Mommie Dearest (Perry, 1981): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.20pm
This film, also being screened on August 14th, is part of the great BFI Moviedrome: Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen season.
Chicago Reader review:
No one would mistake this stiff, shoddy 1981 biopic of Joan Crawford for
a “good” movie, but in terms of issues—movies, melodramas, mothers and
daughters—it’s rich, stimulating thought in spite of itself. Frank Perry
was a poor choice to direct (Robert Aldrich and Paul Morrissey would
have been more appropriate), yet his gross inadequacies somehow help the
film—the bad laughs he gets push it into black comedy, which is what
the audience wants. The dominant tone is that of a horror movie as it
might have been produced by soap opera king Ross Hunter in the 50s: lots
of elegant clothes and settings, weirdly linked to a shock rhythm of
tension and release. It’s a movie dream turned into a movie nightmare, a
wonderful idea the film doesn’t know it has.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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