MILDRED PIERCE 1945

Spoiler Alert: Crucial plot points are revealed in the interest of critical analysis and discussion

For me, Mildred Pierce has always been the most watchable and quotable of Joan Crawford’s movies. Which is really saying something with gold-plated doozies like Strait-Jacket, Torch Song, Berserk!, Queen Bee, and Flamingo Road staring me in the face. 

This film that won Crawford her first Oscar nomination and only win (she would be nominated two more times) ranks so high on my list of favorite movies that, by rights, I should have written about it long before now. But like many classic-era films that also enjoy broad popularity, Mildred Pierce is a movie that's been talked about, written about, analyzed, remade, lampooned, and borrowed from for so long, it simply felt as though I had nothing new to add to the conversation.

That's probably still the case. But the occasion of having recently read, back-to-back, the 1941 James M. Cain novel (upon which the film is based) and a terrific 1980 scholarly volume by film historian Albert J. LaValley devoted to the academic discussion of Mildred Pierce (!) complete with the published screenplay – left me with so much Mildred on my mind, the time felt right to commit my personal thoughts on this long-beloved film, to this, my internet film diary. 

Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce

Jack Carson as Wally Fay

Ann Blyth as Veda Pierce

Zachary Scott as Monte Beragon

Eve Arden as Ida Corwin

The romanticized Stella Dallas myth—embracing the nobility of maternal love that sacrifices everything to secure the financial and social success of one’s child—gets a severe upending in Mildred Pierce. This surprisingly still-potent melodrama casts Crawford as a working-class divorcee and mother of two (the titular Mildred) whose obsessive/neurotic love for her serpent-toothed eldest, Veda (Blyth), provides the grist that fuels a determined ambition to build a sweeping financial empire on fluffy pie crusts. The drama of this tale is that the same mother-daughter bond…whose dynamics are entrenched in emotional and psychological dysfunction (with a scoop of the Electra complex on top)… figures just as significantly in bringing about Mildred’s personal and professional ruin.

Butterfly McQueen as Lottie

Ms. McQueen made her uncredited film debut in 1939 appearing alongside Joan Crawford in George Cukor's The Women. By 1945 she'd appeared in such high-profile films as Gone with the Wind, Cabin in the Sky, and Since You Went Away. Yet despite the size and memorability of her role in Mildred Pierce,  her name doesn't appear in the credits. 

For all the talk of this being the film to reverse Crawford’s fortunes, helping to erase the stigma of boxoffice poison that dogged her following her so-called amicable ouster from MGM; Mildred Pierce, oddly, represents less a departure from type than some of her other roles. Indeed, in many ways, Mildred Pierce serves up an à la carte menu of everything that first comes to mind when I think about Joan Crawford’s screen persona.  

If I’m guilty of harboring a mental image of The Crawford Mystique as: the inevitable ankle strap shoes, always brandishing a gun, invariably slapping somebody, suffering nobly in shoulder-padded mink, photographed through impossible shadow formations highlighting her eyes, and playing characters disposed of a steely self-determinism…then, Mildred Pierce does not disappoint. It's all here. 

Me and My Shadows
Few stars got as much use out of the "floating shadow" as Joan Crawford

As movie characters go, the been-around-the-block maturity of “common frump” Mildred Pierce-Beragon is ideally-suited to both the gifts and limitations of then-38-year-old Crawford. Playing what is essentially just a more lived-in variation of her usual stock-in-trade: “…the shop girl who fought her way to the top, made a great success” (God help me, I’m quoting Mommie Dearest). An image established as early as 1930's Our Blushing Brides--one of Crawford's earliest post-silent era features--Mildred Pierce is a challenging role that nevertheless remains comfortably within Crawford’s tried-and-true wheelhouse. And to give credit where credit is due, Crawford, clearly recognizing the sharp script, showcase role, and atypically noirish milieu of Mildred Pierce for the rare opportunity it is, gives her performance everything she’s got.

Mildred Pierce didn't introduce the classic Joan Crawford persona, but it certainly solidified it. When Crawford good-naturedly spoofs her image and herself in the Warner Bros musical comedy It's a Great Feeling (1949), the dialogue and gestures she uses (capped with "I do that in all my pictures!") are from Mildred Pierce. 

