Top Ten Contributors - Mildred Pierce (1945)
One of the more popular film noir classic since it was recently re-produced with the same storyline. I believe there is too much "soap opera" content to satisfy me in classifying it as truly a film noir. Despite that, I always enjoy watch it and the performances of all the actors. Here is my take on the top ten contributors who brought this best selling novel to the screen.
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- Writer
- Additional Crew
James M. Cain was a 'Film Noir' author. His father was a professor, and president, of 'Washington College'. His mother was an opera singer in Maryland.
James graduated from the same college in 1910, and became a writer for 'Baltimore American', then 'Baltimore Sun' [still being published] by 1914. He was drafted in 1916, and spent 1918 in France as a writer for the 'Army Times'. When released, he did writing for various publications, and by 1934, his first novel,"The Postman Always Rings Twice", was published. Of Course, a very popular movie in 1946.
With adaptations of his novels[credit only as 'story contributor'],he was much in demand in the 40's in the 'Film Noir' category. But, in 1946, he formed a 'Cain Plan' ["American Authors' Authority"]whereby The writers would have authority of copyrights, and be the representative for them in negotiations with the movie producers and court disputes. Resembling 'S.A.G.', it was opposed by an org. called, "The American Writers' Assoc.". There was a debate carried on in the 'Saturday Review'.
He was married 4 times.Wrote the original novel that inspired this film.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner Bros. and became thoroughly entrenched in the studio system. His films during the 1930s and '40s encompassed nearly every genre imaginable and some, including Casablanca (1942) and Mildred Pierce (1945), are considered to be film classics. His brilliance waned in the 1950s when he made a number of mediocre films for studios other than Warner. He directed his last film in 1961, a year before his death at 74.Asked by Warner Brothers to direct this film- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Ranald MacDougall was born on 10 March 1915 in Schenectady, New York, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Mildred Pierce (1945), The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) and Cleopatra (1963). He was married to Nanette Fabray and Lucille Margaret Brophy. He died on 12 December 1973 in Los Angeles, California, USA.responsible for initial screenplay- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Austrian composer Max Steiner achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. He was born Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner in Vienna, Austria, the son of Marie Mizzi (Hasiba) and Gabor Steiner, an impresario, and the grandson of actor and theater director and manager Maximilian Steiner. His family was Jewish. As a child, he was astonishingly musically gifted, composing complex works as a teenager and completing the course of study at Vienna's Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in only one year, at the age of sixteen. He studied under Gustav Mahler and, before the age of twenty, made his living as a conductor and as composer of works for the theater, the concert hall, and vaudeville. After a brief sojourn in Britian, Steiner moved to the USA in the same wave as fellow film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and quickly became a sought-after orchestrator and conductor on Broadway, bringing the Western classical tradition in which he had been raised to mainstream audiences.
He was soon snatched up by the film studios with the advent of sound and helped the fledgling talkies become musically sophisticated within a brief few years. He was one of the first to fully integrate the musical score with the images on-screen and to score individual scenes for their content and create leitmotifs for individual characters, as opposed to simply providing vaguely appropriate mood music, as evidenced in King Kong (1933), which set the standard for American film music for years to come.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, he was one of the most respected, innovative, and brilliant composers of American film music, creating a truly staggering number of exceptional scores for films of all types. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his scores eighteen times and won three times. Years after his death in 1971, he remains one of the giants of motion picture history, and his music still thrives.responsible for the musical score- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Distinguished American cinematographer Ernest Haller started in the industry in 1914 as an actor with Biograph after leaving his first job as a bank clerk. Within one year he discovered his true calling: being on the other side of the camera. By 1920, he had become a full director of photography and would go on to handle prestigious pictures , such as the Samuel Goldwyn-produced Stella Dallas (1925). In 1926, Haller signed with First National and was still there when the studio was absorbed by Warner Brothers in 1930. Despite prolific output, it took him several years to create a reputation, however his breakthrough eventually came with the lavishly produced period drama Jezebel (1938), starring Bette Davis.For this, he received the first of five Academy Award nominations.
It was his work on 'Jezebel' which ultimately prompted David O. Selznick to replace Lee Garmes (with whom he had creative disagreements) with Haller as principal cinematographer for his Technicolour masterpiece, Gone with the Wind (1939). Haller also shot Vivien Leigh's famous first screen test for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Though his previous work had been almost exclusively in black-and-white, the gamble paid off handsomely, with Haller winning an Academy Award (alongside Ray Rennahan) for Best Colour Cinematography.
