Who are the actors in Mildred Pierce?
Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American film noir directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, and Zachary Scott, also featuring Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, and Bruce Bennett.
What happened to Bert Pierce and Monte Beragon?
Monte Beragon, the second husband of Mildred Pierce, is murdered. The police tell Mildred that her first husband, Bert Pierce, has confessed. Mildred protests that he is too kind to commit murder and reveals her story to the officer in flashback. Mildred and Bert are unhappily married.
Is Mildred Pierce based on a true story?
Mildred Pierce (film) Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American film noir crime-drama directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson and Zachary Scott, also featuring Eve Arden, Ann Blyth and Bruce Bennett. Based on a novel by James M. Cain, this was Crawford's first starring film for Warner Bros.
What happened to Mildred Pierce first husband?
In 1996, Mildred Pierce was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry. Monte Beragon, the second husband of Mildred Pierce, is murdered. The police tell Mildred that her first husband, Bert Pierce, has confessed.
What did the daughter die from in Mildred Pierce?
Mildred's younger daughter Kay contracts pneumonia and dies. Bert agrees to the divorce. Mildred's restaurant is a big success and she starts a chain to support Veda's and Monte's ever-expensive tastes.
What happens to Veda in Mildred Pierce?
Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. Veda travels to Reno and apparently reconciles with Mildred, but several months later, Veda reveals that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York City with Monty.
What is the message of Mildred Pierce?
In order to push women back into their domestic roles, Mildred Pierce asserts the outdated ideas that women cannot be successful in business without the help of men, that women have designated roles in the workforce, and, most importantly, that dangers could befall a woman's household as a result of her ambitions ...
How does the novel Mildred Pierce end?
She builds up a thriving restaurant business, and has a passionate affair with a rich playboy named Monty, whom she eventually marries. By story's end Mildred has lost everything because of her overwhelming love for her pretentious, narcissistic and duplicitous elder daughter, Veda.
Does Veda sleep with Monty?
Mildred marries playboy Monty Beragon, who spends her money and begins sleeping with Veda. Veda ends up working with Beragon and wants him to divorce her mother and marry her.
Why did Bette Davis turn down Mildred Pierce?
Joan presumably knew that the part of Mildred was first offered to Bette who refused it because she didn't want to work with MICHAEL CURTIZ again. Director Michael Curtiz wanted BARBARA STANWYCK. In his new book “Michael Curtiz, A Life On Film”, author Alan K.
How old is Veda in Mildred Pierce?
But the central concern in Haynes' and Cain's versions of Mildred Pierce is Veda, played as an 11-year-old by Morgan Turner and then as a 20-year-old by Evan Rachel Wood. Veda is meant to be spoiled and petulant at first and then increasingly mean and evil through the years.
Why is Mildred Pierce important in film noir?
Certainly emblematic of the woman's integration into the workforce that transpired during WWII, MILDRED PIERCE vindicates working class ideals are not gender specific, along with the popular notion that hard work gets one ahead in American society.
Who is the femme fatale in Mildred Pierce?
VedaVeda (Ann Blyth, only around sixteen when the film was made) is a femme fatale in bobby socks: manipulative, deceitful, selfish, and cold-blooded. Blyth's primly immaculate, doll-like prettiness, with a head too big for her tiny body, perfectly suits this bad seed who is wily as a grown-up and amoral as a baby.
Did Mildred Pierce lose all her money?
Mildred ended up losing everything she had worked for and was left broke. She divorced her Gigolo and moved back to her old house where it all began. She also remarried her first husband again.
Who sang for Veda in Mildred Pierce?
soprano Sumi JoThey also hired Korean coloratura soprano Sumi Jo to serve as the primary singing voice for the character of Veda.
How many seasons of Mildred Pierce are there?
Mildred Pierce is an American drama television miniseries that aired on HBO from March 27 to April 10, 2011, consisting of five episodes.
How old is Veda in Mildred Pierce?
Mildred retains custody of 16-year-old Veda, a bratty social climber, and 10-year-old Kay, a tomboy. Mildred's principal goal is to provide material possessions for Veda, who longs for high social status and is ashamed of her mother being a baker.
Who sings for Veda in Mildred Pierce?
Sumi JoTrivia (3) Veda's singing parts were actually performed by world-renowned coloratura soprano, Sumi Jo. The filmmakers used some of Jo's existing recordings along with new recordings made specifically for this movie.
Does Ann Blyth sing?
Ann Marie Blyth (born August 16, 1928) is an American retired actress and singer.
When was Mildred Pierce filmed?
Mildred Pierce (1945) - IMDb.
Who is Mildred Pierce?
Mildred Pierce. (film) For the 2011 miniseries, see Mildred Pierce (miniseries). Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American film noir directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, and Zachary Scott, also featuring Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, and Bruce Bennett. Based on the 1941 novel by James M.
What is the rating of Mildred Pierce?
The film currently holds an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 8.00/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Tied together by a powerhouse performance from Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce blends noir and social drama to soapily intoxicating effect.".
Why did Joan Crawford not want to play Mildred Pierce?
