'Mommie Dearest'- the story of Joan Crawford..a fair/good biopic?

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082766/

I am interested in the life of Joan Crawford (and many other old classic actors/actresses) and came across this. Seems to be a very well known biopic (although i've only heard of it til' now). I found of it when a quote was used in a Kylie Minogue song so investigated.

I read a little on it and it had both great reviews and some not so great..but overall seemed to be a good take on her life. Anyone here seen it and is a Joan fan? :)
 
It's been a long time since I last saw MD, but it has to be one of the most entertainingly OTT films I've ever seen and Faye Dunaway is astonishing in the role imo. She's so far over the top the rest of the cast need Space Shuttles to keep up. The make-up artists deserve a word of appreciation too, they make La Dunaway look so much like Crawford that it's quite scary.

"NO........WIRE.........HANGERS!":D

You'll love it.:)
 
I have the dvd as i saw it first when it was first on video ,
i love the films of Joan Crawford , Mildred Pierce being another . It started with my interest in my Favorite Actress,Bette Davis....ive just recieved today the Film....The Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex. My Favorite movie with both of them starring together is the wicked Whatever Happened To Baby Jane....Brill:)
 
That's the quote used in the Kylie song :D I can imagine Joan bellowing that out! SounRAB like a great film, can't wait now!

And deg625, i know what you mean, I got started on the old film stars from the likes of Judy Garland/Grace kelly etc :)
 
You've done well to find some good reviews of it! It's only value lies in it's fantastic campness. Terrible film otherwise.

Do see it though, it's hi-larious.
 
It's camp as Christmas, but worth seeing for an utterly unhinged Faye Dunaway, who totally eclipses Diana Scarwid as the daughter (who's actually very good and should have had more of a career IMHO.) Take it with a pinch of salt (and a big glass of red!) and you'll enjoy it...

I showed it it not long after first release at a student film society I was running, and gave a 50p discount to anyone who brought a wire coat hanger :)
 
Haha thanks for the replies :)

I still really wanna see it and will get it on DVD or something :)

I get the impression there are more Joan Crawford biopics out there? if so, i'd love to know :)
 
I remember seeing it years ago late on night on TV. Bought it on DVD a couple of years back. It's a good film. Like others have said a bit OTT, but I still find the "No wire hangers" scene quite terrifying :o
 
What actually happens? I take it Joan is mental by this point and gets all violent and raged over someone providing a wire hanger rather than a normal one? :D
 
Bette Davis's comment on Joan's death was along the lines of her mother had told her never to speak ill of the dead. 'She's dead, good !'.
 
Elizabeth and Essex has to be one of my fave Bette Davies movies, I love her hanRAB clasping at the throne while she battles her conscience


Baby Jane is brilliant too.

Joan Crawford was never as OTT as Davies on screen but also gave some sterling performances and held her place in Hollywood
 
No Wire Hangers is one of the most utterly disturbing scenes ever put to celluloid, intentionally or otherwise. It really is up there with the most excruciating 'torture porn' scenes anyone could care to mention, absolutely vile disturbing creepy stuff in its relentlessness and rawness (the beating looks so real, quite besides the mental torture aspect).

Elizabeth & Essex is a fantastic film. Davis's fidgety performance is amazing, at a time when staticness was the direction of the day. The mirror-smashing sequence could simply not have been pulled off as tragically by any other actress.

A lot of Joan Crawford's finest came in her latter years. Ironically, it's black and white that made her shine well into the colour era. She's great as the bitchy megalomaniac female editor in The Best Of Everything, but her role is far too thin. Autumn Leaves on the other hand is a stark melodrama with some truly shocking dark moments, Queen Bee is irresistably perverse yet slightly disturbing camp, and Strait-Jacket delivers on the chills front no matter how incongruous Joan looks in her babydoll garb.
 
Deffinatly going to get it :D

Seriously though, even though some people may find that scene funny, I find it disturbing and really haunting. Didn't someone beat her with wire hangers or something :confused:

If so, then imagine how her kiRAB/whoever in the house felt if that scene did happen and you hear her bellowing that! Eck.
 
It's a good film, wildly camp and OTT but a great watch.

As for how accurate it is, who knows? Crawford certainly had a reputation but I guess we'll never know for sure.

I liked Joan Crawford and I find her rivalry with Bette Davis fascinating. The book Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud is a brilliant read and of course Baby Jane is a classic.

Bette Davis is by far my favourite of the two and some of her one-liners about Joan were classic -
"She slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie" :eek:
and
"I was told never to say anything about the dead unless it was good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good" :eek:
 
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