Following 'GWTW' , Haller shot some of the best films made at Warner Brothers during the 1940's, his work perfectly suited to the gritty studio look of its product. He was particularly effective with the strong female stars of the company, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis (shooting 14 of her pictures), meticulously balancing make-up and lighting to bringing out their best features. He created an almost expressionistic mood for films like Mildred Pierce (1945) (for which he received another Oscar nomination) and Humoresque (1946). For the remainder of his career, Haller remained at Warners. Even after his contract expired in 1951, he was recalled for special assignments such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955), shot in CinemaScope, and the psychological drama What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), reuniting him once more with Davis and Crawford, albeit this time concerned with photographing them in a decidedly unglamorous fashion. He freelanced during the remainder of the 1960's and was semi-retired when asked by James Goldstone to step in as director of photography for the second pilot of Star Trek (1966), "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Ernest Haller was killed in a car crash in October 1970, aged 74.in charge of the photography- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; Crawford worked a variety of menial jobs. She was a good dancer, though, and -- perhaps seeing dance as her ticket to a career in show business -- she entered several contests, one of which landed her a spot in a chorus line. Before long, she was dancing in big Midwestern and East Coast cities. After almost two years, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood. Crawford was determined to succeed, and shortly after arriving she got her first bit part, as a showgirl in Pretty Ladies (1925).
Three films quickly followed; although the roles weren't much to speak of, she continued toiling. Throughout 1927 and early 1928, she was cast in small parts, but that ended with the role of Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which elevated her to star status. Crawford had cleared the first big hurdle; now came the second, in the form of talkies. Many stars of the silents saw their careers evaporate, either because their voices weren't particularly pleasant or because their voices, pleasing enough, didn't match the public's expectations (for example, some fans felt that John Gilbert's tenor didn't quite match his very masculine persona). But Crawford wasn't felled by sound. Her first talkie, Untamed (1929), was a success. As the 1930s progressed, Crawford became one of the biggest stars at MGM. She was in top form in films such as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and Love on the Run (1936); movie patrons were enthralled, and studio executives were satisfied.
By the early 1940s, MGM was no longer giving her plum roles; newcomers had arrived in Hollywood, and the public wanted to see them. Crawford left MGM for rival Warner Bros., and in 1945 she landed the role of a lifetime. Mildred Pierce (1945) gave her an opportunity to show her range as an actress, and her performance as a woman driven to give her daughter everything garnered Crawford her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress. The following year she appeared with John Garfield in the well-received Humoresque (1946). In 1947, she appeared as Louise Graham in Possessed (1947); again she was nominated for a Best Actress from the Academy, but she lost to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Crawford continued to choose her roles carefully, and in 1952 she was nominated for a third time, for her depiction of Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952). This time the coveted Oscar went to Shirley Booth, for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford's career slowed after that; she appeared in minor roles until 1962, when she and Bette Davis co-starred in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Their longstanding rivalry may have helped fuel their phenomenally vitriolic and well-received performances. (Earlier in their careers, Davis said of Crawford, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie", and Crawford said of Davis, "I don't hate [her] even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that.")
Crawford's final appearance on the silver screen was in the flop Trog (1970). Turning to vodka more and more, she was hardly seen afterward. On May 10, 1977, Joan died of a heart attack in New York City. She was 71 years old. She had disinherited her adopted daughter Christina and son Christopher; the former wrote a tell-all book called "Mommie Dearest", The Sixth Sense published in 1978. The book cast Crawford in a negative light and was cause for much debate, particularly among her friends and acquaintances, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband. (In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred in Mommie Dearest (1981) which did well at the box office.) Crawford is interred in the same mausoleum as fellow MGM star Judy Garland, in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.plays lead role of Mildred Pierce- Actor
- Soundtrack
When Jack Carson arrived in Hollywood in 1937, he found work at RKO as an extra. His first major acting role came alongside Humphrey Bogart in the romantic comedy Stand-In (1937). After a few years, he developed into a popular character actor who would be seen in a large number of comedies, musicals and a few westerns. Not happy with the direction his career was heading, he went to Warner Brothers in 1941, where the quality of his supporting roles improved. It also did not hurt to be in films that starred James Cagney, such as The Strawberry Blonde (1941) and The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941).
After three years, he starred with Jane Wyman in Make Your Own Bed (1944) and, again, in The Doughgirls (1944). Carson would play the nice guy with the heart of gold who was still a nice guy even when he was angry. He would take the double take and the quizzical look to a higher level, but he could also act in dramas. He provided a good portrayal of "Albert" in The Hard Way (1943) and was acclaimed for his performance in Mildred Pierce (1945). However, it was comedies that provided most of his work. He teamed up with his old friend, Dennis Morgan, for several films in the tradition of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. It was in the 1940s that Carson would become popular as a wisecracking comedian on radio. This would lead him to television work in the 1950s, where he was one of 4 rotating hosts on All Star Revue (1950), until 1951, when he had left the show and the title was changed to "All Star Revue".
