Mommie Dearest (Hollywood Royalty/Special Collector's Edition)
by Frank Perry
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Diana Scarwid, Faye Dunaway, Howard Da Silva, Mara Hobel, Steve ForrestDirector: Frank Perry
Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
Writer: Frank Perry
Producer: David Koontz
Producer: Frank Yablans
Writer: Frank Yablans
Writer: Christina Crawford
Writer: Robert Getchell
Writer: Tracy Hotchner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Portuguese (Original Language); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 129 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-06
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Mommie Dearest (Hollywood Royalty/Special Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: Faye Dunaway's Phenomenal Achievement
Summary: 5 Stars
This film presents the facts a survivor of horrendous child abuse was brave enough to publish. Today, there is little to no doubt that Joan Crawford was not only a child abuser, but was also a very mentally unstable in other ways. Too many credible witnesses have come forth and made their direct observations of Ms. Crawford publically known. Thus, much of this film is based on fact.
Faye Dunaway took one of the most controversial leading roles imaginable given the high public profile and fan following Joan Crawford had. Ms. Dunaway exceeds my expectations playing the role. In fact, she nails her character right on point. Dunaway is a superb character actor, whereas Crawford was a Hollywood personality instead of a great character actor. That Dunaway has the ability to bring this point to the forefront of the film that's about a famous woman being an abusive mother is brilliant.
It must have been extremely challenging to even pretend, to perform, to act out the part of Joan Crawford. Not just because of the child abusive aspects but also because of the position Dunaway takes as an actor playing a renouned Hollywood personality who really couldn't act well at all. This makes the film fascinating.
I believe as time goes by, more viewers will critically examine the films that Joan Crawford was in and recognize that they were so badly acted (by Crawford) that over time they developed cult followings of fans.
Summary of Mommie Dearest (Hollywood Royalty/Special Collector's Edition)
Outrageous and controversial, this is the story of legendary movie star Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) as she struggles for her career and battles the inner demons of her private life. This torment was manifested in her relationships with her adopted children, Christina (Diana Scarwid) and Christopher (Xander Berkeley). The public Crawford was a strong-willed, glamorous object of admiration, but Mommie Dearest reveals the private Crawford, the woman desperate to be a mother, adopting her children when she was single and trying to survive in a devastating industry that swallows careers thoughtlessly. The rage, the debilitating strain, and the terrifying descent into alcoholism and child abuse are graphically - and unforgettably - depicted in this film, based upon Christina Crawford's best-selling book.The movie that made "No wire hangers!" a household phrase, Mommie Dearest is the very model of a modern "camp classic," so crazily outlandish that it's fascinating. Based on the scathing and scandalous tell-all bestseller by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of histrionic Hollywood movie queen Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest was billed in advance as a serious dramatic motion-picture biography. But it turned out to be something much, much weirder--a genuine Hollywood oddity that serves up a bizarre mixture of melodramatic trash and outrageous tragi-comedy. Joan Crawford won an Oscar for playing the role of the self-sacrificing mother, the woman who would do anything for her daughter, in Mildred Pierce. As depicted by Faye Dunaway (playing the hell out of the role as if she's determined to win another Oscar of her own, damn it!), her role as offscreen parent puts her in a league with big-time scary screen mommies such as Mrs. Bates in Psycho, and Angela Lansbury's ?ber-mom in The Manchurian Candidate. Dunaway's Crawford torments and terrorizes her adopted children in myriad ways--making them give away their own birthday gifts and rousting them from their beds for frantic after-midnight bathroom-scrubbing attacks. And when, after the death of her Pepsico chairman husband, Crawford tells the board of directors, "Don't f--- with me, fellas!" one is very much inclined to heed her warning. --Jim Emerson
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