the darkened themes of film noir territory, studios didn’t want audiences walking out of the theater sad, so a surprisingly happy ending is thrown in at the end.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is in the casting of Joan Crawford as thankless mother and business entrepreneur Mildred Pierce, having been let go by MGM after eighteen years, describing her as “box office poison,” unable to generate revenue anymore as a box office star, yet she mysteriously resurrects a second phase of her career after 40, much of it generated by the dramatic implosion of the lurid subject matter that borders on camp.  Yet the film, and in particular actress Joan Crawford, gained a particular place in the lexicon of gay culture where in every shot she provides “a performance,” always sensing the position of the camera, elegantly framed by cinematographer Ernest Haller, yet she was duly praised afterwards, probably for all the wrong reasons, even overpraised in a year lacking a plethora of stellar movies.  Considered the first film noir told from a female perspective, it’s a stretch to even be called film noir, though there are certainly underlying noirish elements of deep-seeded frustration and unfulfilled desires, veering into murder and suicide, yet it’s a puzzle piece of a movie, told in a labrynthian manner, where part of the fun is figuring out the mixed-up plot.  Though perfectly enjoyable (not so sure it’s a date movie), it’s a weepie wrapped up in a stylish murder mystery, but there are many wooden performances, particularly among the male characters (with the exception of Jack Carson), where the real stars of the show are two secondary characters who actually outshine the star, namely teenager Ann Blyth (only 16 at the time of filming) as the overly pampered and spoiled rotten daughter Veda who simply tears up the screen, as does Eve Arden in a smaller role as Mildred’s friend and irreverently sarcastic business partner Ida, both nominated for Best Supporting roles, while Joan Crawford won the Oscar for Best Actress for the only time in her career.  Yet her performance on Oscar night was equally notable, staying at home supposedly due to pneumonia, yet according to her daughter Christina, she faked her illness, not wanting to be embarrassed in public, so after she won she jumped out of bed, applied her make up, and wore her best negligee to face the press, a manufactured moment that might have inspired Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond character in SUNSET BLVD. (1950), “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

Mildred is initially seen as a hardworking housewife, “I was always in the kitchen.  I felt as though I’d been born in a kitchen and lived there all my life, except for the few hours it took to get married,” making her own earnings by selling cakes and pies, yet she ends up in a squabble with her husband Bert (Bruce Bennett) over her obsessive doting on her two daughters, insisting she is trying to buy their love, while she counters she’s willing to sacrifice anything, making sure they are never deprived of dance, piano, or ballet lessons, but have all the opportunities she never had, literally showering them with privileges as if they are wealthy, even after Bert loses his job, leaving him irate over unnecessary spending and misplaced priorities, eventually walking out on her.  Learning to be a waitress, yet ashamed to tell her snobbish daughter Veda who wants and has only the finest things in life, looking down on common people, so Mildred conceals how hard she works, saving enough money to open a restaurant, with the help of a real estate investor Wally Fay (the wonderfully oily Jack Carson displaying the lowlife charm of a carnival barker or snake oil salesman, actually sleeping with Mildred in the book, mixing business with pleasure), who has brazenly shown his lecherous affections for Mildred all along, willingly becoming her business partner, but just before the restaurant opening tragedy strikes when her youngest daughter dies of pneumonia.  Buying the property turns out to be a breeze, an old mansion in a state of disrepair, as the former owner is a monetarily down-on-his luck socially prominent aristocrat Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) who is something of a cad, liking what he sees in Mildred, eventually marrying her years later, yet it comes years after luring her to his Malibu beach house (actual home of director Michael Curtiz) and openly declaring his love while she’s still married to Bert.  While he’s something of a scumbag playboy who comes from a family of money, never doing a day’s work in his life, little more than a parasite (which is why Veda is drawn to him), yet Mildred doesn’t see through him, as he has designs on the business and her daughter Veda, introducing her to the socialite world of money and millionaires, flamboyantly showing her off like a decorative showpiece, featuring Almodóvar-style swelling music from Max Steiner. 

Mildred’s business takes off, becoming a stunning success story, even opening new locations, but it’s not enough for Veda, who has an insatiable appetite for devouring wealth, still fuming over class distinctions, showing open contempt for any worker wearing a uniform, taking advantage of her mother’s newfound wealth, now with a black servant (Butterfly McQueen, personifying every racist stereotype) waiting on her hand and foot, where she shows what she’s made of by manipulating a young clueless empire heir into a secret marriage, then claiming she’s pregnant during the quickie divorce hearing, earning herself a handsome settlement of $10,000, deftly negotiated by Wally, who’s on the same wavelength as Veda, unscrupulous to the core.  When Mildred realizes it was all a scam, she’s had enough of her daughter’s unprincipled amorality, the ultimate ungrateful child, taking her place among the most loathsome of all film noir femme fatales (even as a teenager!), showing a haughty arrogance that defies belief, a bad seed laying the groundwork for Patty McCormack in THE BAD SEED (1956) a decade later.  As horrible as she is, seething with superiority over her own mother, embarrassed at how hard she works, showing nothing but contempt, “With this money I can get away from you.  From you and your chickens and your pies and your kitchens and everything that smells of grease.  I can get away from this shack with its cheap furniture.  And this town and its dollar days, and its women that wear uniforms and its men that wear overalls.”  After taking a hard slap in the face and knocking her down on the stairs (for ripping up the check), Mildred stares in disbelief before ordering her daughter out of the house “before I kill you.”  Before long, however, Mildred discovers Veda is working as a tawdry lounge singer at Wally’s nightclub, receiving whistles and catcalls from sailors for showing plenty of skin in her scantily clad costume, leaving Mildred aghast at what she sees, attempting to bring her daughter home, only to be sneered at with hatred and scorn, where the more Mildred tries to do for her the more she is hated in return, with Veda despising her mother’s life and home, calling it cheap, preferring to have no one telling her what to do.  The fact that Wally, a friend of the family, is willing to demonstrably promote Veda in such luridly exploitive fashion, having no second thoughts about it, reveals the colossal error Mildred makes in her choices of men.

