Tony Maietta:
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just the guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Brad Shreve: 
Tony, you know I love Spain. Mm-hmm. But I don't know if I've really given you details of why I love Spain. You haven't? Tell me. No, you know, it's the people and it's the environment. You know, people here when they move, they move with a purpose. Even when they're falling apart. And they're very dramatic. They speak with crisp, clipped sentences. There's no rambling, no filler. Their arguments are sharp and fast and they're whispered like secrets. Even kindness has an edge, and cruelty is beautifully phrased. And what's really amazing, there are shadows everywhere, even in the kitchens, even in the living rooms, the restaurants.

Tony Maietta: 
Even when you're baking cakes and pies?

Brad Shreve: 
Yes. And everything looks slightly too beautiful and slightly too dangerous.

Tony Maietta: 
Oh God. Sounds like a 1945 movie from Warner Brothers, Brad.

Brad Shreve:
You don't know how long I worked on that. That's great. That's like what would my world be like if I lived there?

Tony Maietta: 
But it's not all black and white. It's not all crisp, earnest. Uh it's not all, it's not all gorgeous Ernest Haller cinematography black and white, though. That's the thing. That's the thing.

Brad Shreve: 
And now we can only get so far, so far here.

Tony Maietta: 
Well, that was cute. That was that was a cute opening. Because, yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are. If you didn't catch it, we're talking about from Marner Brothers in 1945, none other than Miss Mildred Pierce herself. Mildred Pierce. This is another one of our our in our best actress series. That's what we're gonna call it.

Brad Shreve: 
And I'm not gonna leave you in suspense because I already let the cat out of the bag when we had the discussion of whether this movie's gonna be available here or not, and I said I own it. And you know I don't own movies I don't like. So we won't even try to pretend Brad loves this film.

Tony Maietta: 
No, I knew I well, you had told me before. I think actually, okay, here's the thing. Um, Brad had had suggested we do Mildred Pierce a while ago, and I was like, uh, we're a little Joan Crawford heavy here, okay? We've done Grand Hotel, we did the women, baby Jane. And so we talked about possibly doing it, and then when we started talking about this best actress thing, I thought that might be a qualification, but we really did it for me and why I wanted to do this. And I suggested it to Brad, is because it was it is indeed a suggestion, a request from one of our most loyal, lovable listeners who has listened to us since episode one of this podcast. And that is my Italian mama, Mrs. Antoinette Spina in Palm Springs, California. I don't think she'll mind if I say where she is. And she said to me, she was talking about when the new season was starting, and I told her, and she said, Why don't you do Mildred Pierce? Are you gonna do Mildred Pierce? And I was like, All right, all right, all right, we'll do Mildred Pierce. So this is for you, Antoinette. I hope you enjoy this. I'm actually very excited to talk about this anyway. So thank you for the suggestion. I'm glad you gave it to us, and I'm excited to talk about this film with you.

Brad Shreve: 
Yes, Antoinette, I have brought it up several times. So thank you for uh kicking your nephew in the ass and making this happen.

Tony Maietta: 
Italian mama, I'm her, I'm her son. I'm one of her, I'm her favorite son. Um, actually. Um, she's the mother of my best friend of Nick. So thank you, Antoinette, for for suggesting this. Um, I think that what I want to say is I'm sorry, Brad, because you always suggest these movies, and I'm like, no. And then somebody else says, Why don't you do this? And I go, okay. And then I tell Brad, we're gonna do this. He's like, I've been suggesting this for months. What's the problem?

Brad Shreve: 
And the thing is, I now have you know the different emails from listeners that have uh sent us messages, and from this point on, I'm just gonna send them a message and say, Will you please suggest this? Because Tony doesn't listen to me.

Tony Maietta: 
Speaking of that, we are going to, I promise you, listeners, we're gonna read some emails. We keep saying we're gonna do it, and we haven't gotten it to it. We haven't gotten to it yet, but we're only a few episodes into our season. So there's still time. We are going to because we really, really appreciate uh when you reach out to us, when you give us suggestions, when you give your input and your thoughts. We really do. So we want you to know that, and we're gonna read some shortly, we promise. Promise we are.

Brad Shreve: 
And normally I'd save this for the middle or towards the end, but because you brought it up, 

Brad Shreve: 
remember you can now leave us a voicemail and we can now respond to your text messages. So all you have to do in the show notes, kind of near the top, is a I think it's text us a message or something of that nature. I should know it off the top of my head. And uh just click on that and it'll give you the option to text us or leave a voicemail and then we can respond to you.

Tony Maietta: 
So, Brad, I'm curious. I know why I own a copy of Mildred Pierce, but I'm curious why in your eclectic collection of films that you have, do you own Mildred Pierce?

Brad Shreve: 
Well, I love you know, I ha I love Noir. Uh the novel for this, the novel to this movie, and I don't like comparing novels to movies, as you know, but the novel sounds more interesting to me, except for the fact that they made the movie a mystery. And I love a Noir mystery. And just the look and the feel, and I love trash. I mean, this is a trashy soap opera, but no, in the best of ways.

