Mommie Dearest

In the Golden Age Of Hollywood, one of the most shining stars was Joan Crawford (Dunaway). She was a great actress at both MGM (which gave her her start) and Warner Brothers (where she won an Oscar for the drama "Mildred Pierce"). She was also a caring mother to her daughter Christina (played as a child by Hobel and as an adult as Scarwid)...Or was she?

Crawford, in the days before she made it big, was involved with multiple romances and several miscarriages. Christina only got to Joan because Crawford's friend Greg Savitt (Forrest) was able to pull some strings. Joan was only acting the role of the caring mother...Inside her house, she was another beast entirely with young Christina. It starts out as emotional abuse. For example, Christina gets many presents on her birthday, but Joan would only allow her to keep one, while she would give the rest to various needy children. It then becomes psychological abuse with Joan telling Christina that Crawford will always be better than her. It finally gets physical, with the mere act of hanging a dress on a wire hanger sending Joan through the roof. The battle rages on for years, but do you think it will end when Crawford dies?

Aaah, yes, "Mommie Dearest". This is a movie that you either love or hate. It's difficult to say why you would love or hate it, though. I'm a fan of this movie, but that's because I tend to have a thing for over-acting and nobody does it better than Dunaway in this movie. Child abuse is a horrible thing, of course, but somehow you can find yourself laughing as Joan thrashes her daughter, shrieking the infamous lines "NO WIRE HANGERS! NO WIRE HANGERS, EVER!". You feel guilty about chuckling at the scene, but if it makes you laugh, what's the problem?

One problem I do have, though, is with the stereotype of this movie's typical audience. Over the years, this movie has become a camp classic in the gay community, who love it for its' over-acting and impeccable sense of Golden Age style, but where is it written that you have to be gay to enjoy this movie? I'm straight myself, but I can appreciate a "good bad" movie. That may seem like a contradiction, but to me, there's a difference between a "good bad" movie and a "bad bad" movie. A "good bad" movie is one that the critics hate but the audiences love...One that involves word-of-mouth and audience participation (as you'll see a little of in the trivia), as well as one that can end up on lists that you wouldn't expect. In the case of "Mommie Dearest", the American Film Institute named Joan Crawford as one of the 50 greatest movie villains of all time in their "100 Years, 100 Heroes and Villains" list, while "No wire hangers!" was named one of the 100 greatest lines ever on AFI's "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes" list. A "bad bad" movie can be summed up as a film which routinely shows up on the IMDB's Bottom 100 list.

Grab the popcorn and try to hide the wire hangers and I definitely think you'll enjoy this movie.