He hosted and performed on The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950) from 1952-55. He would also help host The U.S. Royal Showcase (1952). He would appear on a number of shows during the 1950s, one of his most remembered being an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959), where he played a somewhat shady used-car salesman who came into possession of an old Model-A Ford that was "haunted" in that whoever owned it had to tell the truth, whether he wanted to or not. Although his movie career slowed in the 1950s, he still appeared in a number of prestige pictures, such as A Star Is Born (1954) with Judy Garland, The Tarnished Angels (1957) with Rock Hudson and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) with Paul Newman.
Collapsed in August 1962 while in rehearsal for the play "Critic's Choice." An early diagnosis deemed it a stomach "disorder," but two months later, cancer was discovered while he was undergoing an unrelated operation.plays role of Wally Fay who assists Mildred in launching her career in the restaurant business- Actress
- Soundtrack
Eve Arden was born Eunice Mary Quedens in Mill Valley, California (near San Francisco), and was interested in show business from an early age. At 16, she made her stage debut after quitting school to join a stock company. After appearing in minor roles in two films under her real name, Eunice Quedens, she found that the stage offered her the same minor roles. By the mid 30s, one of these minor roles would attract notice as a comedy sketch in the stage play "Ziegfeld Follies".
By that time, she had changed her name to Eve Arden, which she adopted while looking over some cosmetics and spotting the names "Evening in Paris" and "Elizabeth Arden". In 1937, she garnered some attention with a small role in Oh, Doctor (1937), which led to her being cast in a minor role in the film Stage Door (1937). By the time the film was finished, her part had expanded into the wise-cracking, fast-talking friend to the lead. She would play virtually the character for most of her career.
While her sophisticated wise-cracking would never make her the lead, she would be a busy actress in dozens of movies over the next dozen years. In At the Circus (1939), she was the acrobatic Peerless Pauline opposite Groucho Marx and the Russian sharp shooter in the comedy The Doughgirls (1944). For her role as Ida in Mildred Pierce (1945), she received an Academy Award nomination. Famous for her quick ripostes, this led to work in Radio during the 1940s. In 1948, CBS Radio premiered "Our Miss Brooks", which would be the perfect show for her character. As her film career began to slow, CBS would take the popular radio show to television in 1952. The television series Our Miss Brooks (1952) would run through 1956 and led to the movie Our Miss Brooks (1956).
When the show ended, Arden tried another television series, The Eve Arden Show (1957), but it was soon canceled. In the 1960s, Arden raised a family and did a few guest roles, until her come-back television series The Mothers-In-Law (1967). This show, co-starring Kaye Ballard ran for two seasons. After that, she would make more unsold pilots, a couple of television movies and a few guest shots. She returned in occasional cameo appearances including as Principal McGee in Grease (1978), and Warden June in Pandemonium (1982).plays role of Ida Corwin, Mildred's best friend- Actress
- Soundtrack
The dark, petulant beauty of this petite American film and musical star worked to her advantage, especially in her early dramatic career. Anne Marie Blythe was born of Irish stock to Harry and Annie (nee Lynch) Blythe on August 16, 1928 in Mt. Kisco, New York. Her parents split while she was young and she, her mother and elder sister, Dorothy, moved to New York City, where the girls attended various Catholic schools. Already determined at an early age to perform, Ann attended Manhattan's Professional Children's School and was already a seasoned radio performer, particularly on soap dramas, while in elementary school. A member of New York's Children's Opera Company, the young girl made an important Broadway debut in 1941 at age 13 as the daughter of the characters played by Paul Lukas and Mady Christians in the classic Lillian Hellman WWII drama "Watch on the Rhine", billed as Anne (with an extra "e") Blyth. She stayed with the show for two years.
While touring with the play in Los Angeles, the teenager was noticed by director Henry Koster at Universal and given a screen test. Signed on at age 16 as Ann (without the "e") Blyth, the pretty, photographic colleen displayed her warbling talent in her debut film, Chip Off the Old Block (1944), a swing-era teen musical starring Universal song-and-dance favorites Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan. She followed it pleasantly enough with other "B" tune-fests such as The Merry Monahans (1944) and Babes on Swing Street (1944). It wasn't until Warner Bros. borrowed her to make self-sacrificing mother Joan Crawford's life pure hell as the malicious, spiteful daughter Veda in the film classic Mildred Pierce (1945) that she really clicked with viewers and set up her dramatic career. With murder on her young character's mind, Hollywood stood up and took notice of this fresh-faced talent.
Although Blyth lost the Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year to another Anne (Anne Revere), she was borrowed again by Warner Bros. to film Danger Signal (1945). During filming, she suffered a broken back in a sledding accident while briefly vacationing in Lake Arrowhead and had to be replaced in the role. After a long convalescence (over a year and a half in a back brace) Universal used her in a wheelchair-bound cameo in Brute Force (1947).
