the audience applauded

Excellent but underrated film

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

this is a movie talks about family relationship. It pick up a boring topic to describe. It is the love from a mother to her daughter. I think the love from mother to daughter is unfair but grateful. Mother tries her best to give her daughter everything she wants in the world. But the daughter thinks she deserved all of those beautiful gifts and also she deserved this love from her mother. The daughter doesn't know to say thank you to her mother. She doesn't know to switch thinking. If she knows to thinking on her mother's position, she won't do those things to hurt her mother's heart. However, after the daughter done those things to break her mother's heart, mother still loves her and try to do everything to cover her daughter's crime.

Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest movies ever made, Curtiz's "Mildred Pierce" is more than a film about the life story of a hard working woman and the mysterious murder occurring in her house. It is a study of the human psychology.. the needs and desires.. and an approach to how people differentiate between illusion and reality and whether it is really valid!"Mildred pierce" is a film noir told through flashbacks with a voice-over narration from the protagonist, where she is telling her life story to the detective investigating in the murder of her second husband. An attractive housewife separates from her first husband due to disagreements related mainly to the raising of their two daughters. Mildred's Life then starts to take a different shape with all the struggles and sufferings, only to find that her hardest challenge is her older daughter Veda with her greedy, mean, and spoiled manners; all of which lead to destruction.The plot and its protagonist Mildred Pierce reminded me of "Gone with the Wind". The film though is more cynical and the characters are in a way or another two-faced.. The acting was great and that helped a lot in introducing the complicated characters and deep dialogue successfully (3 actresses were nominated for Oscars with a win for Joan Crawford in addition to Best Writing nomination). The incredible execution of the film intended to make it gloomy and succeeded.. it is dark, deeply shaded, mysterious, and "deceptive".. wonderful cinematography (also nominated). And the directing.. well it was masterful.What I love about this movie is the way Curtiz introduced its meanings and allegories. Starting with the opening scene, Curtiz shows us Monte (the second husband) being murdered without showing us the murderer. Going through Mildred's story the bits and bits of her life build up for us the image of the killer. The mystery (of life?) carries within it great illusions. In one scene, Mildred goes into a room to search for a bathing suit and Monte follows.. it is then revealed, as Mildred moves closer, that the initial shot was for a reflection of the mirror and for a moment there Mildred is facing herself in the mirror. A similar scene (of a mirror shot) is when Monte is embracing Mildred (do we perceive things in life as they are? are we even honest to ourselves? our feelings.. affections..). Remarkably in the same scene, Monte mentions the sound of his beating heart to Mildred.. after a while the "love scene" ends with Mildred telling Monte to stop the record "from beating" (the sound then - or his feelings I should say are artificial and his words deceptive).Note that in a scene on the beach, Curtiz plays with the light. It is the only "shiny" scene in the film without the contrasts where Mildred is seen happy with her lover Monte (before he becomes her husband).. Curtiz is being artistic and stylish.Curtiz then presents for us the human psyche at-most.. a devotion of a mother that in itself carries the seeds of destruction.. The strengths and motives that turn into weaknesses.. the desire to be wanted that makes someone try to buy the love of another (is "love" ever unconditional or does it always come from a need).. loyalty and betrayal.. the dark humor coming out through memorable words.. and the two faced characters. A beauty.. and a must-see classic.. Mildred Pierce.

The film opens with a melodramatic flourish. A series of shots ring out and a man named Monte Beragon falls dead to the ground. The police bring his wife Mildred in for questioning, but inform her that she is not under suspicion because they believe that the murderer is her first husband, Bert Pierce, who has already confessed to the crime. Mildred, however, tells them that she does not believe Bert is the sort of person who could commit a murder. She then tells them her life story in flashback. We learn of how Mildred and Bert divorced after his becoming unemployed led to stresses in their marriage, of how she worked hard to support their two daughters, eventually building up her own successful catering business, and of how she came to marry Beragon, a man she never loved.The dramatic opening followed by a police interrogation recalls the conventions of film noir, but overall "Mildred Pierce" really belongs to another popular forties genre, the "women's picture". Such films were generally constructed around a strong female character, with the other main characters, especially male ones, defined in terms of their relationship to her. Mildred is a typical "women's picture" heroine, but a number of actresses, including Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck (both of whom tended to specialise in films of this nature) turned the role down, possibly because they did not want to play the mother of a teenage daughter. (Actresses of this period were often reluctant to be cast as mothers, even of young children, because they saw such roles as an indication that their days as a leading lady were over and that henceforward they only had "character" parts to look forward to). Joan Crawford, on the other hand, wanted the part desperately, and fought hard to get it, but was initially vetoed by director Michael Curtiz. Eventually, however, Curtiz relented and Crawford got the part, her first starring role for Warner Bros after leaving MGM.The film can be seen as an Aristotelian tragedy, that of a great woman brought down by a flaw in her character. Mildred possesses many of the attributes of greatness- intelligence, determination, business acumen- but the flaw that brings her down is her lack of parenting skills, especially as regards her elder daughter, Veda, whom she spoils outrageously. The younger girl, Kay, seems more down-to-earth, but after she dies suddenly Mildred spoils Veda all the more. As a result Veda grows up to be bad-tempered, snobbish, materialistic and ashamed of Mildred's lowly social origins, despite the sacrifices her mother has made on her behalf. Mildred's marriage to Beragon, who comes from a distinguished "old money" family and owns a large mansion, is largely motivated by a desire to be reconciled with Veda, from whom she has become estranged, by improving her social status. Despite his origins, however, Beragon himself is in financial difficulties which he hopes to alleviate by marrying a successful businesswoman.Crawford was right to fight so hard for this role; she clearly saw the dramatic possibilities of the script, gave one of the best performances of her career and was rewarded with her only "Best Actress" Academy Award. The other great performance comes from Ann Blyth as Veda, a character as different from Mildred as it is possible for mother and daughter to be. It is noteworthy that when the film was released in 1945 one critic referred to its "unconscionable length", even though it is less than two hours long. (Nowadays many film-makers do not consider even three hours "unconscionable"). Curtiz, however, handles his material well, and the dramatic tension never flags. The storyline may be a bit too melodramatic for some modern viewers, but in my view this remains one of the finest melodramas of the forties. 8/10

Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) ponders suicide only to be stopped by a passing beat cop. Her husband Monte Beragon had been shot and she's the main suspect. During the police interrogation, she recounts her first marriage to Bert Pierce. Four years ago, Bert splits up with his real estate partner Wally Fay and leaves Mildred with their daughters Veda and Kay. Mildred struggles to make ends meet and lowers herself to get a waitress job which embarrasses Veda. Kay dies from pneumonia while with Bert. Mildred works hard to open her own restaurant. She buys a property from playboy Beragon who comes from an old upper-class faded family. Wally Fay advises her to divorce Bert to maintain her finances. She becomes successful with several restaurants. She dotes on Veda spoiling her as the mother daughter relationship spirals out of control. The story is soapy. Crawford is great holding the movie together. The drive comes from finding the end point. Ann Blyth does bratty bordering on evil. It is melodrama done at the highest level and it's all thanks to Crawford.