Stung by her daughter’s resentments, Mildred devises a new plan after a brief vacation to Mexico, coming back revitalized, purchasing a giant mansion belonging to Monte while proposing marriage, reviving their old affair, where he’s more than willing to set the terms, demanding one-third of her business, which is the price she pays.  Mildred perseveres in a loveless marriage of convenience, fixing up the dilapidated estate and paying off Monte’s debts in an attempt to win favor with Veda, and it works, though she immediately makes tracks to Monte, hoping to improve her social status, eager to pursue her dream as a debutante.   The cost of supporting them both comes with a heavy price, enabling their lavish lifestyle while she works her tail off to pay for it, but she’s dumbfounded at just what an underhanded sleazeball Monte turns out to be, selling his share of the business, driving his wife into forfeiture where she’s forced to sell the business, with Wally having no qualms about selling his shares as well, leaving her out in the cold, undermined by the coldhearted and ruthless men in her life.  This devious financial maneuver leads her to Monte’s beach house looking for an explanation, finding Veda wrapped all around him in an embrace, yet another double cross.  Caught in the act, Veda only scowls at her mother for daring to think anything’s wrong, glowering with open disdain, claiming she and Monte are going to get married after he dumps her, enjoying the perversity of power this brings her, with Mildred reaching into her coat for a revolver.  A murder results, with Mildred trying to pin the rap on Wally, luring him out to the beach house and locking him in, with the police discovering his escape attempt and finding the dead body.  Later Mildred is hauled down to the police station where she waits much of the night for questioning, with police eventually charging Bert with the crime.  Knowing this is a false accusation, we go back to the beginning, with Mildred describing her relationship to Bert, claiming he would never do such a thing.  The story unravels as she offers a lengthy confession through the night, blaming herself for what happened, with the entire film unfolding through a flashback.  Despite extensive detail into her working class background, which mirrors the hardscrabble early life of Joan Crawford, the defining image of Mildred is wearing a full-length mink coat, which in sunny Southern California is like wearing a winter parka, yet she rarely takes it off, clinging to it as a symbol of what her daughter desires, a sign of success. 

The rags to riches storyline mirrors the resuscitated career of Joan Crawford, who’d been around the block a few times by then, written off by the studio as a has-been, but reshaping her career through hard work and determination, assets that define her long-suffering character in the film.  Hollywood loves a success story, especially one about itself, arguably the greatest comeback in Hollywood history, so Crawford received plenty of accolades and adulation, despite her imperious attitude and lack of human warmth, where nurturing maternal skills are just not something we associate with Mommie Dearest.  As many as eight different screenwriters worked on the script, which was in constant revision up until the day of shooting, all having to please the producer’s structure of what he envisioned.  Audiences, especially women, embraced the film, as it typifies the Rosie the Riveter can-do spirit of working women both during and after the war, with Mildred sacrificing everything to keep her family intact, believing she is every bit a man’s equal, exhibiting hard work and a dogged spirit, qualities of strength normally associated with men in movies, only to be undermined by weak and cowardly men who are threatened by strong women, afraid of losing their prestigious social status.  The film alters the stereotype with such a strong-willed protagonist, defying the mythic image of submissive women that dominated movies in prior generations, yet when she asserts herself, she is quickly put in her place by the patriarchal society.  The film also offers a bleak portrait of the American Dream, particularly as it pertains to family life, corrupted by an overwhelming influence of materialism, creating self-centered children with enormous consumer appetites to fill, denouncing self-sacrifice as a role model, as it leaves a barren emptiness inside from unfulfilled ambitions.  Imagine what this could have been in the hands of someone like German wonder boy Rainer Werner Fassbinder who loved epic challenges and lurid melodramas?  The film industry took a strange turn after the success of this film, creating destructive women who were unhappy about their domestic situations, often expressed through B-movie violence, leading to the glamor era of the 50’s, when women like Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn, and Doris Day became stereotyped by their beauty, making it impossible in real life to live up to the Hollywood image that only existed as a fantasy onscreen.  MILDRED PIERCE is an intriguing mix of fantasy and reality, and at least for a brief moment, offered a frightening prospect of social change, the idea of a woman’s independence.