MILDRED PIERCE (1945)

Housewife Mildred Pierce isn't happy at home. Her husband recently lost his job and he just isn't bringing in the bacon it takes to provide their two daughters with singing lessons, piano lessons and nice clothes...especially eldest daughter Veda, who's a Grade-A cunt. Mildred and her husband soon separate and Mildred secretly gets a job as a waitress. Before long she knows all the ins and outs of the restaurant business and opens up her own place. It's a success, but will it be enough to satisfy the spoiled Veda? And what of the men in Mildred's life? Oh yeah, there's also that little matter of murder!

Told in long flashback form during the investigation of a murder, the 1945 film version of MILDRED PIERCE differs greatly from James Cain's thrilling hard-boiled novel of the same name. The reason for the changes is there's absolutely no way that story could have been told in 1945. Usually I'm strongly against changing a story so radically from the author's original vision, but the screenwriters here (including William Faulkner!) did an excellent job. Add onto that some outstanding acting by everybody and you got yourself a really good movie. I've seen MP a number of times now and it's always a pleasure and strikes me as a very mature film for 1945. Highly recommended.

IMDb lists Joyce Compton as "Waitress (uncredited)", but I don't see here anywhere.

Based on same novel - Mildred Pierce (2011)

THE LAWLESS BREED (1953)

John Wesley Hardin (Rock Hudson) is released from prison and on his way out of town he drops off his handwritten autobiography at the local newspaper office. Flashback time.

Hardin was raised by a Jesus lover who was a big believer in Proverbs 13:24 (a Bible verse that encourages parents to beat the shit out of their children...for their own good, of course). The ass whoopins didn't help much because when John is still a teenager he has some trouble during a card game and kills a man. The police aren't going to believe it's self-defense (and the man has three ill-tempered brothers), so Hardin goes on the lam. But it seems trouble has a way of always finding Hardin and Hardin does his part to always keep the gravediggers in business. After a few years of this, Hardin finally settles down with his main squeeze and they start a farm. Things are going good and she even has a little baby on the way...but the past isn't done with Hardin just yet.

For an older western, THE LAWLESS BREED is entertaining.  Rock Hudson definitely has a commanding screen presence and the pace is quick. But then after seeing the movie I did a little reading about the real John Wesley Hardin and holy horse pussy that guy (at least according to his Wikipedia page) was a fucking maniac! It's like everywhere he went he killed somebody. He even shot some guy through the wall of a hotel room because he was snoring too loud!!! Attention Hollywood: instead of making movies about talking Chihuahuas or a weredolphin winning a breakdancing contest to help cure childhood terminal butt cancer or whatever it is you make movies about...how about a hardcore NC-17 movie about the legend of John Wesley Hardin? This dude was something else. On top of killing nearly everybody on the planet, he studied law in prison then when he got out passed the Bar Exam, married a 15 year-old girl and then "accidentally" killed a guy during a bet before finally being gunned down while playing dice in a saloon.

Back to THE LAWLESS BREED. Good film, but nothing life changing.

THE INCITE MILL (2010)

Ten strangers agree to stay in a remote underground complex for 7 days in exchange for a big payday. Naturally it doesn't take a genius to realize this sounds too good to be true. The participants are quickly manipulated into not trusting each other and then in their private rooms each is given a secret weapon. Secret alliances form and soon the blood begins to spill...unfortunately for the viewer the blood I speak of could barely fill coffee cup. I'm assuming that THE INCITE MILL is just another version of Agatha Christie's mystery novel "And Then There Were None" and as mysteries go TIM fails yet again. There's pretty much zero doubt as to the winner would be.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Tatsuya Fujiwara since it brought back memories of DEATH NOTE and Haruka Ayase brought back memories of CYBORG GIRL, but other than that I was pretty disappointed by the entire movie. It felt kinda cheap, the violence is on level with a network television crime drama, zero nudity, the tension was nonexistent and the story was promising (although the reason they all got together was just lazy and silly), but ultimately unsatisfying. Not a terrible film, but not worth watching either.

About as bloody as it gets.