Joan Crawford stars as the ultimate self-sacrificing mother in May's SUNDAY SILVERS. Based on James M. Cain's maternal hard-boiled novel, Mildred Pierce is a film noir with a difference. Please don't tell anyone what Mildred Pierce did!

SOME FACTS ABOUT MILDRED PIERCE:

- Joan Crawford, in her first role in two years under a Warner Bros. contract (she was with MGM before and experienced flop after flop), won the Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce.

- Shirley Temple was originally considered for the role of Mildred’s daughter, Veda. Instead Ann Blyth, who would (like Temple) usually play the sickly and sweet, took the part.

- Although Mildred’s clothes in the early scenes were bought ‘off the rail’, like normal people, Crawford had her seamstress nip, tuck and embellish (something she failed to mention to the glamour-criticising Curtiz).

- Joan Crawford brought some of her own history into her role as Mildred. Before her rise to movie stardom, Crawford worked as a waitress and a saleswoman.

If you are so inclined, here’s a chapter from Women in Film Noir (BFI, 1978) by Pam Cook about ‘Duplicity in Mildred Pierce’:

http://academics.smcvt.edu/kshea/403reserve_98/Cook.%20Duplicity%20in%20Mildred%20Pierce.pdf

Pretty awesome trailer