Tony Maietta: 
It's James M. Kane. And James M. Kane, who also wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice, who also wrote Double Indemnity, that is his speciality of the house, is pulp trash. And yes, Mildred Pierce is a glorious trash. I heard, uh, especially this film version of it, I heard Molly Haskell, the film critic Molly Haskell, call this movie a mink coat with a gun. And that is the story of the film of Mildred Pierce. It is. It is a mink coat with a gun. And it is much different than the book, though. And we don't always we don't go deeply into differences between books and movies, but there are some important things I want to point out. Differences. Because as Brad just said, the film from 1945, starring Miss Joan Crawford and Ann Blythe, as what did you call her before we logged on, Brad? Who is who is Vita, in your opinion?

Brad Shreve: 
Yeah, Tony told me shut up because we don't talk about films beforehand, but I did let it out that she is the bad seed grown up. She's wrote a penmark. Thank you. I couldn't think of remember Rhoda's name.

Tony Maietta: 
Grown up with a fabulous updo. Um yes. Uh the wonderful, beautiful, incredibly talented Ann Blythe who got an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for this. It it's very different. It's the the book, Mildred Pierce, is very different than the film, the 1945 film that we're talking about. But since we are talking about couching this in best actress terms, yes, that's indeed. Joan Crawford won her first and unfortunately only Oscar for Mildred Pierce.

Tony Maietta: 
 And there's a whole story behind that, and we'll talk about that. Um, but I I'd want to circle back to what you were talking about, Noir, um, because we haven't really talked about a noir film before. We did actually, Chinatown is a modern noir film. But I think that since we haven't really talked about it, I think we should probably just put noir in a context of what noir is. Um so just really briefly, film noir literally translates as black film. It's French, it's a la Francaise, um, which could refer to the cinematography because there's a lot of shadows, there's a lot of dark, darkness in these films, literally, but it's more metaphorical, it's more in the mood. Uh, it began around 1944 in the mid-40s during the war, no accident, and it was coined by a group of French critics who basically were distinguishing films that were particularly adept in their expressionistic lighting, the use of shadows, the odd camera angles, which this film all has. It all has all these incredible elements, and it's the atmosphere. It's the pessimistic, fatalistic, and like um nihilistic, like a menace. There's a menace in film noir. And then the the menace in this film is yes, is Miss Vita Pierce. But it you just have that atmosphere. So that's just kind of in a nutshell what film noir is.

Brad Shreve: 
Uh now I gotta pipe in and say that film noir may eventually develop on its own, but it started actually in the pulps about 20 years earlier.

Tony Maietta: 
In books, in in books, in books. Yes, yes, yes.

Brad Shreve:
So I am glad you brought up the history of film noir because it is allowing me this step back to go into the really noir to begin with in general. And as I said, it started in the t in the pulps about 20 years earlier, and in the very earliest parts of the last century in the pulps, they made their appearances as stories in magazines such as uh One O'Mans The Black Cat. And although they were written by authors we've come to know and love and respect, those short stories were really bad. But then in 1930 came Dash L. Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, which you've probably heard of. And I I don't believe it was the first Noah fiction novel. Uh I can't say for sure. In fact, I know it wasn't. But it's the one that earned Noir respect. And I credit it for also giving us other great novels that were adapted to films, such as Connection here, James M. Kane's The Postman Always Rings Twice in 1934, Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They in 1935, which many don't think of it as being Noir. Um because most during that era were mysteries, but not all. And then we also had Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep in 1939. So this is my salute to authors out there because without these great novels, we wouldn't have these great movies.

Tony Maietta: 
Well, that's cool that you mentioned uh they shoot horses, don't they? Because you know, we talked about that last year. And and that is not a noir. That is that is shot like a regular film. It doesn't have uh the film noir techniques that this film has. But that's cool that you mentioned it. Um that was interesting. But we should probably get back to Mildred Pierce. Yes, yes.

Brad Shreve: 
Uh your polite way of saying, shut up, let's talk about movies, but I agree. Let's get back to Mildred.

Tony Maietta: 
What's really fascinating about Mildred Pierce is it's kind of a really fascinating hybrid of film noir of the 40s and the woman's films

Tony Maietta: 
 of the 30s. Because in noir, it's usually pretty standard that you have a man, a hero, a protagonist being destroyed by a femme fatale. Well, in Mildred Pierce, you have a woman as the protagonist being destroyed, but almost destroyed by a femme fatale who just happens to be her daughter. So that's what's really interesting about Mildred Pierce. It's the blend of these two genres, woman's pictures, which Joan Crawford did very much in her career in the 30s and 40s, and film noir. And and so it kind of covers all bases, which is one of the reasons I love this film.


Brad Shreve: 
I've already said what I love about this film. And of course, you know what? Uh, Joan is just fantastic.

Tony Maietta: 
She is, she is, and there's a reason she won that Oscar. Um, it wasn't just the fact that it was incredibly overdue. It was incredibly overdue. She had never even been nominated for an Oscar until she did Mildred Pierce, which is insane that she wasn't nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the Women. She probably wouldn't have accepted it because she's Joan Crawford. She doesn't support anybody, but still, I'm it's amazing. It's amazing to me. But I do want to just give a couple little things about differences uh between the book and the film, and not giving away too much of the plot because then we'll talk about the plot. But it's really important. Okay. My first question is to you did you happen to catch the 2011 HBO miniseries starring Kate Winslett on Mills Repearce?

