Joan Crawford
We watched a bunch of movies in early May, so I'm separating our mini Joan Crawford marathon from the rest.
Mildred Pierce [1945]. Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) works hard all her life to please her disapproving daughter Veda (Ann Blyth). The movie begins with a stunning murder and then flashbacks fill in the story. Mildred, young and married with two daughters, is a hardworking housewife. She and her first husband get into a fight over his infidelities and separate. At that moment, the elder daughter Veda's sense of entitlement begins to show, though this character really takes time to develop, much as it takes time for a child to develop into an individuated human being. For the longest time, the film centers on Mildred, her travails and romances, as she tries to support her family as a single mother. She builds herself up to financial independence, yet remains always selfless and generous. Her daughter weans herself on this life of handouts and eventually steps out of her mother's shadow and shows her true colors. The dialogue is written impeccably, with lots of double entendres and ulterior motives. A number of clever sexual innuendos also circumvent the Hays Code: I really liked the record that's finished playing on a record player, whose needle repeatedly scratches and clicks in an auditory cue of squeaking mattress springs.
Crawford plays the martyr well, sacrificing herself for others under the assumption that everyone is going to behave well (and then sacrificing herself even further when they don't). Her weariness contrasts well with Blyth's fresh, innocent face that covers up monumental selfishness. The two females are supported by three males: Pierce's flawed but reliable first husband Bert (Bruce Bennett); her husband's business-savvy real estate partner Wally (Jack Carson), who's always hitting on Mildred; and Mildred's second husband, Monte the playboy (Zachary Scott). Each one has his appeal, but none of them are really wholesome and for a while you believe that maybe Mildred -- and all women -- might be better off without men. That's certainly the independent streak presented by Mildred's sassy restaurant manager friend Ida (Eve Arden). She's tough, she talks back to men, and she seems pretty in control of her sexuality, at one point verbally devouring a poor guy in glasses. She and Mildred recall Rosie the Riveter and other independent women popping up from WWII, a symbolism which makes the daughter Veda so much more intriguing. In some ways, Veda is a throwback to old social norms, wanting to marry rich and never have to work. On the other hand, Veda's a mutant of Mildred and Ida's liberated women: a woman who knows what she wants (financial independence and status) and will calculate just what she needs to do to get it. Given their symbolism for the post-WWII social realignment of women, it's worth reflecting just what happens to each of the two Pierce women. In the interest of not spoiling the delightful plot, I'll be abstract: this is a film noir so the men are in prominent positions, but being a noir, the men are weak in their control of the women, who are just a bit dangerous. The patriarchy doesn't really reassert itself until the final image, a statuesque walk through imposing edifices that scream of notions of tradition and foundation. But in comparison to all that preceded it, that last shot feels like the delusion of happiness it really is. A complicated movie with strong direction and a solid cast. 9/10.
Mommie Dearest [1981]. The tell-all biography of Joan Crawford, as written by her adopted daugher Christina. Since we had already seen a wide sampling of Crawford's work, we felt it was finally time to see this exposé of the monstrously grand dame. We had seen her early star appearances in the cameo-fests The Stolen Jools and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, followed by her late, serious classic Mildred Pierce, for which she won an Oscar. We also watched the star in freefall, from the Grand Guignol grotesquery on display in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, followed by the utter camp B-movies Strait-Jacket and Berserk!. After seeing the screen persona, it was now time for the behind-the-scenes Joan.