It’s safe to say that virtually the entire Joan Crawford arsenal is trotted out in Mildred Pierce. But somehow, in this instance, thanks to the overall classy production values, tight script, and unusually strong supporting cast (and maybe because Crawford worked extra hard to impress a director who made no secret of Barbara Stanwyck being his first choice), many of those familiar Crawford-ism notes are struck with a considerably lighter touch.

I think Joan Crawford is a wonderful...if not exactly accessible...actress. No matter how intensely a scene is played, Crawford always comes across to me as being at a slight remove from the real emotions involved. Never allowing herself to be exposed in the ways Stanwyck, Davis, and even Jennifer Jones can. When it comes to character engagement, Crawford doesn't let you in so much as invite you to have a seat and watch her suffer photogenically from a distance. 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE

The end-product of at least 8 screenplay drafts by nearly as many writers, Mildred Pierce is a film-noir - crossed with a domestic drama - crossed with a postwar woman’s film. The postwar designation denoting the newly-determined genre trend in having the female-driven narratives end on a note of “normalcy” restored…i.e., a return to traditional gender roles. Thus, in the screen ending that’s a tad kinder to Mildred than Cain’s novel (which ends flatly with Mildred standing by helplessly as she’s made a fool of, two times over), Mildred is financially ruined and loses her business empire, but walks off into the L.A. sunrise, arms linked with her recently redeemed, now-steadily employed, likely ex-ex-husband.

Bruce Bennett as Albert "Bert" Pierce

The seamless manner in which Mildred Pierce blends these different genres (doing credit to each and with a considerable amount of humor nowhere to be found in Cain’s novel) is precisely why it endures as one of those movies that, despite owning the DVD, I can’t help watching…no matter how far along into the story…whenever it pops up on TV. It’s old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaking at its captivating best.

Released October 12, 1945
Early marketing misleadingly depicted Mildred as a noir femme fatale.
The whole "Don't Tell Anyone What She Did!" promotional tease extended
 to exhibitors being encouraged not to seat anyone during the film's last 7 minutes

It's said that Paramount's success with Cain's Double Indemnity (1944) is what inspired Warners to update (from the '30s to 'mid-'40s) and insert a murder into Cain's Mildred Pierce, which is essentially a character study and Depression-era commentary on class struggle. Cain was less than happy about his book being turned into a film noir, but I think the changes give Mildred Pierce a focus and economy lacking in the book. I thoroughly enjoyed and was very impressed by the faithful-to-the-letter 2011 Kate Winslet Mildred Pierce miniseries. But the narrative fidelity and Winslet's more human-scaled performance amplified what the Crawford film moves too quickly for me to have noticed: Mildred's blind-spot where the unremittingly awful Veda is concerned paints her more of a dope than devoted.  

"That would have been dreadfully recherché, n’est-ce pas?"
Mildred and Monte share a look in response to Veda being Veda

The character of Mildred Pierce isn’t granted much in the way of self-awareness, but it's a nice touch (one preventing her from appearing to be stupid) for the script to allow for a couple of scenes that show Mildred to both aware and condescendingly tolerant of Veda's airs and pretensions. 

The idea of Mildred as a resourceful but not very insightful woman (the novel cites her flaw as a tendency towards literal-mindedness) might have occurred to me before had 1945's Mildred Pierce been cast with any other actress. In anyone else's hands, the scene where Mildred sells Monte a third of her hard-earned business to get him to marry her just so she can re-welcome Veda-the-Viper back into the fold, would have audiences wanting to haul off and slap Mildred themselves.

But in the hands of Joan Crawford—self-mastery personified—those actions seem more determinedly willful than pathetic. An act of noble self-sacrifice of the sort that has been Crawford’s stock-in-trade for years.

And therein lies the key to one of the major reasons why Mildred Pierce is such an enjoyable film for me: It’s a movie that “gets” that the only way to soften Crawford’s image, making her brittle countenance even remotely sympathetic, is to have nearly every character in the film heap abuse on her head. From the first frames of the film to the last, Mildred places the needs of others above her own (and the one time she goes off to have some fun for herself, fate rewards her with the almost Biblically retributional sacrifice of a child) and is rarely thanked or praised for it. Even after defying the odds and achieving the near-impossible feat of becoming a wealthy businesswoman, building a mini-empire from the ground up (and developing a drinking problem for her trouble), any faint praise offered by others is usually followed by a crack about her smelling of chicken grease.

