LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Joan Crawford: Mildred Pierce
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Synopsis: Joan Crawford won an Academy Award for her bravura portrayal of the titular heroine in Mildred Pierce. The original James M. Cain novel concerned a tawdry waitress who slept her way to financial security so as to provide a rosy future for her beloved daughter, only to be rewarded by having herRead More
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[A] turn as the spiteful Crystal in George Cukor's 1939 smash The Women restored some of Crawford's lustre, as did another pairing with Gable in 1940's Strange Cargo. Again directed by Cukor, 1941's A Woman's Face was another major step in Crawford's comeback, but then MGM began saddling her with such poor material that she ultimately refused to continue working, resulting in a lengthy suspension. She finally left the studio, signing on with Warners at about a third of her former salary. There Crawford only appeared briefly in 1944's Hollywood Canteen before the rumor mill was abuzz with claims that they too planned to drop her. As a result, she fought for the lead role in director Michael Curtiz's 1945 adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Mildred Pierce, delivering a bravura performance which won a Best Actress Oscar. Warners, of course, quickly had a change of heart, and after the 1946 hit Humoresque, the studio signed her to a new seven-year contract.
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Upon leaving MGM, Crawford signed with Warner Bros. for $500,000 for three movies and was placed on the payroll on July 1, 1943. She appeared as herself in the star-studded production Hollywood Canteen (1944). She was ... cast in the title role of Mildred Pierce (1945), in which she played opposite Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth and Butterfly McQueen. Director Michael Curtiz and producer Jerry Wald developed the property from the popular James M. Cain novel, which was adapted for the screen by Ranald MacDougall. Crawford was not, in fact, first choice for the role of Mildred Pierce, even though it would become the defining role of her career.
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In the late 1930s, having been cast too often in predictably similar roles, Crawford experienced a decline in popularity, and in 1943 MGM finally dropped her. She soon signed a contract with Warner Bros. but did not appear in another film until 1945, when she made a triumphant comeback in Mildred Pierce, which won her the Academy Award for best actress. This film epitomized the type of role she would play, with occasional exceptions, throughout the remainder of her career: a mature, although usually glamorous, woman battling adversity—often personified by the men in her life—through sheer determination and strength of character. Important examples of such films include Humoresque (1946), Possessed (1947), Flamingo Road (1949), Harriet Craig (1950), Sudden Fear (1952), Torch Song (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954), and Autumn Leaves (1956).
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In 1943, after 18 years with MGM studios, Crawford signed a contract with Warner Brothers. Two years later the war subsided and Crawford's career soared. In 1945, she completed her Oscar-winning performance in the film Mildred Pierce. At Christmastime that year, she received the Golden Apple from the Hollywood Women's Press Club. The following year, in the midst of mounting success in her career, she obtained her third divorce. Crawford testified during the divorce proceedings that Phil Terry was over-bearing and inhibited her status as a movie star.
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Fresh from the success of Mildred Pierce, Crawford chose to double back into her past to create the kind of role she'd often been denied at MGM. 'Poor girl' Crawford recast the MGM fantasy in Warners' conflicting fantasy: The ghetto was a place of decent people who invariably raised musical prodigies, except in gangster films where the offspring were split 50/50 between hoodlums and priests.
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Mildred Pierce