Brad Shreve: 
No, but I uh when I was researching into I knew from watching the film, I'm like, there are differences from the book. I can just feel it. And in researching that, I learned about this miniseries, and I'm dying to see if it's still on HBO.

Tony Maietta: 
It is. It is because I re-watched it this week because I watched it originally in 2011, and I just remembered being blown away by how different it is. So this is a spoiler alert or warning to anyone who hasn't seen the Todd Haynes HBO series. It ain't like the 45 movie. I mean, it really I heard it's verbatim from the book. It's it is the book. It's like five episodes, um, and it takes place. Just some of the crucial differences are it takes place when the novel takes place in the 30s. Now, the film Mills Repears, starring Joan Crawford, is very much a child of the 40s. It's you know, the shoulder pads, the ankle straps, the whole, the whole noir uh motif is a 40s thing. It the book and the miniseries are not like that. They're in the 30s, and the depression plays a big part of the book. There's a couple minor things. Like Mildred's not quite the restaurant tycoon in the book as she is in the film. You know, in the film, she's like suddenly she's like Mrs. Denny's. I mean, she's got all these restaurants all over the place suddenly. Uh, not that way in the book or the TV show. Monty, the character of Monty, comes in and out. He's not like in it and then continually in it. He comes in and out of the book, he dips in and out. But probably the biggest difference, and Brad kind of touched on it, is there is no murder in the book. Monty is not murdered by, oops, here's your spoiler alert, people. I don't think we do them anymore, but just in case, go watch Mildred Pierce then come back. Monty is not murdered by Vita in the book. There is no murder. They put why do you suppose, Brad, they in 1945, there's a hint for you, they had to put Monty being murdered in the movie.

Brad Shreve: 
I already know, so I'm gonna let you say, and I'm gl I'm glad you brought it up because this has uh a lot to do with film. You know, we don't talk a lot about the differences between the book and the movie, but this is very much a sign of what it is. And I'll just say it, it's the production cover. Exactly.

Tony Maietta: 
Those three little words. Monty had to die. Monty had to die, and Vita had to be punished. Because in the book and the TV series, Vita and Monty actually end up together. Vita becomes an opera star, which is probably the most ridiculous king ever. That that would be bizarre. Out of the blue, she has this incredible collaratura voice. Suddenly she's a star. And she and Monty go off to New York in the end of the book. And that doesn't happen in the movie. In the movie, Vita gets punished because she kills Monty. And Brad's absolutely right. It's those three little words, the production code administration, which said, crime must be punished, you know, bad adultery must be punished. So that's why there's a murder in the movie. And in my opinion, I actually like it better. I I gotta tell you.

Brad Shreve: 
Yeah, I haven't seen the miniseries and I haven't read the book, and I I want to do both. But as I said, there's a lot to it that attracts me more when I hear what was in the novel. But the mystery aspect and the murder aspect that attracts me more. Without having read or seen the other, I I feel my gut that's an improvement. So it doesn't surprise me to hear you say so.

Tony Maietta: 
Yeah, I think that for me personally, it's just it's a neater, I don't know. I like my movies neat sometimes. It's a neater ending, it's a neater tie to have this murder. To see V, first of all, it's a great catharsis to see this devil spawn Vita Pierce get some kind of punishment. And in the book, uh she doesn't. She's an opera star and she goes off and she's in New York with Monty, and Mildred's just left, you know, basically almost destroyed. Um, but here's something really interesting about the book is that obviously, hello again, in 1945, the production code administration, the lesbian and incest overtones are much stronger in the book than they are. I don't, I mean, you get little hints of it, also it's because it's Joan Crawford. You get little hints of maybe that Mildred's love for Vita is a little too intense. However, in the book, it's much more overt. Um, and in the TV show, there's actually a scene where Vita's lying in bed and Kate Winslick comes and kisses her on the lips. And I think there's pass there's passages in the book where Mildred goes on about Vera's body and her legs. So you get a real feeling. There's a there's definitely incestual lesbian overtones in the book, which obviously wasn't gonna fly in 1945 in Hollywood.

Brad Shreve: 
See, when you mentioned lesbian, I thought maybe something went on between Joan and Eve Arden.

Tony Maietta: 
Well, they were good pals. They were palsy wildly. How about another another movie with Eve? I love that we're doing another movie with Eve.

Brad Shreve: 
My only complaint in this movie, which is my my complaint in anything she is, is in there's not enough Eve Arden.

Tony Maietta: 
There's not enough Eve Arden, but she did snap an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress, as did Ann Blythe. So we had two best supporting actress nominations from this film, along with the best actress winner, Miss Joan Crawford. So now that I said the differences between the book and the film, Brad, do we want to tell them what the film Mildred Pierce is about? Certainly.