Faye Dunaway takes on the lead role, transforming that beautiful alabaster face from Chinatown into Crawford's taut mask of heavily inked eyebrows and tight lips. She's utterly convincing as Crawford, imitating her personal gestures and, most importantly, her facial expressions with indelible accuracy. Her tantrums are the highlight of the film: overblown, unpredictable, and thoroughly Joan Crawford. You see all these explosions of anger and hysteria through the eyes of Crawford's young daughter Christina (Mara Hobel as a child, Diana Scarwid as an adult). Many have daggers of vindictiveness, like Crawford's pleasant invitation to her daughter to swim, followed by an enthusiastic offer "I'll race you!" In a normal household, the parent would give the child some fodder for hope, but not with Crawford, who bests her daughter (twice) and coldly leaves the pool before the daughter's reached the other side. Several other scenes reveal Crawford's jealousy and how much she felt threatened by her daughter, yet her daughter is too young to understand what she is doing wrong or why her mother would secretly hate her. The things that trigger Crawford's mad tantrums can be so unpredictable, like the famous scene where she's happily looking through her daughter's closet -- happy until she finds something she doesn't like. When she shouts her accusation, I couldn't stop myself from laughing, despite it being such a terrifying scene, with Crawford's beauty mask distorting her already caricatured face into a horrific monster. That scene is truly hard to forget and is done very well.
In comparison, many other scenes suffer from the poor direction. The film flows as a series of vignettes, yet many scenes end too early and the segues are non-existent. The two actresses that play Christina are fairly good, but could have been better. Christina's younger brother Christopher is almost entirely sidelined in the movie, and apparently there were three other siblings that never appear in the film. Still, the movie gives you a scary inside look of what happened in the Crawford household, with many of the events independently verifiable, like what Joan did to Christina's budding acting career (if you don't know, your mouth will be agape at that revelation). And even though the film turns Crawford into a monster, it does provide some sympathy. Here was a woman who fought it out in a man's world, who worked hard to get her roles and who fought furiously not to be sidelined, as in the memorable scene with the Pepsi board of directors. Her animosity towards her daughter partially arose from the jealousy of the daughter having an easier life, and there's a certain sense of the hard-working woman slowly getting overwhelmed by a world out to crush her. A mixed bag of a biographical film, but highly enjoyable only because the legendary personality at the center of the story and the talented actress who brought her to the screen one last time. 7/10.
Die, Mommie, Die! [2003]. Aging movie star Angela Arden (Charles Busch) decides to murder her ungrateful husband (Philip Baker Hall). Angela has been deluding herself about her fading career and her waning power to manipulate those around her. Much of this power comes from her money, which pays for her house, her clothes, and her well-endowed live-in boyfriend (Jason Priestley). However, when her husband threatens to cut off the cash flow, he crosses the line and Angela begins plotting his demise. Meanwhile, her daughter Edith (Natasha Lyonne) despises her mother while being disturbingly intimate and cuddly with her father. The son (Stark Sands) floats without aspiration and curiously keeps getting into homosexual situations -- the reason for his expulsion from school was just too funny. Rounding out the household of secrets is the maid, Bootsie (Francis Conroy), a wealth of biblical quotes, humble work and frequent eavesdropping.
This movie had such great potential to spoof the domineering matriarch films of the 30s and 40s, whose overblown stars (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson) are ripe for comic deflation. The lead role is played by Mr. Busch in drag, in a role he lovingly wrote himself. He gets these women's airs of pretension right, as well as their diction, flirtation and deflection. Yet there's a spark missing to his performance -- he simply can't evoke the same aura of pride the original actresses could. The plot arcs follow typical lines for these sorts of movies and the dialogue mixes hokiness with intrigue in perfect mimicry of 1940s cinematic wisecracks: "Buster, if you want any singin' outta me, you better haul out that bratwurst and spread some mustard on it." Lines like that are scattered throughout the movie and they're so spot on that when I read them I laugh. Yet when I saw it on the screen, it somehow lost its camp sensibility. It felt like the director couldn't decide whether to embrace the campiness or to remain deadpan, but the result is a film that feels more like a faithful reproduction than a spoof. It's a shame really, because so many elements to this film were right, yet it just doesn't work as a comedy. It could have been really great. This was my and Christian's second time seeing the film. I thought that now that I had seen all these Joan Crawford films it would have been funnier, but it had no effect. Formerly I gave the film a 7, now I'm giving it a 6/10.
