One tip-off to the badness of this picture is the eyebrows. They dominate every scene in which they appear. You can't take your eyes off them - they're frickin' weird, idiotic, laughable.
The eyebrows provide insight into the thinking of the director and writers of this picture. They saw this project as an exercise in camp; they totally focus on Joan's off-the-charts weirdness. J.C. was obviously weird, but the creators could have made a much more interesting picture by offering a nuanced portrayal.
For the record, Joan Crawford's eyebrows were not invariaby laughable and she was not always wacky. She was extraordinary. She was alive. She was more alive than 99 percent of the women of her generation. She was a handful, to use an outmoded phrase - much too interesting and vital for the hacks who wrote and directed this film.
The creators could have paid more attention to Joan's courage in defying the pigs who ran Hollywood. These pigs tried to tell her what to do; she told them to go screw themselves. I'd say "Bravo!" to that but the word "bravo" apparently never occurred to Frank Perry, Frank Yablans, and their gang of idiots.
The film's creators could have done interesting things with the failure of mainstream doctors to help Joan through hormonal craziness. (She had big-time hormones, no doubt about it; mainstream medicine in the 1940s and '50s had no clue how to deal with big-time female hormones; this fact remains mostly true to this day. Alternative medicine does a much better job; unfortunately for Joan, alternative medicine barely existed in her heyday.)
The film's creators opted instead for wacky eyebrows and weirdness. They made a joke of Joan Crawford. The impulse to make a joke of things was common in Hollywood in the '70s and early '80s when this film was made. See, for instance, what happened to the James Bond franchise via the oh-so-funny Roger Moore and what Dino De Laurentiis did to King Kong. Some of this impulse can be tracked to the "Batman" revival circa 1966.
All of that said, "Mommie Dearest" is fascinating if you're obsessed with show biz and can't get enough of the backstory, no matter how wackily it's presented. (I'm right there with you.) I like the glimpses of 1930s Hollywood homes. I like many of the performances.
Someone should write a decent book about how the entertainment business is portrayed in movies and on TV, examining this film, "Entourage," "Sunset Boulevard," "Tootsie," "Coal Miner's Daughter," "A Star Is Born," "Gods and Monsters," "In a Lonely Place," "Barton Fink," etc.
The eyebrows provide insight into the thinking of the director and writers of this picture. They saw this project as an exercise in camp; they totally focus on Joan's off-the-charts weirdness. J.C. was obviously weird, but the creators could have made a much more interesting picture by offering a nuanced portrayal.
For the record, Joan Crawford's eyebrows were not invariaby laughable and she was not always wacky. She was extraordinary. She was alive. She was more alive than 99 percent of the women of her generation. She was a handful, to use an outmoded phrase - much too interesting and vital for the hacks who wrote and directed this film.
The creators could have paid more attention to Joan's courage in defying the pigs who ran Hollywood. These pigs tried to tell her what to do; she told them to go screw themselves. I'd say "Bravo!" to that but the word "bravo" apparently never occurred to Frank Perry, Frank Yablans, and their gang of idiots.
The film's creators could have done interesting things with the failure of mainstream doctors to help Joan through hormonal craziness. (She had big-time hormones, no doubt about it; mainstream medicine in the 1940s and '50s had no clue how to deal with big-time female hormones; this fact remains mostly true to this day. Alternative medicine does a much better job; unfortunately for Joan, alternative medicine barely existed in her heyday.)
The film's creators opted instead for wacky eyebrows and weirdness. They made a joke of Joan Crawford. The impulse to make a joke of things was common in Hollywood in the '70s and early '80s when this film was made. See, for instance, what happened to the James Bond franchise via the oh-so-funny Roger Moore and what Dino De Laurentiis did to King Kong. Some of this impulse can be tracked to the "Batman" revival circa 1966.
All of that said, "Mommie Dearest" is fascinating if you're obsessed with show biz and can't get enough of the backstory, no matter how wackily it's presented. (I'm right there with you.) I like the glimpses of 1930s Hollywood homes. I like many of the performances.
Someone should write a decent book about how the entertainment business is portrayed in movies and on TV, examining this film, "Entourage," "Sunset Boulevard," "Tootsie," "Coal Miner's Daughter," "A Star Is Born," "Gods and Monsters," "In a Lonely Place," "Barton Fink," etc.