Mildred Pierce (1945)

Mildred’s unemployed husband has walked out on her and their two daughters. The older, an ungrateful, spoiled teenager, is embarrassed by their working-class status, but Mildred still manages to make good with a chain of profitable restaurants.

It tries to be all Sunset Boulevardy with a corpse up-front and the “how it happened” unfolding afterward, but it can’t touch that masterpiece. Melodramatic and fun in its way, but pretty one-note.

C+