Suicide as a free act to my mind requires a deep capacity for self-criticism and a state of profound existential angst, both of which are beyond the femme-fatale.

As to the suicide attempt, that didn’t bother me, and I certainly don’t believe there’s some hard and fast rule that says you’re disqualified as a femme fatale if you attempt suicide when not physically cornered. I don’t think it makes sense to have such a specific requirement for a remarkably supple and enduring typological figure.

Mildred doesn’t behave as a femme-fatale for 106 minutes, and it is debatable if she ever does. Part of the tension in the story is wanting to know how and why a decent and hard-working woman comes to be implicated in a murder and behave as she does in the first 10 minutes. Let’s not forget, she attempts suicide in that opening sequence, something femme-fatales do only when they are physically cornered and there is no escape.

But I can’t agree that Mildred is a femme-fatale. If she tries to make a patsy of the jerk Wally it is as a desperate mother trying save her worthless daughter. If anything it is the amoral scheming Veda who is a budding femme-fatale and the venal Monte an homme-fatale.

Elementally it is story of family tragedy played out against the pursuit of the California dream of wealth and ease through hard-work and ambition destroyed by wastrel conceit and shameless greed, and is as strong an indictment of the moral corrosiveness of wealth and privilege as Hollywood has achieved.

But it is also a story of profound humanity and the worth of simple decency and personal integrity. Mildred makes tragic mistakes and misplaces her trust and love, but she is always true to herself, and in even in her darkest hour towers above the morass of greed and selfishness that would suck her down.

I’ve always enjoyed this film. It’s kind of soapy, but so what? The blending of maternal melodrama (The Old Maid, Stella Dallas, The Great Lie, To Each His Own, The Sin of Madelon Claudet, Imitation of Life and That Certain Woman among others) and noir (no list necessary here) is rich and splendid.

The cinematography of this film is divine. And Michael Curtiz has an extremely impressive filmography when you go after it. Whether we’re discussing his Errol Flynn cycle (the great, great grandfather of the action-adventure is his The Adventures of Robin Hood and Dodge City helped create even more “cliches” of the Western) his tremendous noirs (I’m a big fan of another Joan Crawford with him, Flamingo Road, and The Unsuspected).

And I agree that Mildred Pierce’s daughter in this is sort of the real femme fatale, haha.

Sam, I can hardly even fathom the one-two punch of Crawford and Blyth in this movie. Both so strong and weak in such different ways, in classic melodrama tradition. And as Luke points out, both femme fatales in a way very, very not in keeping with the melodrama.

Plus, I absolutely love Eve Arden as Mildred’s wise-cracking boss then employee then friend. She’s very good and very funny. That’s three academy award worthy performances in this movie, all by women. That didn’t happen much in the Old Hollywood, but is nigh impossible in today’s boys club. What a treat.

Call it “chick noir.”

(And I fully agree on the five stars.)