Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American melodrama/film noir directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, and Zachary Scott, also featuring Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, and Bruce Bennett. Based on the 1941 novel by James M. Cain, this was Crawford's first starring role for Warner Bros., after leaving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1996, Mildred Pierce was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry. Plot Monte Beragon, the second husband of Mildred Pierce, is murdered. The police tell Mildred her first husband, Bert Pierce, has confessed. Mildred protests that he is too kind to commit murder and reveals her story to the officer in flashback.