Rent Mildred Pierce (1945)

4.0 of 5 from 142 ratings
1h 47min
Rent Mildred Pierce Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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Synopsis:
Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. Its iconic performance by Joan Crawford as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by the bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent's tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations. Recasting James M.
Cain's rich psychological novel as a murder mystery, this bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition is both unremittingly hard-boiled and sumptuously emotional.
Actors:
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Directors:
Producers:
Jerry Wald
Writers:
Ranald MacDougall, James M. Cain, William Faulkner, Margaret Gruen, Albert Maltz, Louise Randall Pierson, Catherine Turney, Margaret Buell Wilder, Thames Williamson
Others:
Ernest Haller
Studio:
Warner
Genres:
Classics, Drama
Collections:
10 Films to Watch if You Like Blade Runner, A Brief History of Films About American Football, A History of Gay Cinema: According to Hollywood, Drama Films & TV, Elvis Presley on Screen, Films to Watch If You Like..., Introducing the Thesping Olympians, People of the Pictures, A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to Pedro Almodóvar, Top 10 Best Last Films: World Cinema, Top Films
Awards:

1946 Oscar Best Actress

BBFC:
Release Date:
21/05/2007
Run Time:
107 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono, Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
Subtitles:
Arabic, English, French, Italian
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
Colour:
B & W
Bonus:
  • Documentary Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star
BBFC:
Release Date:
27/02/2017
Run Time:
111 minutes
Languages:
English LPCM Mono
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.37:1
Colour:
B & W
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • New conversation with critics Molly Haskell and Robert Polito
  • Excerpt from a 1970 episode of The David Frost Show featuring actor Joan Crawford
  • Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star, a 2002 feature-length documentary
  • Q&A with actor Ann Blyth from 2002, conducted by film historian Eddie Muller
  • Segment from a 1969 episode of the Today show featuring Mildred Pierce novelist James M. Cain Trailer
  • An essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith
BBFC:
Release Date:
Not released
Run Time:
111 minutes

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Reviews (1) of Mildred Pierce

Stand up James Cain. - Mildred Pierce review by Steve

Spoiler Alert
Updated 10/11/2021

James M. Cain's depression era novel is made into film noir with the addition of a murder. This prompts a long flashback about a waitress who builds a chain of restaurants, but loses everything else. Mildred was the role of Joan Crawford's life. She surely identified with a woman born into poverty who works to gain wealth but alienates her children through dogmatic parenting.

It's a powerful film with strong studio virtues. Much of the dramatic thrust is provided by Max Steiner's orchestral score. The gorgeous high contrast black and white photography gleams like wet tarmac.  The sassy screenplay is joy.

Mildred Pierce isn't as much of an urban film as other forties noirs. It is mostly set in the suburbs of LA, but it still makes good atmospheric use of its environment, the beach towns and highways of Southern California, and features a typically noirish, lavish Malibu beach house where the murder takes place.  

Its greatest strength is the depiction of psychological frailty. It is an opera of passive-aggression, an epic of bartered love, of desire and greed rendered so frighteningly sordid that they both mean the same thing. The casting is glorious, particularly Crawford and Ann Blyth who was seventeen when she made this but is scarily believable as Mildred's spoiled, sociopathic daughter.

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