According to the film (and the book that preceded it), Joan Crawford was a licentious, child-beating behemoth, who stalked and postured through life as though it was one of her own pictures-more Strait-jacket than Mildred Pierce.
The 1981 film version of this tome was evidently meant to be taken seriously, but the operatic direction by Frank Perry and the over-the-top portrayal of Joan Crawford by Faye Dunaway (whose makeup is remarkable) has always seemed to inspire loud laughter whenever and where-ever the film is shown. That's a shame, because Faye Dunaway gave the performance of her life and deserved an Academy Award nomination, if not the award.When her adoptive mother Joan Crawford died in 1977, erstwhile actress/author Christina Crawford and her brother Christopher were left out of Joan Crawford's will, "for reasons which are well known to them." Industryites have suggested that it may have been this posthumous act of rejection rather than an alleged lifetime of parental abuse that inspired Christina Crawford to pen her scathing autobiography Mommie Dearest.
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The studio turned against its own movie in order to milk more money out of it. A few weeks later, Mommie Dearest was re-released and was being advertised as a campfest in the vein of Rocky Horror, and patrons were urged to bring wire hangers to the theater. After all, it was based on a best-selling book that sold 4 million copies. Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to the high expectations at the box office. I don't recall inappropriate laughter (well, maybe a muted laugh or two when little Christina muttered "Jesus Christ" at the end of the wire hanger scene), and I remember hearing favorable comments from people around me, although many were horrified by the depictions of child abuse. What may come as a surprise today, the film was received seriously by the audience, who sat transfixed throughout. I saw this movie the first night it opened in Las Vegas in 1981. Despite the physical and emotional abuse Joan hurls at Christina over the course of their relationship, Christina, who often wonders why Joan adopted her seeing as to the abuse, seemingly still wants her mother's love right until the very bitter end. However, Joan sees much of her actions toward Christina as Christina purposefully provoking her.
Joan's treatment of Christina is often passive-aggressive, fueled both by the highs and lows of her career, the narcissism that goes along with being an actress, and alcohol abuse especially during the low times. Joan believes that her own difficult upbringing has made her a stronger person, and decides that, while providing the comforts that a successful Hollywood actress can afford, she will not coddle Christina or her other children, she treating Christina more as a competitor than a daughter. Her lover at the time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lawyer Greg Savitt, was able to go through a brokerage to adopt a baby girl, who would be Christina, the first of Joan's four adoptive children. Unable to bear children, Joan, in 1940, was denied children through regular adoption agencies due to her twice divorced status and being a single working person.
The relationship between Christina Crawford and her adoptive mother Joan Crawford is presented from Christina's view.