Mildred Pierce [1945]. Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) works hard all her life to please her disapproving daughter Veda (Ann Blyth). The movie begins with a stunning murder and then flashbacks fill in the story. Mildred, young and married with two daughters, is a hardworking housewife. She and her first husband get into a fight over his infidelities and separate. At that moment, the elder daughter Veda's sense of entitlement begins to show, though this character really takes time to develop, much as it takes time for a child to develop into an individuated human being. For the longest time, the film centers on Mildred, her travails and romances, as she tries to support her family as a single mother. She builds herself up to financial independence, yet remains always selfless and generous. Her daughter weans herself on this life of handouts and eventually steps out of her mother's shadow and shows her true colors. The dialogue is written impeccably, with lots of double entendres and ulterior motives. A number of clever sexual innuendos also circumvent the Hays Code: I really liked the record that's finished playing on a record player, whose needle repeatedly scratches and clicks in an auditory cue of squeaking mattress springs.
Crawford plays the martyr well, sacrificing herself for others under the assumption that everyone is going to behave well (and then sacrificing herself even further when they don't). Her weariness contrasts well with Blyth's fresh, innocent face that covers up monumental selfishness. The two females are supported by three males: Pierce's flawed but reliable first husband Bert (Bruce Bennett); her husband's business-savvy real estate partner Wally (Jack Carson), who's always hitting on Mildred; and Mildred's second husband, Monte the playboy (Zachary Scott). Each one has his appeal, but none of them are really wholesome and for a while you believe that maybe Mildred -- and all women -- might be better off without men. That's certainly the independent streak presented by Mildred's sassy restaurant manager friend Ida (Eve Arden). She's tough, she talks back to men, and she seems pretty in control of her sexuality, at one point verbally devouring a poor guy in glasses. She and Mildred recall Rosie the Riveter and other independent women popping up from WWII, a symbolism which makes the daughter Veda so much more intriguing. In some ways, Veda is a throwback to old social norms, wanting to marry rich and never have to work. On the other hand, Veda's a mutant of Mildred and Ida's liberated women: a woman who knows what she wants (financial independence and status) and will calculate just what she needs to do to get it. Given their symbolism for the post-WWII social realignment of women, it's worth reflecting just what happens to each of the two Pierce women. In the interest of not spoiling the delightful plot, I'll be abstract: this is a film noir so the men are in prominent positions, but being a noir, the men are weak in their control of the women, who are just a bit dangerous. The patriarchy doesn't really reassert itself until the final image, a statuesque walk through imposing edifices that scream of notions of tradition and foundation. But in comparison to all that preceded it, that last shot feels like the delusion of happiness it really is. A complicated movie with strong direction and a solid cast. 9/10.
Mommie Dearest [1981]. The tell-all biography of Joan Crawford, as written by her adopted daugher Christina. Since we had already seen a wide sampling of Crawford's work, we felt it was finally time to see this exposé of the monstrously grand dame. We had seen her early star appearances in the cameo-fests The Stolen Jools and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, followed by her late, serious classic Mildred Pierce, for which she won an Oscar. We also watched the star in freefall, from the Grand Guignol grotesquery on display in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, followed by the utter camp B-movies Strait-Jacket and Berserk!. After seeing the screen persona, it was now time for the behind-the-scenes Joan.
