Mildred Pierce
Encyclopedia
Mildred Pierce is a 1941 hardboiled
novel
by James M. Cain
. It was made into an Oscar-winning 1945
film
starring Joan Crawford
and a 2011
Emmy-winning miniseries starring Kate Winslet
.
, California
, in the 1930s
, the book is the story of middle-class
housewife Mildred Pierce's attempts to maintain her and her family's social position during the Great Depression
.
Mildred separates from her unfaithful, 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 pretentious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and failure as she opens three successful restaurants, operates a pie-selling business and copes with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys her mother's newfound financial success but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother while openly condemning her and anyone who must work for a living.
When Mildred discovers her daughter's plot to blackmail a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, she kicks her out of their house. Veda, who has been training to become an opera singer, goes on to a great deal of fame as Mildred convinces her new boyfriend Monty (a young man who, like Mildred, lost his family's wealth at the start of the Great Depression) to help reconcile them. Unfortunately for Mildred, this means buying Monty's family estate and using her earnings to pay for Veda's extravagances. Mildred and Monty marry, but things go sour for her: Wally, her partner in the restaurant business, has discovered that her living like a rich person has dramatically affected the company's profits. He threatens a coup to force her out of the company. This causes her to confess to her ex-husband Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda's love.
Needing some of Veda's money to balance the books - and fearing that Wally might target the girl's assets if they are exposed - Mildred goes to her house to confront her. She finds Veda in bed with her stepfather. Monty explains to Mildred that he's leaving her for Veda, who gloats that they've been planning this all along. Mildred snaps, brutally attacking and apparently strangling her daughter, who now appears incapable of singing.
Weeks pass as Mildred moves to Reno, Nevada
to establish residency in order to get a speedy divorce from Monty. Bert moves out to visit her. Mildred ultimately is forced to resign from her business empire, leaving it to Wally and Mildred's assistant Ida. Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. They are shocked when Veda shows up with several dozen reporters to "reconcile" with her mother (a move designed to defuse the negative publicity of her sleeping with her stepfather). Mildred accepts, but several months later, Veda reveals over breakfast on Christmas morning that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York
with Monty. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred agrees to say "to hell" with the monstrous Veda and to "get stinko" with Bert.
, Ann Blyth
, Jack Carson
, Bruce Bennett
, Zachary Scott
and Lee Patrick
.
Mildred Pierce is a classic
postwar film noir
with elements of the melodrama
or "weeper"; it was structured as a typical murder mystery
told in flashbacks. The family melodrama was significantly modified from its original source because of pressures from the Motion Picture Production Code regarding its sordid nature, specifically the behavior of the dissolute playboy character, Monty, who initiates a quasi-incest
uous romance with his stepdaughter, Veda. At the same time, however, the screenwriters made violence much more central to the plot than it was in Cain's novel.
Hungarian
-born director Michael Curtiz
had already directed films of many different genres, including The Adventures of Robin Hood
(1938), Angels with Dirty Faces
(1938), Dodge City
(1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
(1939), The Sea Hawk
(1940), Casablanca
(1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy
(1942), and This is the Army
(1943). Curtiz reluctantly began filming with Crawford, who had a reputation for being mannered and difficult, but he was pleasantly surprised by her performance. The role was always considered for Crawford, but at certain stages also for Ann Sheridan
.
This film was a tremendous box-office hit and critical success, and was adapted by Ranald MacDougall, Catherine Turney, and William Faulkner
from Cain's novel. [Cain wrote novellas that provided source material for two other film-noir classics: his novella The Postman Always Rings Twice
(1934), filmed in 1946, and the novella, Double Indemnity (1936), filmed in 1944.] Atypical of films noir, the protagonist in the film is female, but she is conventionally brought down by a femme fatale
, in this case, her own daughter. Successful promotional copy for the film read: "Mildred Pierce – don't ever tell anyone what she did."
The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture
, Best Supporting Actress
(Eve Arden and Ann Blyth, both with their only career nominations), Best Screenplay (Ranald MacDougall), and Best Black-and-white Cinematography (Ernest Haller, who shared the Color Cinematography Oscar for Gone with the Wind
(1939). Crawford won the film's sole Academy Award as Best Actress
. It was her sole win out of three career nominations.
began shooting a five-part miniseries with Kate Winslet
as Mildred, Guy Pearce
as Monty Beragon, and Evan Rachel Wood
as Veda. Haynes wrote the period piece with Jon Raymond, and also served as an executive producer with Pamela Koffler, John Wells, Ilene S. Landress and Christine Vachon
, along with HBO in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
.