Joan Crawford at her happiest. Cleaning something.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I think I devote so much space here reiterating how much I’m entertained by Mildred Pierce because, for all its glossy appeal and the perversity of its plot (Veda is a pretty active girl considering she only celebrates her 18th birthday at the END of the movie), it's a movie that's never really engaged me on any kind of emotional level. Which is perhaps not anything I’d otherwise be looking for in a genre film (film noir in particular tends to traffic in the cynical and jaded) except that when I read the novel I was surprised by how moving and sad I found Mildred Pierce to be. Two things I've never felt in all the times I've watched the movie. 

Jo Ann Marlowe as Kay Pierce
One of the more eye-opening disclosures in the novel is Mildred's guilty self-admission 
that if one of her children had to die, she's grateful it wasn't Veda. 

As an example of Hollywood studio system “product” from the days when the main objective of movies was to provide escapism and sell popcorn, Mildred Pierce is every bit as efficient as its titular character. It’s classically structured: character/goals/conflict/ resolution; market-friendly: it’s got drama, romance, glamour, & comedy; and streamlined to a noirish-T: gunplay, double-dealing, and the question of “Who shot Monte?” keep audiences in their seats. If the slick restructuring of Cain's character-study novel into a crime film perhaps excised some of its relatable humanity, at least the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Ranald MacDougall retains enough of the book's subtextual themes (gender disparity, class struggle, sexual competition, single motherhood, etc.) to make repeat visits to Mildred Pierce worthwhile.

Emancipated Woman

A somewhat underdeveloped theme, shunted aside by the dictates of the noir narrative, relates to all that lies within Mildred that never would have had the opportunity to develop had Bert not left her. The woman who introduced herself with the words "I felt as though I was born in a kitchen and lived there all my life," positively thrives when not exclusively assuming the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker; domestic roles '40s America held up as the pinnacles of feminine achievement. Mildred reveals herself to be quite the businesswoman: smart, ambitious, hard-working, and resourceful, she's infinitely more capable and successful than any of the men in her life. And there's even the suggestion (coded by the degree of guilt she must shoulder for not being there for her ailing daughter) that in Monte, Mildred's sexual side is awakened as well.

Eve Arden and Jack Carson lighten and enliven Mildred Pierce

PERFORMANCES

The talent and chemistry of the cast of Mildred Pierce is yet another factor contributing to its irresistible watchability. Everyone but 16-year-old Ann Blyth is cast to type (she, heretofore only appearing in light comedies) and each is at the top of their game. Crawford is held in restraint (for Crawford), Eve Arden is on-the-money with her trademark mordant wisecracks, and Blyth’s strong performance (better every time I see it) is deserving of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination it garnered.

But for me, Mildred Pierce's Most Valuable Player--after Joan--is Jack Carson. Has there ever been a movie that isn’t made better by his casting? The earthy naturalness of his fast-talking Wally Fay not only takes the starch out of the humorless Mildred, but lends each of his scenes a bull-in-a-china-shop air of unpredictability. He shifts effortlessly from comic figure to force-to-be-reckoned-with, and I don’t think the film would be nearly as lively without him.

Veda's brief and ignominious stint as an entertainer is a personal high point of Mildred Pierce. Especially for my partner, who unfailingly breaks into peals of laughter at Veda's a-moving-target's-hard-to-hit choreography and scarf-flailing, bow-out exit. 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

From writing this blog I've learned that many families and couples have favorite movies that become in-house quotable staples over time. A phenomenon wherein repeated lines of dialogue or references to certain scenes have morphed into shared running gags.

In the 27 years my partner and I have been together, there are still only a handful of movies that have risen to those hallowed ranks. Andy Warhol's BAD is one of them ("O'Reilly O'Crapface."), All About Eve is another (Birdie - describing the wardrobe mistress: "She's got two things to do: carry clothes and press 'em wrong. And don't let anybody try to muscle in."). But Mildred Pierce is one of our most frequent go-to's for quotes and phrases repeated out of context that have become inside jokes. Quotes attributed to Veda proving to be a tad overrepresented. 

Bert Pierce: "She plays piano like I shoot pool."

Mildred Pierce: "I took tips and was glad to get them."

Ida Corwin: "Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."

Mildred Pierce: "I know you romantic guys. One crack about the beautiful moon and you're off to the races."

Mildred Pierce may not be as dark or thought-provoking as many of the films that captured my adolescent imagination in the late-'60s, and '70s. 

But when I'm in the mood for a good "comfort food movie," Mildred Piece delivers.

