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. 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. 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. This is the film with the notorious "wire coat hanger" scene, just in case you need a reminder. Surprisingly, one emerges from Mommie Dearest with more sympathy for the monstrous but intensely vulnerable Crawford than for her whining daughter (played as an adult by
Diana Scarwid, and as a child by Mara Hobel). Our favorite scene:
Joan Crawford dazedly replacing her ailing daughter in the cast of a daytime TV soap opera. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide