Mildred Pierce

Adaptations

1945 film adaption

Cain was first approached about a film adaptation of Mildred Pierce by Warner Brothers producer Jerry Wald in 1943. Though Cain declined Wald’s request to write a film treatment, Wald—known as a producer of films appealing to women moviegoers—continued to seek a suitable screenwriter. In the spring of 1944, Warners purchased the film rights for $15,000,[27] When Cain received Wald’s proposed treatments, the producer had inserted a murder into the story, and according to Cain, had failed to emphasize the dramatic implications “of having a big coloratura soprano in the family.” When filmmaker Michael Curtiz was enlisted to direct Mildred Pierce, Cain urged him to avoid introducing hard-boiled themes and rather emphasize the novel’s “wider implication… Mildred Pierce is one woman’s struggle against a great social injustice—which is the mother’s necessity to support her children even though husband and community give her not the slightest assistance.”[28] Literary critic Paul Skenazy notes the impact that Cain’s novels had on 1940s filmmaking in America:

In quick succession - in 1944, 1945 and 1946 - Hollywood produced successful movies Cain’s Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice. All three films helped break down the censorship barriers constructed by the Hays Office in the 1930s that prevented the portrayal of infidelity and sexual passion on the screen.[29]

The film was a box-office success. According to Warner Bros., it earned $3,483,000 in the U.S. and $2,155,000 in other markets.[30][31]

Other adaptions

1954: An hour-long radio play of the novel was first broadcast by the Lux Radio Theatre on the NBC Radio Network on 14 June 1954 starring Zachary Scott (also in the 1945 film) and Claire Trevor.

1993: A 90-minute dramatization by John Fletcher for the Radio Noir series for Saturday Night Theatre on BBC Radio 4 was first broadcast on 26 June 1993. Shelley Thompson played the title role with Martin Jarvis as Monte Beragon and Ed Bishop as Bert Pierce.

2011:

Director Todd Haynes filmed a five-part miniseries for television, with Kate Winslet as Mildred, Guy Pearce as Monty Beragon, and Evan Rachel Wood as Veda, in Spring 2010 (with Morgan Turner as the young Veda). Haynes wrote the script with Jon Raymond and served as an executive producer with Pamela Koffler, John Wells, Ilene S. Landress, and Christine Vachon, along with HBO in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The miniseries aired on HBO, starting on March 27, 2011, and ending with a two-part finale on April 10, 2011. Unlike the movie version, it is almost a word-for-word dramatization of the novel, including nearly every scene and using Cain's dialogue. It features period music performed by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Orchestra.


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