The miniseries first aired on HBO, starting on March 27, 2011, and ending with a two-part finale on April 10, 2011. It differs from the movie version, staying more faithful to the book's original story.
Hardboiled
Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by James M. Cain
James M. Cain
James Mallahan Cain was an American author and journalist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir...
. It was made into an Oscar-winning 1945
1945 in film
The year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
film
Mildred Pierce (film)
Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American drama film starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden in a film noir about a long-suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner, and Catherine Turney was based upon the 1941...
starring Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
and a 2011
2011 in American television
The following is a list of events affecting American television in 2011. Events listed include television show debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel launches, closures and rebrandings, as well as information about controversies and carriage disputes....
Emmy-winning miniseries starring Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
.
Plot
Set in GlendaleGlendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, in the 1930s
1930s
File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
, the book is the story of middle-class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
housewife Mildred Pierce's attempts to maintain her and her family's social position during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
Mildred separates from her unfaithful, 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 pretentious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and failure as she opens three successful restaurants, operates a pie-selling business and copes with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys her mother's newfound financial success but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother while openly condemning her and anyone who must work for a living.
When Mildred discovers her daughter's plot to blackmail a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, she kicks her out of their house. Veda, who has been training to become an opera singer, goes on to a great deal of fame as Mildred convinces her new boyfriend Monty (a young man who, like Mildred, lost his family's wealth at the start of the Great Depression) to help reconcile them. Unfortunately for Mildred, this means buying Monty's family estate and using her earnings to pay for Veda's extravagances. Mildred and Monty marry, but things go sour for her: Wally, her partner in the restaurant business, has discovered that her living like a rich person has dramatically affected the company's profits. He threatens a coup to force her out of the company. This causes her to confess to her ex-husband Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda's love.
Needing some of Veda's money to balance the books - and fearing that Wally might target the girl's assets if they are exposed - Mildred goes to her house to confront her. She finds Veda in bed with her stepfather. Monty explains to Mildred that he's leaving her for Veda, who gloats that they've been planning this all along. Mildred snaps, brutally attacking and apparently strangling her daughter, who now appears incapable of singing.
Weeks pass as Mildred moves to Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
to establish residency in order to get a speedy divorce from Monty. Bert moves out to visit her. Mildred ultimately is forced to resign from her business empire, leaving it to Wally and Mildred's assistant Ida. Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. They are shocked when Veda shows up with several dozen reporters to "reconcile" with her mother (a move designed to defuse the negative publicity of her sleeping with her stepfather). Mildred accepts, but several months later, Veda reveals over breakfast on Christmas morning that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with Monty. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred agrees to say "to hell" with the monstrous Veda and to "get stinko" with Bert.
Characters
- Mildred Pierce – middle-class mother of two
- Bert Pierce – Mildred's husband
- Moire ("Ray") and Veda Pierce – Mildred's daughters
- Wally Burgan – Bert's former business partnerBusiness partnerBusiness partner is a term used to denote a commercial entity with which another commercial entity has some form of alliance. This relationship may be a highly contractual, exclusive bond in which both entities commit not to ally with third parties...
- Monty Beragon – wealthy playboyPlayboy (lifestyle)A playboy is a modern version of a public Casanova — a man of means with ample time for leisure, who demonstratively appreciates the pleasures of the world.The term has also been applied to a flashy womanizer, such as a player, pappagallo, or Don Juan....
and Mildred's lover - Lucy Gessler – Mildred's friend
1945
In 1945, the novel was made into a film starring Crawford, Eve ArdenEve Arden
Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
, Ann Blyth
Ann Blyth
Ann Marie Blyth is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:Blyth was born in Mount Kisco,...
, Jack Carson
Jack Carson
John Elmer "Jack" Carson was a Canadian-born U.S.-based film actor.Jack Carson was one of the most popular character actors during the 'golden age of Hollywood', with a film career spanning the 1930s, '40s and '50s...
, Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett was an American actor and Olympic silver medalist shot putter. During the 1930s, he went by his real name, Herman Brix .-Early life and Olympics:...