Brad Shreve: 
So Mildred Pearce Pierce Mildred Peirce. That's a whole different movie. That was the um pit pock, pick pickpock. Actually, I can't talk at all today. I'll just skip over and try to explain it. Anyway, uh Mildred Pierce is a newly divorced, now single mother, and she's very domestic, and she was raising money by baking things uh and selling people in the neighborhood, which she now as a single woman turns into a restaurant business to support her daughters, especially her daughter Vita, who uh wants to always live well beyond her means, and uh just middle class life is just not enough. And so uh as Mildred rises financially, Vita becomes more and more uh uh obsessive about wealth and continues to be cruel. I'm not gonna say manipulative because I I don't feel she was that manipulative. But she tricked a boy into marrying her. That is true. She did pull some of that, but overall, I just felt like it's because Joan had a sick, twisted devotion to her more than her being manipulative. That's what made me think the book is different because she's not real skilled at it through most of the film, and I'm like, there had to be more to this than Mildred had some reason to just want to give her daughter everything and anything, other than they aren't going into some strange background that she had.

Tony Maietta: 
Vita's a sociopath in the book, and Mildred does have unnatural feelings for her, which um in the movie, Vita's she's kind of like Rhoda Penmark, a little Rhoda Penmark light, you know, although she does commit murder. You know, she's not you don't have time in a two hour movie to give the every horrible thing that Vita does in the book, you know, justice. So you can't. And that's why I don't like to compare. She's kind of glossed over a little bit in Anne Blythe's hands, but Anne Blythe is still brilliantly duplicitous and evil in this film, I think.

Brad Shreve: 
I agree. I get I think my gut feeling in this, and maybe it is the same as the book. I felt Mildred was just as sick of an individual, just in a different way. True. And that's where I kept I kept saying, Good God, listen to your husband. Get over this girl.

Tony Maietta: 
She's the great enabler, and she is what Joan Crawford did best. Nobody suffered and sweated like Joan Crawford. If Joan Crawford's in a movie, she's gonna suffer and she's gonna sweat at some point. And that's why we said when Baby Jang was the story, you know, Andrew Saras said, you know, the meeting of the great masochist, Joan Crawford, with the great sadist, Betty Davis. And Joan Crawford did play villains. Joan Crawford's true medier was playing women who suffered, who suffered, because nobody could suffer like Joan in Mink with a gun at her side.

Brad Shreve: 
Yeah, and I should say at the be at the beginning of the movie, because I I kind of jumped into a question before I've wrapped it up. If you don't by now know by now, and we kind of already said so, Monty is murdered at the beginning. So the rest of the movie is more about the life, but there is that undertone of who killed Monty.

Tony Maietta: 
Yes. Well, the movie starts with a rosebud with Monty being shot, and his last dying words are Mildred. So we want to know who's Mildred? What did Mildred do? Why is this man being killed? And he's saying the name Mildred. So Monty is played by Zachary Scott, and I think we should say that Monty is Mildred's second husband. Monty is a N'erduel. He's one of these rich Pasadena playboys who's lost his money, but not his lifestyle. Um, and so Mildred basically supports him because Vita is obsessed with being in a certain social class, and Monty is of the manner born. So Monty uh becomes Mildred's second husband in both the book and the film, but in the end, he has an affair with Vita, both in the book and the film. But in the end of the film, Vita shoots him. Um, and that's that's where the murder comes from that opens up the film. So I guess we should say we've got Joan Crawford playing Mildred Pierce. We've got Jack Carson, we haven't mentioned Jack yet. Jack plays Wally Faye, Mildred's uh co-uh business person. He helps her, he helps her get the restaurant, and he's kind of like helping her manage her business, former a co-worker of her husband. We've got the fabulous Eve Arden, as we said. She plays Ida. We have uh Anne Blythe as Vita, and then we have Bruce Bennett as um Mildred's first husband, Bert Pierce. And we have finally we have as the enigmatic Maggie Bieterhoff. We always hear about Mrs. Bieterhoff, he's the woman that Bert is allegedly having an affair with, played by Lee Patrick. And I gotta ask you, Brad, just quickly, did you recognize the actress who played Maggie Bieterhoff? Lee Patrick, by any chance?

Brad Shreve: 
I didn't recognize her. When I learned what she is most known for, I slapped myself because I didn't catch it. She is most known for the Maltese Falcon.

Tony Maietta: 
Yes, she is, but that wasn't what I was thinking of. Oh, what were you thinking of? I was thinking of the Upson, Upson down, she's Mrs. Upson. Oh, she's Gloria Upson's mother in Anti Mame. But yeah, she is in the Maltese Falcon as well, too. Yes. But um, I just I thought since we talked about Anti MAME, that you would that's what would be.

Brad Shreve: 
No, I didn't catch that.

Brad Shreve: 
Okay. No, yes.

Tony Maietta: 
Yeah, I was still in the noir frame of mind, that's why. Um, yes, you were. So uh Mildred

Tony Maietta: 
 Pierce was directed by Michael Curtiz, uh, which is important to mention because Michael Curtiz was a journeyman at Warner Brothers who probably has more classic films under his belt than almost any other director we've ever talked about. Yet he's not one of these celebrated directors. He's not like a William Weiler, he's not like a John Houston, he's not like a John Ford. Curtiz just directed right before this. He came down from a little film called Casablanca. He did mostly all the Errol Flynn movies, he did Robin Hood, he did uh Yankee Doodle Dandy, one of Brad's favorite movies. I mean, he was truly, truly a, I want to call him a journeyman because he did these films, but he did amazing work. He did The Seahawk, he did Life with Father, Angels with Dirty Faces. I mean, this is a very, very fundamentally important director in Hollywood history. And yet, not that many people know him and know his, they know his work, they know Casablanca, but they don't know the director like they know your John Ford's or your Bill Wellmans or people like that. So what's really interesting about Curtiz is that he was given this project uh called Mildred Pierce, which had just been published a few years before. And as I said, movies, Hollywood loved James M. Kane. They made double indemnity, they didn't postman always rings twice. This film was up. And Curtiz did not want Joan in this film. Now I have to give a little background about how Joan got here, but did you know that? Did you know who Curtiz's first choice for Mildred Pierce was by any chance, Brad? I believe I do know. Uh it was either Stanwick or Betty Davis. You're right, it was both. It was both.

