"Mommie Dearest" for Mother's Day

It wasn't intentional but the online DVD rental company I use had sent me Mommie Dearest this week so I happened to watch it today. I saw it years ago and I'd forgotten just how hilarious this is. I don't believe for one second that the actors actually took this seriously when they were making. It's the campiest film ever and the dialogue is just screaming out to be endlessly recited by vicious drag queens everywhere. Here are a few of my favourite lines:

"Tear down that BITCH of a bearing wall and put a window where it OUGHT to be!

I should've know you'd know where to find the boys and the booze!

I'm not mad at you! I'm mad at the dirt!

Don't fuck with me fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo."

And finally the one I like to do for the guys at work: "TINA! Bring me the ax!"

From doing a quick google, it seems that Faye Dunaway is ashamed of her performance, wishes she'd never taken the role and she rarely discusses it. Instead, she thinks it ruined her career and blames the director for not reining her in. I think that the director Frank Perry had the right idea as it's a wonderful performance, so relentlessly flamboyant and fearless. You simply don't get to see stuff like this anymore, not since the days of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford herself. Dunaway is fanatical and so highly strung throughout, it almost makes you nervous just to watch her.


I have to admit that I did laugh during the scene when she's beating up Christina with the wire hanger. I also like the one where she thumps her with the can of Ajax and it flies all over the two of them. Ok, so I know that child abuse isn't funny, but in Mommie Dearest it's so over the top that it becomes hysterical.

Don't worry, I didn't neglect my own mother. I spent the entire day with her yesterday, bought her lunch and a houseplant. See what a good gay son I am!

This here's Miss Bonnie Parker. I'm Clyde Barrow. We rob banks.

“Hey boy, what you doin' with my Mama's car? Wait there!” Isn't that just best opening line? You've got Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, laying around naked in her bedroom going stir crazy, then looking out the window and seeing a possible way out of her personal hell in the form of a young hot Clyde Parker played by Warren Beatty. I'd recorded Bonnie and Clyde on my DVR a few days ago but didn't get around to watching it until this afternoon. My oh my, it's every bit as good as I remember. I must've first seen this on the telly when I was a kid. I have no idea quite why my parents allowed me to watch such a violent film, but I guess they knew it was a good one, you know, artistic and all.

Warren Beatty is so hot as Clyde and he's even hotter since he plays him as impotent. After a failed fumble with Bonnie she amusingly clucks: "Your advertising's just dandy... folks would never guess you don't have a thing to sell!" Poor Bonnie, she never does manage to get her rocks off during the film. The rest of the cast comprises of Gene Hackman (over bloody acting badly as he tended to in his early days), Estelle Parsons (so annoying you just keep rooting for the police to shoot her down!) and there's even a brief scene with the imcomparable Gene Wilder.

But the best thing about the film is Faye Dunaway. She towers over everyone in the film, even over all these great actors and easily dominates every scene she's in. She glowers at everyone with her trademark brittle and edgy persona. One thing occured to me though - what the heck has Faye Dunaway done to her face? I mean, when you watch her in this film she looks the way you remember her. But when you look at her now, she's not just older, it's a completely different face! She just doesn't resemble the woman she used to be. Don't get me wrong, she looks terrific and all, but it's as if some crazy woman kidnapped Dunaway back in the early eighties and took over.