Mildred Pierce – 80th Anniversary

Screening as part of Too Much: Melodrama on Film

Mildred Pierce has everything a classic melodrama requires: a rags-to-riches storyline, family tensions, trouble in love. Film noir elements heighten the atmosphere of tension as Joan Crawford tears up the silver screen as Mildred, a single mother struggling valiantly to satisfy her outrageously bratty daughter Veda (one of cinema’s all-time greatest villains) and run her own business. Branded ‘box office poison’ at the end of the 1930s, Mildred Pierce was Joan’s comeback vehicle, won her an Academy Award, and helped to cement her status as a gay icon.