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Mommie Dearest
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Mommie Dearest (1981) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
6.3/10   4,544 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 8% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Contact:
View company contact information for Mommie Dearest on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
18 September 1981 (USA) more
Genre:
Tagline:
To my darling Christina, with love...Mommie Dearest more
Plot:
Mommie Dearest, best selling memoir, turned motion picture, depicts the abusive and traumatic adoptive upbringing of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother...screen queen Joan Crawford. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
6 wins & 7 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(24 articles)
Review: ‘Precious’
 (From The Flickcast. 20 November 2009, 8:00 AM, PST)

Movies I Saw as a Kid (That I Shouldn't Have)
 (From Momlogic. 17 November 2009, 2:00 AM, PST)

User Comments:
"Hollywood Royalty Edition" DVD Resuscitates Crawford Camp Classic Embodied by an Overcommitted Dunaway more (129 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Faye Dunaway ... Joan Crawford

Diana Scarwid ... Christina Crawford (adult)
Steve Forrest ... Greg Savitt
Howard Da Silva ... Louis B. Mayer
Mara Hobel ... Christina Crawford (child)

Rutanya Alda ... Carol Ann
Harry Goz ... Alfred Steele
Michael Edwards ... Ted Gelber
Jocelyn Brando ... Barbara Bennett
Priscilla Pointer ... Mrs. Chadwick
Joe Abdullah ... Captain
Gary Allen ... Jimmy
Selma Archerd ... Connie
Adrian Aron ... Wedding Guest

Xander Berkeley ... Christopher Crawford (adult)
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Additional Details

Runtime:
129 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Metrocolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Canada:AA (Ontario) | Iceland:16 | UK:15 (video rating) (1987) | UK:AA (original rating) | Sweden:15 | USA:R (original rating) | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | USA:PG (re-rating after appeal) | West Germany:12 | Australia:M | Singapore:PG

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The first film to nearly "sweep" the Golden Raspberry Awards (or RAZZIES), with five "wins" (including Worst Picture and three out of four acting awards) from a then-record nine nominations. more
Goofs:
Continuity: At the beginning of the birthday party scene, Joan can obviously be seen riding the Carousel behind Christina. However, in a subsequent shot, she is no longer on the Carousel. In another shot soon thereafter, she suddenly appears on the Carousel behind Christina again. more
Quotes:
Joan Crawford: No wire hangers, ever! more
Soundtrack:
Tangerine more

FAQ

How faithful is this movie to the book, and is it an accurate portrayal of real events?
more
10 out of 16 people found the following comment useful.
"Hollywood Royalty Edition" DVD Resuscitates Crawford Camp Classic Embodied by an Overcommitted Dunaway, 27 June 2006
3/10
Author: Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA

Even though she was the first runner-up for the New York Film Critics Award, Faye Dunaway disavows her performance as screen icon Joan Crawford because the camp following this 1981 potboiler has developed over the years has probably been overwhelming. To put it mildly, she is certainly watchable. However, every line she utters seems to have an exclamation point, and every gesture feels so grandiose that it's hard to figure out just what empathetic qualities Crawford had to engender her long-standing popularity. The glibly titled 2006 Hollywood Royalty Edition DVD package makes no bones that this is a movie that now caters to its huge gay following. Dunaway's snub in participating (as well as director Frank Perry's death) means having flamboyant director John Waters pinch-hit on the commentary track, and he manages to be both funny and insightful as he shares lots of apocryphal gossip and zingy one-liners to bring a whole new flavor to the execrable film.

Among his many errors in judgment, Perry decided to film the story of Crawford's mid-to-late years (or more appropriately, her adopted daughter Christina's version of it) as if the movie was one of Crawford's own overripe films. The problem with his serious-minded approach is that it veers so unpredictably back and forth between soap opera and pure camp that the only consistency is its artifice. The story begins as the movie star's career is in free fall at MGM in 1939 (when she was forced to film a true atrocity called "Ice Follies of 1939"). Aware of her professional dilemma, Crawford decides to adopt a baby regardless of being a twice-divorced single career woman. With the help of her studio lackey lover Greg Savitt, she adopts a daughter and later a son. Forever the publicity hound, Crawford presents her happy family in the most pretentious manner in front of the Hollywood press, yet hides a streak of cruelty that manifests itself into military-like parenting and savagely violent episodes. Not living up to her mother's exacting standards, Christina is shuttled off to boarding school and then convent school. She grows up to become a struggling young TV actress, as her mother becomes a corporate wife-turned widow slipping deeper into alcoholism.

Perry makes a fundamental mistake in switching the film's narrative perspective from Joan to Christina midway through the film. The consequence is that neither of their stories is fully told with any objectivity, especially what could have happened in Crawford's earlier years that would have led to such excessive behavior. Instead, we are given an endless parade of over-the-top moments – the tree chopping, the tile scrubbing, the wire hangers, the out-of-control strangulation - that the movie is simply too exhausting to keep up with the episodic storyline. With her reasonable resemblance to the movie star in full make-up, Dunaway carries herself confidently within the Crawford public persona and even achieves some remote moments of poignancy in between the shouting matches. Her strenuous efforts at verisimilitude, however, push her into an unsavory, demonic level of commitment to the larger-than-life role. It's too bad that almost everyone else is quite awful by comparison – Diana Scarwid frustratingly wooden as the adult Christina, Rutanya Alda irritatingly earnest in her blind devotion as Crawford's confidante Carol Ann, Steve Forrest looking like aged beef as Savitt and Howard Da Silva merely smarmy as MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer. The one exception is little Mara Hobel, who brings genuine cunning to the younger Christina.

The Hollywood Royalty Edition includes three dishy featurettes. The 14-minute "The Revival of Joan Crawford" shows the genesis of the movie from Christina's red-hot best seller with contributions from Scarwid, Alda and producer Frank Yablans, who speaks candidly about Dunaway's tempestuous perfectionism. The 14-minute "Life With Joan" focuses on Dunaway's total absorption in the part during the stormy production and includes an extended opening sequence that was deleted before release. The 16-minute "Joan Lives On" speaks specifically to the film's cult status with Waters and Crawford impersonator Lypsinka providing particularly comic insight to its gay following. There is also a photo gallery and the original trailer. It's truly for lovers of cinema camp.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Mommie Dearest (1981)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Are there any moms who aren't like this? author_book
What's wrong with wire hangers? kotrofos
What a hoot! davidfyfe99
Vanity Fair article about Joan and her thoughts on Christina's book.... parks8321
If Faye wanted to make alot of $$$ cubkisser66
Mommie Dearest Review Belialtwin
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