In her signature wide-shouldered look of female authority, originated for her in the thirties by Adrian, Joan Crawford is at her tough and tearful best in this hard and fast adaptation of James M. Cain's novel. But it is the fur coat and hat that are emblematic for Mildred Pierce, for she looks like the feral and ferocious female animal she really is, protecting her (undeserving) offspring at any cost. Forced into (or choosing?) single motherhood, Mildred makes her own fortune (a restaurant empire) and fall (injudicious love) through a combination of feminine wiles and unrelenting willpower. Ann Blyth is Veda, the smarmy, social climbing daughter, whose personality is captured in her eighteenth birthday dress, a creation of revelation and concealment, bidding and banishment. Classic hard-boiled dialogue and moody lighting ignite Curtiz's direction of this Darwinian noir.-Sally Syberg