Brad Shreve: 
Oh, okay.

Tony Maietta: 
Because this is Warner Brothers in 1944, and you know, Betty was the fourth Warner Brother. I mean, she was truly the queen of the lot in 1944. And Curtiz wanted Stanwick. He wanted Barbara Stanwick to play the part, but and a few other actresses, but the the usual reaction to this was I'm not playing the mother of a teenager. I mean, it just wasn't gonna happen. Crawford had no such problems with this. Now, Crawford at this point, and this is real brief, I promise, had left MGM. She knew by the early 40s that she was no longer news at MGM after 18 plus years. And she, not as you see in some movies and uh TV series, she was not let go from MGM. She requested to be taken off contract. It was in her hands because, and such a brave thing, because I mean she'd been there, you know, since she was like 19, 20 years old, depending on what age you believe her birth date was. And it was very brave of her, but she knew she had to do something because her career was just going nowhere. So she signed with Warner Brothers, Betty Davis's studio. All right, there's another thing, too, another queen of the lot that's not her, signed with Warner Brothers for less money and kept herself off the screen for two years. Two years. This was when people were making movies, two, three movies a year. She kept herself off the screen for two years, waiting for the right property. And she saw this script and she knew it was hers. And I think it's pretty well known, at least for anybody who's watched Mommy Dearest, this is true. Curtiz didn't want her. Joan agreed to do a screen test. Now that would kind of be akin to Meryl Streep doing a screen test for Mama Mia. Okay, just to get that, just to for you to understand how big Joan Crawford had been, and the fact that she was she was submitting to a screen test was big. But again, Joan, so smart about her career, so canny, she knew this was her next phase. She knew this kind of uh larger-than-life uh noir heroin was where her career should go next. And she did such a great job on the screen test. She not only convinced Cortese that she was the right person for this role, she actually made him cry during the screen test. And he said, Baby, I love you. It's your part. So one thing he didn't like though, and one thing he said was no goddamn shoulder pads, because Joan Crawford, you know, very famous for the shoulder pads and very famous for the ankle strap shoes that Betty Davis kind of ungenerously referred to as Joan's fuck me shoes. And ironically, when you watch Baby Jane, the scene where Betty Davis is kicking Joan in the head, she's wearing ankle strap shoes. She's wearing Joan's fuck me shoes. Anyway, so it's so funny. He's like, you're not going to be that way. You're going to be an ordinary woman. Well, Joan Crawford could never be an ordinary woman. I mean, there's just no way. And I just think it's so funny because in the very first scene of Mildred Pierce, when we see Joan from the back walking along the pier, what is she wearing but a fur coat with a linebacker shoulder pads and the fuck me shoes?

Brad Shreve: 
I I was confused. I thought, is that Alexis Carrington?

Tony Maietta: 
It's crazy. He didn't want them, and yet they're in the first shot of her in those shoes. But you know, it's Joan Crawford. What are you gonna do?

Brad Shreve: 
Joan was great in this role, but I would love to see a Barbara Stanwick rendition as well. Oh, yeah, she would be delicious. She'd be great.

Tony Maietta: 
She'd be great. Well, I think that I don't know that you'd get quite the suffering with Barbara Stanwick. I mean, have you ever seen Stella Dallas? Stella Dallas is she suffers as in Stella Dallas, but not quite the same way.

Brad Shreve: 
Yeah, Stanwick, I can't see as much being a victim of her daughter. You're right.

Tony Maietta: 
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't. I mean, Stanwick would kick her in the balls, I think. Yeah, yeah. You know, now Joan Joan does get a few good slugs in, though, I'll tell you right now. And Ann Blythe gets one back. I that scene where she slaps her, where where Vita slaps Mildred, always astounds me because she whacks her. And Joan falls on the stairs, and that's when she says, get out of this house. Get out before I kill you.

Brad Shreve: 
You know, and it's like I couldn't believe she said that.

Tony Maietta: 
It's so um, and that happens in the book too, but not quite as dramatically. Get your things out of this house before I throw you out on the street. Get out before I kill you. And that it's and the music is so dramatic and it's in so intense. And yet she takes her back again. That's the thing that's so crazy about Mildred Pierce. You know, what's the story about Mildred Pierce? She's nuts. She lets this little girl walk all over her and continually takes her back in the name of mother love, apparently.

Brad Shreve: 
But she probably would have been fine had she never seen Vita again. But when she saw Vita up on that stage, degrading herself from Vita's.