Faye Dunaway takes on the lead role, transforming that beautiful alabaster face from Chinatown into Crawford's taut mask of heavily inked eyebrows and tight lips. She's utterly convincing as Crawford, imitating her personal gestures and, most importantly, her facial expressions with indelible accuracy. Her tantrums are the highlight of the film: overblown, unpredictable, and thoroughly Joan Crawford. You see all these explosions of anger and hysteria through the eyes of Crawford's young daughter Christina (Mara Hobel as a child, Diana Scarwid as an adult). Many have daggers of vindictiveness, like Crawford's pleasant invitation to her daughter to swim, followed by an enthusiastic offer "I'll race you!" In a normal household, the parent would give the child some fodder for hope, but not with Crawford, who bests her daughter (twice) and coldly leaves the pool before the daughter's reached the other side. Several other scenes reveal Crawford's jealousy and how much she felt threatened by her daughter, yet her daughter is too young to understand what she is doing wrong or why her mother would secretly hate her. The things that trigger Crawford's mad tantrums can be so unpredictable, like the famous scene where she's happily looking through her daughter's closet -- happy until she finds something she doesn't like. When she shouts her accusation, I couldn't stop myself from laughing, despite it being such a terrifying scene, with Crawford's beauty mask distorting her already caricatured face into a horrific monster. That scene is truly hard to forget and is done very well.
In comparison, many other scenes suffer from the poor direction. The film flows as a series of vignettes, yet many scenes end too early and the segues are non-existent. The two actresses that play Christina are fairly good, but could have been better. Christina's younger brother Christopher is almost entirely sidelined in the movie, and apparently there were three other siblings that never appear in the film. Still, the movie gives you a scary inside look of what happened in the Crawford household, with many of the events independently verifiable, like what Joan did to Christina's budding acting career (if you don't know, your mouth will be agape at that revelation). And even though the film turns Crawford into a monster, it does provide some sympathy. Here was a woman who fought it out in a man's world, who worked hard to get her roles and who fought furiously not to be sidelined, as in the memorable scene with the Pepsi board of directors. Her animosity towards her daughter partially arose from the jealousy of the daughter having an easier life, and there's a certain sense of the hard-working woman slowly getting overwhelmed by a world out to crush her. A mixed bag of a biographical film, but highly enjoyable only because the legendary personality at the center of the story and the talented actress who brought her to the screen one last time. 7/10.
Die, Mommie, Die! [2003]. Aging movie star Angela Arden (Charles Busch) decides to murder her ungrateful husband (Philip Baker Hall). Angela has been deluding herself about her fading career and her waning power to manipulate those around her. Much of this power comes from her money, which pays for her house, her clothes, and her well-endowed live-in boyfriend (Jason Priestley). However, when her husband threatens to cut off the cash flow, he crosses the line and Angela begins plotting his demise. Meanwhile, her daughter Edith (Natasha Lyonne) despises her mother while being disturbingly intimate and cuddly with her father. The son (Stark Sands) floats without aspiration and curiously keeps getting into homosexual situations -- the reason for his expulsion from school was just too funny. Rounding out the household of secrets is the maid, Bootsie (Francis Conroy), a wealth of biblical quotes, humble work and frequent eavesdropping.
This movie had such great potential to spoof the domineering matriarch films of the 30s and 40s, whose overblown stars (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson) are ripe for comic deflation. The lead role is played by Mr. Busch in drag, in a role he lovingly wrote himself. He gets these women's airs of pretension right, as well as their diction, flirtation and deflection. Yet there's a spark missing to his performance -- he simply can't evoke the same aura of pride the original actresses could. The plot arcs follow typical lines for these sorts of movies and the dialogue mixes hokiness with intrigue in perfect mimicry of 1940s cinematic wisecracks: "Buster, if you want any singin' outta me, you better haul out that bratwurst and spread some mustard on it." Lines like that are scattered throughout the movie and they're so spot on that when I read them I laugh. Yet when I saw it on the screen, it somehow lost its camp sensibility. It felt like the director couldn't decide whether to embrace the campiness or to remain deadpan, but the result is a film that feels more like a faithful reproduction than a spoof. It's a shame really, because so many elements to this film were right, yet it just doesn't work as a comedy. It could have been really great. This was my and Christian's second time seeing the film. I thought that now that I had seen all these Joan Crawford films it would have been funnier, but it had no effect. Formerly I gave the film a 7, now I'm giving it a 6/10.