6.1 Joan Crawford

 6.1 Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford poses for a wardrobe photo for Mildred Pierce



The most important female star in film noir was Joan Crawford whose film career stretched back to 1925. Her key film, for which she won an Academy Award, was Mildred Pierce (1945), another Cain adaptation which many commentators see as crossing the 'women's picture' with film noir (Cook, 1998, p.77). Mildred's independence, drive, ambition and success as a businesswoman are not celebrated but seen as corrosive of ordered family life and the instrument through which her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) is corrupted by wealth and luxury. Veda becomes Mildred's dark double , embodying the glamour and active sexuality that Mildred has denied herself. In the end that dark self must be repudiated and Mildred returned to the safety and security of her loyal, long-suffering but dull husband Bert. The Damned Don't Cry (1950) played out a similar story. Crawford's Ethel Whitehead is another strong mother who refuses to be shackled by a drab marriage and lack of funds, leaving home after her only son is killed in an accident. Here the moral paradigm is more clear-cut as she becomes the mistress of a ruthless gangster who uses her in a power struggle with his rival. On the way she tramples on the loyal and loving Martin (Kent Smith) who cannot prevent her from meeting her fate back in the factory town from which she had tried to escape. 

In Possessed (1947) and Sudden Fear (1952) Crawford plays more sympathetic women whose struggle for independence creates psychological torment when their loves prove to be false and manipulative. In Possessed, as already discussed, this drives her into a complete mental breakdown; in Sudden Fear she concocts a clever plot to destroy her husband and pin his murder on her rival, relenting too late to save either. It seems that Crawford's characters must always be destroyed or humiliated, the price they have to pay for their independence, sexual attractiveness and ambition.

- Andrew Spicer, Film Noir pgs. 99-100

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