Tony Maietta: 
So what happens is I think we should go back a little bit in the plot. So Joan leaves her husband and is making pies and becomes a huge restaurateur, a huge, a huge, huge, like I said, Mrs. Denny's, like like Brad said too. And then um, she meets Monty, who Vita is immediately, immediately taken with uh because of his social status. But it doesn't work out because she realizes that Monty is also using her. She's footing the bill for everybody, basically. Mildred is. And so Vita is engaged to this boy who she from a wealthy family, but they do not approve of her because she's basically a restaurateur's daughter. And she tells them that she's pregnant, so he has to get married. But is she pregnant or isn't she pregnant? Do you remember what she said in what she says in the in the movie about her pregnancy by any chance?

Brad Shreve: 
I think I think I might be, or I think she basically says, If if I say I am, I am.

Tony Maietta: 
Yeah, basically

Tony Maietta:
 she says, at this point, it's a matter of opinion, which I think is a really great line. She gets the boy to basically the boy's family to pay her off. So she'll disappear, go have the baby, and it's pretty evil. Don't so Vita has a big check, and that's what she says to Mildred, with this check, I'll be able to get away from you and everything in this rotten life. And that's when Mildred grabs the check from Vita and rips it up, and that's when Ann Blythe hauls back and smacks Joan Crawford across the face so hard that it knocks Joan back. And that's when Joan, that's when Mildred says, Get out of this house before I kill you. So they separate again. And Vita is on her own, and Mildred goes to see her with Bert at this honky tonk where she's just doing this sleazy kind of song and dance. And that's when she comes back into Mildred's life again and creates even more havoc by sleeping with Monty and then eventually killing him. And then that's a mil that's Mildred Pierce, basically.

Brad Shreve: 
One of the things that I found interesting in this film, and I'm sure it was by accident, is whenever Zachary Scott was on the screen, the light would go across his face, and it almost was as if they were highlighting his long eyelashes.

Tony Maietta: 
Probably were.

Brad Shreve: 
I'm sure that was accidental.

Tony Maietta: 
He's the beauty, he's the beauty in this story. If you notice, I mean, as we said, it's a female film noir. Mildred is the protagonist, Joan Crawford's the protagonist, but Monty is the object of affection. You know, it's not a woman, it's not Veronica Lake who they're fighting over. It's Monty. Yeah, and I think that's absolutely true. The the noir aspects of this film are really fascinating. Not just the shadows, but the camera angles. The film opens at the beach house, at Monty's beach house, and there's a wonderful circular stairway. And very early in the film, we get Jack Carson running, he's either running up the stairs or down the stairs. I don't remember right now. And you get that shot up of the spiral staircase, which is really cool and very indicative of film noir, those kind of wonderful angles that you get. Uh, this film is full of them, and it gives the film such a foreboding mood. Um you know what I mean? It it a heaviness that you wouldn't have gotten had it been lit and shot like a standard film. What do you don't you think?

Brad Shreve: 
Every set, every the lighting, the everything was stunning. It just was it was just beautiful to watch, uh, if you like, especially if you like Noir. As far as Zachary Scott goes, I know this film, at least my understanding is this is what put him on the map, and he made a career out of playing CADS. Yes. I I gotta say, he was so charming and so likable in the beginning. And then when you found out that he was just kind of this broke, manipulative uh playboy, that was equally believable. He did a really good job of you know, you m you loved him and then you you disliked him, and it was all very natural.

Tony Maietta: 
No, absolutely, he's a wonderful cat. I mean he's he's perfect casting as a cad. Another cat is Jack Carson.

Brad Shreve: 
He is, he was kind of a lovable, playful, evil individual. He is much different type of much different type of cad. And I think both of them would be successful in what they do in real life, uh, just they take it from a different angle.

Tony Maietta: 
He's the lovable cad. You like Jack Carson. We talked about Jack Carson too. He was also in stage door with um with Eve Arden, by the way. He had a very small part in stage door, but you like Jack in this film at least, you like Wally. Wally's not quite as reprehensible as he is in the book. Um, but it's funny because you this film is full of weak men and strong women, you know, and nobody is stronger than Miss Crawford and Mildred Pierce. And in talking about the lighting and what Ernest Hallard did with her, with that noir lighting, you know, he he knew he knew noir, Hallard did. And he was her favorite cameraman after this, he was Betty Davis's favorite cameraman after that. He shot them in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. They were very happy about that, but he shot them much differently in Baby Jane than he shoots Crawford in this. I mean, here he used the shadows to bring out the features of Crawford's face and you know the highlights in black and white. And what's so wonderful about Joan Crawford, and it's always been wonderful about Joan Crawford, and we said this in our Baby Jane episode, you know, the woman was trained in silent film. Everything registers on Joan Crawford's face, every emotion, every single idea that she has registers in her face. She doesn't need words, she has a face. She doesn't they don't need a voice. They had faces then. And it's exactly what you get from Crawford in this film. And it's one of the reasons I think uh she won the Oscar, is because her face tells you so much about Mildred's inner life and what's going on in Mildred. How about the scene where, okay, we should probably say that Mildred started with two kids, Kay and Vita. Kay's the uh younger than Vita. Kay dies tragically about an hour into the film because Mildred is off screwing Monty. This is the lesson she learned. She finally opens herself up. She's been in this kind of loveless marriage with Bert. She leaves him. She established, she wants to establish this business and get her life together and get her give her children a better life, and she's ignored all of her own personal desires. The first time she gives in to her desires and goes with Monty to his beach house, and it's obviously intimated they've been intimate. She comes home to find out Kay's dying.