BONUS MATERIAL

Evan Rachel Wood as Veda and Kate Winslet as Mildred

In 2011, HBO premiered a five-part, five Emmy Award-winning miniseries

adaptation of Mildred Pierce that's so faithful to James M. Cain's novel

 and so different from the 1945 film, there's no need to draw comparisons.

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are forever linked in the pop-cultural consciousness, and moments like this don't help. A movie theater across the street from Mildred's Glendale eatery is showing the Bette Davis film Mrs. Skeffington (1944). Prior to this scene, when Mildred is seduced by Monte at his beach house, the music theme playing in the background is "It Can't Be Wrong" the Max Steiner/Kim Gannon melody composed for Bette Davis' Now Voyager (1942)

The Davis/Crawford connection continues with that slinky striped number Eve Arden's Ida wears to Veda's 18th birthday party, showing up 19 years later in the Bette-Davis-as-twins-again (A Stolen Life -1946) melodrama Dead Ringer (1964)...that's Bette in the phone booth. It's worn...sans shoulder pads...by jazz legend, pianist-vocalist, Perry Blackwell, who, as of this writing, recently celebrated her 97th birthday. Her granddaughter informed me that Ms. Blackwell was gifted the top by Eve Arden herself and that she recalls seeing it among her grandmother's performance costumes until she was about ten years old. Thanks to reader Richard Lloreda for bringing this costume rerun to my attention.

Mildred Pierce          -         Mildred Fierce

I saw "Mildred Fierce" - the hilariously spot-in Carol Burnett spoof of Mildred Pierce (The Carol Burnett Show - broadcast November 19, 1976) - many years before I saw the genuine article.  When I did finally get around to watching Crawford's film, the Burnett skit had grown so familiar, and its similarities so acute, it took a while for it to sink in that the movie was NOT, in fact, a parody of the Carol Burnett skit!

Clip from "Mildred Pierce" 1945

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2022

BERSERK! 1967

This is a repost of an earlier essay as part of The Joan Crawford Blogathon hosted by The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood.  Visit the site for more posts from participating blogs.

Fans of late-career Joan Crawford (and who isn’t?) are sure to relish the sight of 61-year-old La Mommie Dearest as the mannish owner and ringmaster of a traveling circus, juggling two younger lovers (“I just may let you tuck me in tonight!” she threatens to one) while performers in her employ fall victim to gruesome, far-fetched fatalities. Similarly, variety show fans nostalgic for the bygone days when animal acts ruled primetime TV on programs like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace, are sure to get a vaudeville kick out of Berserk!'s interminable parade of capering horses, indifferent lions, playful elephants, and intelligent poodles, all used to pad out the film's already meager 96-minute running time.

But horror fans finding Berserk! a little tame and slow-moving by American Horror Story: Freak Show standards might do well to turn a viewing of this circus-set whodunit into a drinking game. Since Crawford was still on the Board of Directors of Pepsi-Cola at the time, may I suggest taking a shot of 100-Proof vodka (Crawford’s preferred beverage of choice) every time there’s a Pepsi sighting or moment of Pepsi-related product placement.  Or perhaps you can take a swig each time a mysterious band of shadow materializes out of nowhere to provide our star with dramatic framing and flattering neck shade whenever in medium shot or closeup. But be aware, should you choose the latter option, you’re likely to find yourself plastered to the gills long before To Sir, With Love’s Judy Geeson makes her mid-film appearance as yet another in Joan Crawford’s long procession of troublesome onscreen/offscreen daughters.

Joan Crawford as Monica Rivers  
"We're running a circus, not a charm school!"

Ty Hardin as Frank Hawkins
"In this world you only get what you deserve. No more, no less."

Judy Geeson as Angela Rivers
"I was shunted around from place to place like a piece of luggage with the wrong address pasted on it!" 

Michael Gough as Albert Dorando
"How can you be so cold-blooded?"

Diana Dors as Matilda
"The next time she puts her arms around you, make sure those lovely hands aren't carrying a knife!"

Although Berserk! (I’m never going to be able to keep up this exclamation point thing) is often lumped together with other entries in the popular What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? hag-horror / psycho-biddy genre; Joan Crawford’s dedication to being the world’s most glamorous, well-turned-out circus proprietress qualifies it more as a gilt-edged example of Grand Dame Guignol. Dressed in a fashion parade of vividly monochromatic cocktail suits (from milady’s own closet, may I add), Crawford magisterially strides about the horse and elephant-trod circus grounds ‒ head held aristocratically aloft while balancing a towering, tightly-braided bun ‒ barking orders and giving out directions while wearing the daintiest of impractical, strappy high-heel sandals.