Crawford campaigned for the lead role in Mildred Pierce, which most lead actresses did not want because of the implied age as mother of a teenage daughter. Warner Bros. and director Michael Curtiz originally wanted Bette Davis to play the title role, but she declined. Curtiz did not want Crawford to play the part. He campaigned for Barbara Stanwyck, who was working on My Reputation (1946) at the time. When he learned that Stanwyck was not going to be cast, he then tried to recruit either Olivia de Havilland or Joan Fontaine to play Mildred, but both were only in their 20s. He ultimately approved Crawford's casting after seeing her screen test. Even so, the director and the star were often at odds on the set, with producer Jerry Wald acting as peacemaker.
What episode does Darlene watch Mildred Pierce?
In the third episode of The Deuce, "The Principle Is All", Darlene watches Mildred Pierce with one of her regulars.
Why does Mildred coax Monte into a loveless marriage?
Desperate to reconcile with her daughter, Mildred coaxes Monte into a loveless marriage to improve her social status, with Monte's price being a one-third share of her business to allow him to settle his debts. Veda, eager to live out her dream as a debutante, pretends to reconcile with her mother and moves into Beragon's lavish mansion.
Where was Mildred Pierce filmed?
Scenes for the film were shot in Glendale, California and Malibu, California. Permission had to be granted from the U.S. Navy to shoot in Malibu because of wartime restrictions.
When was Mildred Pierce deemed culturally significant?
In 1996 , Mildred Pierce was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Who plays Veda in Mildred Pierce?
Veda (Morgan Turner) opens a present from her mother Mildred (Kate Winslet) in "Mildred Pierce.". Mildred Pierce's daughter Veda has always been a brat. She was a brat in James M. Cain's original 1941 novel and in the 1945 film, and she's a brat in the new HBO miniseries, which aired its third episode last night.
Who plays Mildred in Veda?
And as played by Winslet, Mildred is very far from a sap. She's a tough cookie, savvy negotiator and survivalist - the material about her rise from desperate waitress to thriving restaurateur is the miniseries' highlight - and she doesn't even play her as if she has a blind spot for her eldest daughter. There's scene after scene of Mildred looking like she knows just how toxic Veda is, yet the demands of the story require her to again and again make decisions that fly against what we can see on Winslet 's face. It's supposed to be a tale of maternal obsession, but instead 90% of the miniseries features a wise character who randomly becomes self-destructively in thrall to her emotional vampire of a daughter for the other 10%.
What does Mildred tell Lucy?
Worse, Mildred becomes her willfully blind enabler. "I don't want her to just have bread," Mildred tells her friend, Lucy. "I want her to have cake.". Mildred is finally forced to take work as a waitress, although she refuses to breathe a word about it to her children.
Where did Mildred Pierce open?
Mildred Pierce opens in Glendale, Calif., in 1931, and closes there about 10 years later. During the years between, Mildred trudges with grim and not particularly admirable fortitude from one disaster to the next, dragging Veda, her harpy of a daughter, behind her like an anchor.
Is Mildred a monster?
She's a monster, but not one (like Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed) who comes out of nowhere; she is her own mother with all the grace notes removed. Mildred, at least, is capable of love. In Veda, love has been annealed to a hard diamond of ambition. Worse, Mildred becomes her willfully blind enabler.
Overview
Adaptations
Cain was first approached about a film adaptation of Mildred Pierce by Warner Brothers producer Jerry Wald in 1943. Though Cain declined Wald’s request to write a film treatment, Wald—known as a producer of films appealing to women moviegoers—continued to seek a suitable screenwriter. In the spring of 1944, Warners purchased the film rights for $15,000, When Cain received Wald’s proposed treatments, the producer had inserted a murder into the story, and acc…
Plot
Set in Glendale, California in the 1930s, the book is the story of a middle-class housewife, Mildred Pierce, and her attempts to maintain her family's social position during the Great Depression.
Mildred separates from Bert, her unemployed husband, and sets out to support herself and her children. After a difficult search, she finds a job as a waitress, but she worries that it is beneath her middle-class station. More than that, she worries that her ambitious and increasingly pretent…
Characters
• Mildred Pierce – a middle-class mother of two
• Bert Pierce – Mildred's first and, later, her third husband
• Moire ("Ray") Pierce – Mildred's younger daughter
• Veda Pierce – Mildred's elder daughter
Publication history
Cain’s desire to write a novel about “a grass widow with two small children to support” had its origins in 1932 from a suggestion by fellow writer James McGuiness, and went through numerous plot and character permutations during the years of the Great Depression.
Mildred Pierce is the third of his four novels in which Cain incorporated Grand opera, for which he had trained as a baritone in his youth.
Critical response
Mildred Pierce was released in September 1941 by Alfred A. Knopf publishers, Literary critic Edmund Wilson introduced the novel in an essay for The New Republic entitled “The Boys in the Back Room.” Biographer Ray Hoopes observed that Wilson’s measured praise “was the first suggestion by a major American critic that Cain had edged his way into the front ranks of American authors.”
Theme
The theme of the novel derives from Cain’s female protagonist, Mildred Pierce, a housewife who “uses men to gain her ends”, in achieving financial success as a restaurateur. Mildred’s daughter Veda, in turn, manipulates her mother to advance her musical ambitions. The elements of “food, finance and mothering” appear forcefully, as they did in earlier works, especially Cain’s 1937 novel Serenade.
See also
• 1941 in literature