Brad Shreve: 
Well, you know, the water in Lake Arrowhead, it's cold.

Tony Maietta: 
Out of the blue, she dies. Out of the blue, she's in that iron lung. Suddenly, oh well, no. Now the blue, you did hear her cough twice. She did cough. Yes, yes, you're right. I'm so glad you brought that up. I went, oh, here we go. She's very subtle. She's coughing. You know what's going to happen next. Yeah, so I love that that's what the film and this happens in the book, too. Mildred goes away and enjoys sex for a very the first time in a very long time, and then her daughter dies. But I what the hell is James M. Ken saying here about a woman expressing her sexuality? Be careful. Know where your kids are if you're gonna go out and get laid, basically. So I'm gonna talk a bit about uh the reception of the film, of course, and on the stats and everything and the Oscars. We've got to talk about the Oscars. But did

Tony Maietta:
 you have something you wanted to say to the people about the podcast and about certain, you know, you want to do that housekeeping stuff you do?

Brad Shreve: 
Sure. Uh well, I already did the thing about texting us or leaving a voicemail, which is great. But what really and we want to hear from you, and please give us ideas. As you heard, this episode is only being recorded because of a request. Yeah. So do that, but also so other people know that you love this episode show or at least like it very much. Please rate and review us on Apple, Spotify, or as I love what they say, wherever you get your podcast. It's so true.

Tony Maietta: 
Wherever you do. We appreciate it. We are gonna read, we listen to you and we're gonna read some reviews and thank you in well, not in person, but we'll thank you through the podcast. Through the podcast. Um, so this film, uh, it's kind of interesting. They held off this film when it was completed. They held off releasing it until after World War II ended. They knew it was coming to an end, and they're like, we're gonna wait. It's very interesting because VJ Day was August 14th, 1945. And this film was released on September 28th, 1945. And part of the ad campaign was, this is very interesting, was aimed towards returning servicemen. It's very interesting how they did they did that. The the men want to come home to find out what's going on with Mildred Pierce. It's a very interesting the way they promoted this film, you know, and it clearly worked. Because do you have the stats on this on this film, Brad?

Brad Shreve: 
I do. As I pull those up, I want to say I was quite amazed that nothing was mentioned of the war, what at all. Other than you saw the sailors whistling at Vita, that could really have been most any time. Uh the war was never mentioned, as far as I recall. Oh, and the the um husband, I can't remember his name. Um Bert. He got a job in uh in some kind of defense industry airlines or whatever. But anyway, yeah, um I found that really interesting. So, yeah, now getting to uh this film and how it did, the budget was 1.4 mil, and it earned 5.6 mil. Huge, uh, which put it in the top 10 for the year.

Tony Maietta: 
Yeah, that was a hundred million dollars in today's money. This is for a air quotes woman's film, woman's film the war. Yeah, huge. Joan had just been named along with Hepburn. We got a lot of box office poisons this season. Joan had just been named Box Office Poison for so for her to leave MGM after 18 years, wait, and then come back with a film that made in today's money a hundred million dollars was huge, huge news.

Brad Shreve: 
It really was. And uh it still, as you allude to, it was uh praised at the time. It had mixed, but overall it was praised. Um, at release, uh Joan was certainly obviously praised. Uh it was a box office hit, and today it's uh considered a classic Noir film. Uh my understanding is that it they study it for gender and its class and its style. And on Rotten Tomatoes, I always have to go there. Yeah, because I like that they aggregate the scores, and the critic score was higher than I expected on this film. Um, I thought a lot of them would have thought it was too trashy, but I think they appreciate what it's what it is. And critic score is 96%. Mm hmm. Um Audience score is 88.

Tony Maietta: 
Interestingly, Mildred Pierce is one of those rare films which has actually gained in stature over the years. Yep. Joan's performance was always praised, always praised. The film, I mean, I like the screenplay. Some of these lines that Eve Arden has, the line about the alligators having the right idea, they eat their young when she's talking about Vita. And, you know, it's it it's a wonderful screenplay, but there were some holes in it, and it got mixed reviews. But and Brad's absolutely right. But over the years, as it's had as it's been analyzed and rediscovered as this kind of interesting hybrid of women's film with noir, it's truly gained in stature with the critics. Uh to what now it's looked at as one of the greatest noir films of Hollywood. And we're talking about some major films here, you know, double indemnity. I mentioned it before. It's these are some big films, and Mildred Pierce is right up there with them.

Brad Shreve: 
Yeah, there are definitely aspects of this film that I kept catching. I'm like, oh, you know, that's kind of bad. And I stopped. I'm like, you know what? This is a fun film. Get over it. And I if you wanted to pick it apart, I'm sure it's very easy to do. In fact, there's stuff I can do it right now, but just go for the ride. It's a great film in so many ways, as you just said. There's so much greatness to it, you you you kind of ignore some of its flaws.