Britain's Billy Smart Circus plays the role of Berserk's The Great Rivers Circus
Smart's Circus (note the BS emblems) was also used in 1960s similar Circus of Horrors 

In contrast to the usual abasement heaped upon the typical hagsploitation heroine, every effort in Berserk is made to make Crawford look good. Not only is she the center of the drama and propels the narrative, she's also the only character afforded an active love life or much in the way of a backstory ("Long ago I lost the capacity to love..." she intones at one point; her words instantly making me aware of the weight of my eyelids). Unfortunately, due to the film’s obviously sparse budget and perhaps an over-determination on the filmmakers’ part to make its sexagenarian leading lady’s age into a non-issue (one of the more conspicuous Crawford-mandated script additions is a character voicing the opinion, "Your mother will never grow old, she has the gift of eternal youth!" ), the amount of attention paid to showcasing Crawford’s three-ring matronly glamour results in a kind of inverse-derogation. 

"Find your happiest colors - the ones that make you feel good."
Joan Crawford- My Way of Life
Joan in her happy colors (given her expression, I guess that's something we'll have to take her word for)

Even if you've never seen a film before in your life, it’s likely you could guess the plot of Berserk from its setting alone. A traveling circus is plagued by a series of grisly murders; when the deaths have the side effect of boosting circus attendance, the shadow of suspicion falls (usually across the neck) upon hard-as-nails, cool-as-a-cucumber circus owner, Monica Rivers (Crawford). Some six years prior, Monica’s husband died in a trapeze accident, since which time Monica has been “comforted” by dour-faced business partner, Albert Dorando (Gough), while only daughter, Angela (Geeson), remained stowed away at a hoity-toity boarding school.
Of course, within the ranks of the circus’ motley troupe of performers, low-levels of British panic reigns, motives are plentiful, and red herrings abound. Figuring prominently amongst those most likely to have "dunnit" are faithful Bruno (George Claydon), the dwarf clown/toady who’s a tad over enamored of his leggy employer. Then there’s brassy Matilda (Dors), the in-your-face, peroxided two-thirds of a sawing a woman in half illusionist act, who's skeptical of Monica from the start (maybe due to Mrs. Rivers’ habit of addressing Matilda as "You slut!”). And finally, the circus's most recent arrival, high-wire walker Frank Hawkins (Hardin); a six-foot-two hunk of flavorless beefcake with a sketchy past, hair-trigger temper, and a thing for women old enough to be his mother. Especially if they're in possession of their own circus.

Mommie Likes

The body count rises and the lack of urgency displayed by the veddy-British investigating detectives comes to mirror that of director Jim O’ Connolly (Horror on Snape Island), who somehow imagines Berserk’s tepid tension and sluggish suspense can withstand the mood-killing interjection of several adorable circus acts (in their entirety) and a comic musical interlude. Still, thanks to Joan Crawford’s sometimes baffling acting choices (“You’re crrrrazy!”) and the always-welcome presence of British bombshell, Diana Dors, Berserk!’s 40-minutes of plot padded out to 96-minutes of movie flows painlessly and entertainingly to its abrupt, highly-preposterous conclusion. One in which the surprise-reveal killer has to utter the great-granddaddy of unutterable, self-expository outbursts: “Kill, kill, kill! That’s all I have inside me!” And if you think that line reads ridiculous, wait until you hear someone actually try to say it with a modicum of sincerity.

Trog co-star Michael Gough braces himself while a frisky Joan Crawford moves in for the kill. 
As a side note, is there anything more terrifying than a clown painting?

Berserk! Began life as Circus of Terror and Circus of Blood before Crawford vetoed those crude, cut-to-the-chase options in favor of the infinitely more marketable, Psycho-friendly single name tag (see: Homicidal, Hysteria, Repulsion, Paranoiac, and Fanatic [the British title for Tallulah Bankhead’s loony masterwork, Die, Die My Darling!]). As Crawford’s first film in a two-picture deal arranged by personal friend/producer Herman Cohen (the man who gave the world I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla), the British-made Berserk! was undertaken when Crawford’s reputation as a heavy drinker rendered her an unacceptable insurance risk, stateside.

