Mildred Pierce

Director: Michael Curtiz

1945, Warner Brothers, 111 minutes

Screenplay/Teleplay

LaValley, Albert J. (Ed.), Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.

Table of Contents

Mildred, tired of competing with another woman for her husband, divorces Burt and begins an independent life working as a waitress. Motivated by her love for her daughters and her ambition and hardwork, Mildred rises to professional status and opens a chain of successful restaurants. Mildred's rise to success is complicated by the death of her youngest daughter, and the increasingly greedy nature of her eldest daughter, Veda. Meanwhile, a rich aristocrat with bad spending habits, Monty Baragon, enters into Mildred's life as the joint owner of Mildred's first restaurant.

Veda, in her sole desire for social status, rejects her mother's "working class" role as a career woman. She favors Baragon's aristocratic status and forges an attachment to him and his care-free lifestyle. In order to win her daughter's love, Mildred marries Baragon, and assumes his aristocratic status as well as his financial debts.

Their lives seem to finally fall into place until the night of Veda's birthday party extravaganza. Their lives are changed forever by Monty's death.

The story begins at the police station...

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