Tony Maietta: 
It's just a great first-rate melodrama. And that's what I love about it. There's no there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it, you know. It's just a great, wonderful melodrama that's going to take you where it's going to take you, and you're gonna you're going to feel satisfied at the end. Uh as the audiences did in 45. Um, and it did get five Oscar nominations. It was nominated for Best Picture, Actress, two best supporting actresses. As I said, Ann Blythe and Eve Arden both got best supporting actress nominations, best screenplay, and cinematography. But this is our best actress month, our best actress series. So we're gonna talk about the woman who didn't walk away with the Oscar, who had the Oscar brought to her, because Joan was indeed nominated for best actress, her, as I said, her very first Oscar nomination after being in films for almost no, for exactly 20 years, because she started in 25. So anybody who's watched Mommy Dearest knows the story, and Mommy Dearest gets a lot of stuff wrong, but the story of Joan's Oscar nomination, uh, Oscar win is true. Now it's debatable whether or not she was really sick. Joan claimed she was sick, other people claimed she was just too nervous to go because she was this, everything was riding on this for her. She came back from basically oblivion from box office poison to be nominated with these people. And Joan Crawford always felt she didn't get the respect she deserved as an actress, and she was right. So alongside Joan, uh the other nominees were Ingrid Bergman for The Bowels of St. Mary's, Greer Garson in The Valley of Decision, Jennifer Jones in Love Letters, and Jean Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven. So Joan's name was indeed announced as the winner. And Joan, who was apparently in her bed, called her makeup person, called her hairdresser, called her costumer. They came to her house, they did her hair, they did her makeup, they put a nice frilly little negligé on her, and in came Mike Curties with her Oscar. Now, don't tell me this woman did not know Hollywood and how to play the game, because of course, in the paper the next day, the front of the paper, the first page, of course, you're going to see a photo of Joan Crawford in bed holding her Oscar. I guarantee you, if she had shown up for the ceremony, she wouldn't have been on the front page. But the fact that she's in her sick bed with an Oscar made all the papers. This is what I always say about Joan Crawford. Say what you want to about her as a mother. The woman was so

Tony Maietta: 
 canny about her career and what she needed to do to stay on top. I love that story.

Brad Shreve: 
It's a great story. It's a very Joan Crawford story.

Tony Maietta: 
It is. I don't know personally that she necessarily deserved that Oscar. I love her performance in this movie. Don't get me wrong. I love her performance. Jean Tyranny in Leave Her to Heaven, though, is another astounding performance. So Joan's performance certainly warranted an award. Um against Gene Tyranny, I'm not so sure. I feel like Joan deserved to win a couple years later for Sudden Fear, but we're not talking about Sudden Fear. The point is that the sentiment, the the swell of emotion was behind Joan. And there was no way she was going to lose, really. Because she just she just pulled off the biggest comeback Hollywood had seen almost ever, I think. She really did. And she set herself out for an incredible second act of her career doing these great first-rate melodramas at Warner Brothers, and P. S kind of displacing the Queen of the Lot. Because as Joan went up at Warner Bros., guess who started to go down until she had to leave the studio? So there's another reason why Betty had a little animosity towards Joan. Because Joan was doing all these great roles suddenly at Warner Brothers, like Possessed, which Betty couldn't do because she was pregnant, and Humoresque, and another great noir, The Damn Don't Cry, getting Oscar nominations for Possessed, and Betty was like kind of sliding down the hill. So it's it's really interesting that the how that happened, how that happened.

Brad Shreve: 
I'm gonna touch on Evearden for just a second. Oh, please do. And and this this doesn't have to do with her career. I've decided I'm gonna have to do an Eve Arden weekend. As I'm watching, I'm like, if she was young enough, she would have been great on the Golden Girls. Oh she would well, she kind of is B. Arthur, isn't she?

Brad Shreve:
I'm like, I was sitting there watching her. I'm like, oh my god, why she why wasn't she on the Golden Girls?

Tony Maietta:
I love it. I love it when uh when she's when Jack Carson is walking out of the restaurant and she's standing up on the stool, adjusting her stockings or something, and she says to him, Leave something on me. I might catch cold. And he says, just thinking, not about you. And uh, and then she says, uh then Wally says, I hate all women, and she says, My my. And he says, Thank goodness you're not one. I mean, yeah, there's the relationship between Wally and and Ida, between Jack Carson and uh and Eve Arden is fabulous. It's beautiful, it's beautiful. Um, so I guess that was um Mildred Pierce. We we talked about uh this wonderful film from 1945. Do you have anything else you want to say about the film, Brad, that we didn't cover or the podcast or anything?

Brad Shreve: 
No, I'm just gonna say if you haven't watched it in a while, go back and watch it. It's just fun and not just fun, it's it's very thought-provoking.

Tony Maietta: 
It is thought-provoking. It's a very, very interesting film. Yeah, and it has one of the best performances. As I said, I just I didn't mean to downplay her winning the Oscar for that. I think she absolutely deserved all the awards she got. I was just saying that Gene Tierney gave a kick-ass performance that year, too. But Joan, I would never begrudge it to her. This this Oscar changed Joan Crawford's life. She was forever grateful about this Oscar for the rest of her life, and she proudly identified as Mildred Pierce for the rest of her life. That's awesome. Well then, Brad, I guess there's only one thing left to say because I think I'm seeing you for the first time and you're cheap and horrible. But let's not say goodbye. Let's say au revoir.

Brad Shreve: 
No, let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta: 
Get out before I kill you. Goodbye, everybody.