Coming as it did on the heels of the double-barreled horror blitz of William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1964) and I Saw What You Did (1965), Berserk! may have further distanced Crawford from her glory days at MGM in the mind of the public, but it did serve to cement her status as Hollywood’s then-reigning scream queen. A reputation reinforced by appearances on TV shows like Night Gallery and The Sixth Sense. And while rival Bette Davis may have appeared in a few slightly more upscale UK features during this time (The Nanny and The Anniversary in 1965 & 1968, respectively) Berserk!, bargain-basement as it is, at least provided Crawford with the all-important employment she craved, and gave her a leading lady role and above-the-title billing at a time when many of her peers had been forced into an early retirement.

"This is APPALLING! I have devoted myself to making Christina...er, Angela a proper young lady!"

In a moment redolent of Mommie Dearest's infamous Chadwick expulsion scene, Monica's daughter Angela is expelled from The Fenmore School for Young Ladies. In real life, Joan's daughter Christina campaigned unsuccessfully for the Judy Geeson role, to which Crawford responded to the press, "Christina is not ready to have such responsibility. To co-star with 'Joan Crawford'? Isn't that a lot of pressure to put on the girl?"

Crawford’s second starring vehicle for Herman Cohen, which was also her last feature film, was that unforgettable cave-man opus, Trog (1970). In the 1994 book, Attack of the Monster Movie Makers by Tom Weaver, producer Cohen refutes claims that Crawford was ever subjected to the kind of on-a-shoestring treatment his low-budget films suggest (such as the oft-repeated rumor Crawford had to dress in the back of a station wagon during Trog). According to Cohen, Crawford insisted on being treated like a major star, and to make her happy, for both Berserk! and Trog, he was glad to stretch their budgets to accommodate the expense of a Rolls Royce and driver, an apartment with maid and cook, and a large location dressing room caravan. Anything to make Miss Crawford feel like the star she was (or used to be). Cohen also relates that it was important he never use the term “horror film” when talking to Crawford about their professional collaborations. Joan, it seems, hated the idea of horror films and considered her films for Cohen to be dramas with “…some horrific moments.”

Scream Queen
At this stage, it didn't matter to Joan what her name appeared on,
just so long as it appeared on SOMETHING....preferably in big letters

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I’m pretty much an all-around Joan Crawford fan, but a glance at my DVD collection reveals a decided preference for late-career Crawford. Joan at her worst is actually Joan at her best. I don’t deny the appeal of her early films, but I've always sensed the indelible imprint of the MGM assembly-line in how similar she seems (in terms of look, mannerism, and speech) to every other major actress on the roaring lion’s payroll at the time. However, the over-the-top, almost frightening Joan Crawford unveiled in Torch Song (1953) and thereafter is another Joan altogether.

Shedding all that was vulnerable and soft in Possessed (1947) and Daisy Kenyon (1947), while retaining – if not emphasizing – the hardness and severity of the characters she played in Flamingo Road (1949) and Harriet Craig (1950); Joan Crawford in the '50s transmogrified into a being of her own creation. A being who was not so much an actress as the human embodiment of the combined characteristics of hard work, determination, discipline, and self-delusion. Joan was no longer just a star; she was stardom triumphant. A larger-than-life entity so committed to giving her fans The Joan They Knew And Loved, her final film appearances took on the quality of grand opera. A quality blissfully ignorant of things like camp sensibilities, drag queen aesthetics, or modulating her performance to the scale of the film at hand.

Berserk! is a thoroughly harmless (one might say affectless) suspenser that’s a great deal of silly fun in that way unique to low-budget genre flicks that harbor few illusions about themselves and have no objective beyond giving the audience a good scare. But as pleasant as it is to play “whodunit” in a setting brimming with animal acts, red herrings, and hoary fright effects; Joan Crawford is the entire show and she alone is what makes Berserk! worth watching at all. As efficiently as she carries out her ringmaster duties while showing off her handsome legs in an Edith Head-designed leotard, Crawford single-handedly turns the mediocre Berserk! into a masterpiece of high drama and unintentional circus camp.

