Despite the death of her second daughter via being run over by an eighteen wheel truck and the highly difficult to believe scenario of a single mother becoming the successful entrepreneur of a restaurant chain in a few years, this film is incredible. I mean all movies ask us to suspend disbelief to a certain degree but that plot development and sudden jump in time is a bit much.
This film is absolutely part of the film noir category following in the footsteps of Double Indemnity and Maltese Falcon. You have The dame, the guy, and a gun…
The lighting and shooting is crystal clear and the camera movements are highly engaging as well as the performances. This film again proves we have entered an era of realism that film has moved into seemingly through film noir. It’s almost as if the film noir genre is what birthed the new American psychic condition of the anti-hero and exploring moral complexity. I’m curious to see if this changes and reverts back to an "idyllic" state, which is what you would expect from the outward analysis of the 1950’s, however, WW2 and the moral global shift that occurred seems to have irreparably brought to the fore of the American public psyche the notion that the Monster is within our own home as opposed to being some external masked, costumed, or supernatural being.
This film also seems to cut against the grain by recalling the women’s films of the 1930’s with strong female protagonists especially ones who are financially independent and dealing with many male suitors where it seems the trend at this point in the 1940's is to relegate women to secondary roles and make them subservient to the male character. Arguably, by pinning the murder on the daughter Mildred is exonerated and proven to be strong, however, the other side of the coin is that this film cements the imprisonment of the mother as society dictates that she is her daughter and that any of the daughter’s actions is always a reflection on the mother as well.
This IS A WOMEN’S Picture of the 1940’s yet the story is marred by this psychic shift towards anti-hero and thus ties the judgment to the daughter and the family. The connection between woman and family is a bit looser in the women’s films of the 30’s, except for Stella Dallas, although in that we see the sacrifice of a mother for the benefit of her daughter, not the reverse here.
On a plot level the reveal of Mildred's daughter sleeping with her lover and then shooting him when he rejects her as well is extremely shocking and provocative especially for the day. This movie would have been quite controversial with a revelation like that. It rejects the wholesome nature of the family unit outright despite Mildred's best efforts to keep her family together.