Her first starring role was an inauspicious one opposite Sonny Tufts in Swell Guy (1946), but she finally began gaining some momentum again. Instead of offering her musical gifts, she continued her serious streak with Killer McCoy (1947) and a dangerously calculated role in Another Part of the Forest (1948), a prequel to The Little Foxes (1941) in which Blyth played the Bette Davis role of Regina at a younger age. Her attempts at lighter comedy were mild at best, playing a fetching creature of the sea opposite William Powell in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948) and a teen infatuated with a much-older film star, Robert Montgomery, in Once More, My Darling (1949).
At full-throttle as a star in the early 1950s, Blyth transitioned easily among glossy operettas, wide-eyed comedies and all-out melodramas, some of which tended to be overbaked and, thereby, overplayed. When not dishing out the high dramatics of an adopted girl searching for her birth mother in Our Very Own (1950) or a wrongly-convicted murderess in Thunder on the Hill (1951), she was introducing classic standards as wife to Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso (1951) or playing pert and perky in such light confections as Katie Did It (1950). A well-embraced romantic leading lady, she made her last film for Universal playing a Russian countess courted by Gregory Peck in The World in His Arms (1952). MGM eventually optioned her for its musical outings, having borrowed her a couple of times previously. She became a chief operatic rival to Kathryn Grayson at the studio during that time. Grayson, however, fared much better than Blyth, who was given rather stilted vehicles.
Catching Howard Keel's roving eye while costumed to the nines in the underwhelming Rose Marie (1954) and his daughter in Kismet (1955), she also gussied up other stiff proceedings like The Student Prince (1954) and The King's Thief (1955) will attest. Unfortunately, Blyth came to MGM at the tail end of the Golden Age of musicals and probably suffered for it. She was dropped by the studio in 1956. She reunited with old Universal co-star Donald O'Connor in The Buster Keaton Story (1957). Blyth ended her film career on a high note, however, playing the tragic title role in the The Helen Morgan Story (1957) opposite a gorgeously smirking Paul Newman. She had a field day as the piano-sitting, kerchief-holding, liquor-swilling torch singer whose train wreck of a personal life was destined for celluloid. Disappointing for her personally, no doubt, was that her singing voice had to be dubbed (albeit superbly) by the highly emotive, non-operatic songstress Gogi Grant.
Through with films, Blyth's main concentration (after her family) were musical theatre and television. Over the years a number of classic songs were tailored to suit her glorious lyric soprano both in concert form and on the civic light opera/summer stock stages. "The Sound of Music", "The King and I", "Carnival", "Bittersweet", "South Pacific", "Show Boat" and "A Little Night Music" are but a few of her stage credits. During this time Blyth appeared as the typical American housewife for Hostess in its Twinkie, cupcake and fruit pie commercials, a job that lasted well over a decade. She made the last of her sporadic TV guest appearances on Quincy M.E. (1976) and Murder, She Wrote (1984) in the mid-1980s.
Married since 1953 to Dr. James McNulty, the brother of late Irish tenor Dennis Day, she is the mother of five, Blyth continues to be seen occasionally at social functions and conventions.plays role of Veda, spoiled child of Mildred's- Actor
- Soundtrack
American leading man of suave or sinister roles. A collateral relative of George Washington and William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson, Scott was the son of a wealthy surgeon. Intending to follow his father into medicine, Scott studied at the University of Texas, but found he preferred the theater. He dropped out of college and signed on as a cabin boy on a freighter bound for England. There he found work in provincial repertory, gaining confidence and skill. Returning to Texas, he married actress Elaine Anderson and became active in local theater in Austin. He and his wife were spotted in a play there by Alfred Lunt, who recommended them to the producers of New York's Theatre Guild. Thus, Scott made a successful entry into the Broadway stage, appearing in several successes. In one of them he was noticed by Jack L. Warner, who signed him to a film contract and introduced him to film audiences in the title role of The Mask of Dimitrios (1944). He was well received in the part of the mysterious and debonair scoundrel and seemed destined for a top-level career in movies. Jean Renoir next cast the Texan in a touching and sensitive role in his classic The Southerner (1945). Though he received great acclaim for his performance, Scott was not particularly well promoted by Warners. His profile was immediately reversed by his well-received performance as the cad in Mildred Pierce (1945), which seemed likely to cement him as a star. However, it also led to his typecasting as a portrayer of amoral characters, and his subsequent films declined in prestige. In 1950, a divorce and a rafting accident, in which he was badly injured, sent him into a depression. Subsequently, he married actress Ruth Ford and began to concentrate more on stage and television work. Although he continued to work in films, including one for director Luis Buñuel, Scott never quite reclaimed the level of stardom that he'd achieved in the mid-1940s. In 1965, he was stricken with a brain tumor. Despite surgery, he succumbed in October of that year, at 51. He was buried in Austin, Texas.plays Monte Beragon, one of Mildred's husbands.