Mildred Pierce (1945) on Netflix
Approved19451h 51mCrimeDramaFilm-Noir
Detectives question Mildred Pierce about a death at a beach house. She tells them how she supported her daughters after her husband left and built a restaurant business for Veda.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.9/1031,802 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Mildred Pierce's husband Bert loses his job and leaves, so she keeps their two daughters, Veda and Kay, and sells baked goods to the neighbors to pay for the things Veda expects. Bert has objected to spoiling the girl. Desperate for money, Mildred takes a waitress job and hides it from Veda, who is ashamed of work she considers common. She wants a restaurant of her own, and the family friend Wally Fay helps her buy a building whose owner, Monte Beragon, takes an interest in her. Her business grows into a chain of restaurants, and Veda, who measures people by money and position, grows harder to satisfy.
Cast
- Bill Alcornas Soldier
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mildred Pierce (1945)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Warner Bros. and director Michael Curtiz wanted Barbara Stanwyck for the title role, and Curtiz doubted Joan Crawford until her screen test changed his mind; the two still clashed on set, with producer Jerry Wald mediating between them.
- After leaving MGM in 1943, Joan Crawford actively campaigned for the lead in Mildred Pierce, a role most established actresses avoided because playing the mother of a teenage daughter implied they were aging out of romantic leads.
- The film became such an enduring gay cult classic that it is the focus of David M. Halperin's 2012 book How to Be Gay, which credits it with helping cement Joan Crawford's status as a gay icon.
- Because of wartime restrictions, the production had to get permission from the U.S. Navy just to shoot the film's scenes in Malibu.
SPOILER
Unlike James M. Cain's novel, where Monte survives and Veda is never punished, the film's screenwriters invented the murder and prison ending because the era's censorship code demanded that wrongdoers be punished on screen.