, Zachary Scott
Zachary Scott
Zachary Scott was an American actor, most notable for his roles as villains and "mystery men".-Life and career:...
and Lee Patrick
Lee Patrick (actress)
Lee Patrick was an American theater and film actress.-Early life and education:Born in New York City, Patrick began acting on Broadway in 1924. For more than a decade, she was constantly employed and established herself as a popular actress. She appeared in the original 1929 production of June...
.
Mildred Pierce is a classic
Classic
The word classic means something that is a perfect example of a particular style, something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality. The word can be an adjective or a noun . It denotes a particular quality in art, architecture, literature and other cultural artifacts...
postwar film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
with elements of the melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
or "weeper"; it was structured as a typical murder mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
told in flashbacks. The family melodrama was significantly modified from its original source because of pressures from the Motion Picture Production Code regarding its sordid nature, specifically the behavior of the dissolute playboy character, Monty, who initiates a quasi-incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
uous romance with his stepdaughter, Veda. At the same time, however, the screenwriters made violence much more central to the plot than it was in Cain's novel.
Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
-born director Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...
had already directed films of many different genres, including The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Filmed in Technicolor, the picture stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains.-Plot:...
(1938), Angels with Dirty Faces
Angels with Dirty Faces
Angels with Dirty Faces is a 1938 American gangster film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, the Dead End Kids and Humphrey Bogart, along with Ann Sheridan and George Bancroft...
(1938), Dodge City
Dodge City (1939 film)
Dodge City is a 1939 American Western film starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Bruce Cabot. Directed by Hungarian-turned-Hollywood filmmaker Michael Curtiz and based on a story by Robert Buckner, it was filmed in early Technicolor...
(1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex is a 1939 historical romantic drama film. It is based on the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I, portrayed by Bette Davis, and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, played by Errol Flynn...
(1939), The Sea Hawk
The Sea Hawk
The Sea Hawk is a novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1915. The story is set over the years 1588–1593, and concerns a retired Cornish sea-faring gentleman, Sir Oliver Tressilian, who is villainously betrayed by a jealous half-brother. After being forced to serve as a slave on a ...
(1940), Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
(1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owns Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp and Jeanne Cagney.The movie was written by...
(1942), and This is the Army
This Is the Army
This Is the Army is a 1943 American wartime motion picture produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, and a wartime musical designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Sgt. Ezra Stone...
(1943). Curtiz reluctantly began filming with Crawford, who had a reputation for being mannered and difficult, but he was pleasantly surprised by her performance. The role was always considered for Crawford, but at certain stages also for Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
-Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...
.
This film was a tremendous box-office hit and critical success, and was adapted by Ranald MacDougall, Catherine Turney, and William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
from Cain's novel. [Cain wrote novellas that provided source material for two other film-noir classics: his novella The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1934 crime novel by James M. Cain.The novel was quite successful and notorious upon publication, and is regarded as one of the more important crime novels of the 20th century...
(1934), filmed in 1946, and the novella, Double Indemnity (1936), filmed in 1944.] Atypical of films noir, the protagonist in the film is female, but she is conventionally brought down by a femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
, in this case, her own daughter. Successful promotional copy for the film read: "Mildred Pierce – don't ever tell anyone what she did."
The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Eve Arden and Ann Blyth, both with their only career nominations), Best Screenplay (Ranald MacDougall), and Best Black-and-white Cinematography (Ernest Haller, who shared the Color Cinematography Oscar for Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
(1939). Crawford won the film's sole Academy Award as Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. It was her sole win out of three career nominations.
2011
In April 2010, director Todd HaynesTodd Haynes
Todd Haynes is an American independent film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his feature films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Poison, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and the Academy Award-nominated Far from Heaven and I'm Not There.- Style and themes :The writes that "Haynes is...
began shooting a five-part miniseries with Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
as Mildred, Guy Pearce
Guy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
as Monty Beragon, and Evan Rachel Wood
Evan Rachel Wood
Evan Rachel Wood is an American actress and singer. She began her acting career in the late 1990s, appearing in several television series, including American Gothic and Once and Again...
as Veda. Haynes wrote the period piece with Jon Raymond, and also served as an executive producer with Pamela Koffler, John Wells, Ilene S. Landress and Christine Vachon
Christine Vachon
Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector and daughter of noted photographer John Vachon....
, along with HBO in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
.
The miniseries first aired on HBO, starting on March 27, 2011, and ending with a two-part finale on April 10, 2011. It differs from the movie version, staying more faithful to the book's original story.