Diana Dors about to be sawed in half as magician's assistant to Philip Madoc in Berserk! 1967 

Diana Dors about to be sawed in half as magician's assistant to David J. Stewart
in the unaired 1961 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

PERFORMANCES

In Berserk!, if Joan is less than 100% convincing as the owner of a traveling circus, it’s only because she runs it with an aggressive authority and Machiavellian cunning more appropriate to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company (that and the fact one can't really imagine Joan putting up with the untidiness of circus life). I can’t say anything about her performance here that I haven’t already covered in previous posts for Queen Bee, Strait-Jacket, and Harriet Craig, only to add that I get a particular kick out of the way Crawford's studied line readings in Berserk! have a way of sliding from her usual over-enunciated, studio-taught elocution, into a curious brand of Texas-accented dialect:
“That’s JUST whadda mean!”
“Want me to spell it out fuh ya?”
“He’s just mah business partner!”

With dinner over, Hardin's ready for dessert 

I enjoy the supporting cast of Berserk! a great deal, each actor wisely giving the film’s star as wide a berth possible for the histrionic grandstanding to follow. My favorites are Diana Dors, saddled with a truly awful wig, but giving each of her scenes a vitriolic punch the film sorely needs. The appealing Judy Geeson is given scant to do, but does so with a level of genuineness that almost feels out of place for the movie (“Geeson’s pretty but doesn't have the stuff to make it for the long haul,” sniffed Crawford). And the regrettably-named Ty Hardin (that is until you learn his real name is Orison Whipple Hungerford …JR!!!) makes an appropriately incongruous choice for Crawford’s love interest, his towering frame and obvious youth, serving to cast just the right amount of suspicion on his character’s motives.

Ted Lune, Golda Casimir, George Claydon & Milton Reid
Berserk! grinds to a screeching halt in order to accommodate the cutesy musical number, "It Might Be Me"

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Contractual show-biz pairings are nothing new. If you hired TV personality Steve Allen, you had to take Jayne Meadows; director Bryan Forbes never worked without wife Nanette Newman; and, pre-split-up, getting Tim Burton always meant Helena Bonham Carter was not far behind. In the 60s, Joan Crawford and Pepsi were an onscreen pair made in product-placement heaven.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
I was ten years old when Berserk! was released in theaters, and I recall how disturbing I found the TV commercials and newspaper ads that prominently featured the image of a man about to have a stake driven through his head by a hammer. I was actually too afraid to see the movie at the time, but I wonder what I would have made of it. Then I had no preconceived notions about Joan Crawford to distract me from the story at hand.
Watching the film today, the plot, such as it is, really fades into the distance, and the entirety of my enjoyment is centered exclusively around Crawford and the Crawford mystique. Like a solar eclipse, Joan Crawford and all she has come to represent as a gay icon and camp godsend blots out everything else. Every aspect of Crawford and her life has been parodied and talked about for so long it's hard for me to even see her as a human being, much less a fictional character she plays pretty much as herself. As is the case with all of Crawford's late-career films, watching Berserk! is like being given a tour of a Joan Crawford tribute museum. And I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
There are scenes infused with near-confessional references to her real-life failed romances and dedication to work over all else. Plus Crawford's outmoded acting style lent interest to scenes with younger performers.

Joan and Ty adopt a pose ripped from countless vintage movie posters
 (not to mention paperback romance novels)

And every one of Geeson's scenes with Crawford can't help but subliminally call to mind the epic Mommie Dearest:

"And what about your Christmas card list?"

"Because I'm not one of your FAAAANS!"

"You know Christina, flirting can be taken the wrong way...."

Perhaps a stronger film than Berserk! could surmount these distractions, but Berserk! has so little going for it that's genuinely compelling; one can't help but welcome every self-referential, over-acted, self-serious moment the great Miss Joan Crawford provides. So, for fans of the best that camp has to offer...step right up!

BONUS MATERIAL

Berserk's spoiler-filled theatrical trailer:

Alfred Hitchcock Presents; "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (1961) - Diana Dors stars in this circus-themed episode that was never aired because sponsors deemed it too gruesome.

George Claydon, who played Bruno the clown in Berserk! appeared as the
first Oompa Loompa on the left in 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Diana Dors was not only quite the bombshell in her youth but in later years became one of television's most articulate, witty, and charming talk show guests. Here's a clip of a 1971 television interview.

Wikipedia biography of actor Ty Hardin referencing his 8 marriages and eventual descent into right-wing, nutjob, ultra-conservatism.

Given how much Joan Crawford favored the dramatic shadow across her neck in films, I suppose it's only fitting that on the day I took this photo of her star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame (in front of the Capitol Records building near Hollywood & Vine) I was unable to avoid this band of shadow falling across it. I can imagine Crawford in heaven telling God how to light her correctly. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2016