he term a “woman’s director” is usually a not-so-coded way of saying “he’s gay.” The “he’s” in question are usually of the George Cukor variety, and given the times, that meant closeted. And yet, at the supposedly opposite end of the spectrum, there are directors just as fascinated with women, and capable of eliciting great performances from same, who are as macho as can be, to wit, François Truffaut and Robert Aldrich, and, in the case of the two movies we are about to discuss, Michael Curtiz and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
      Perhaps it is a coincidence that two of the greatest movies essentially focused on women were recently released on DVD in the same month. One, All About Eve, is on almost everyone’s list of great films, while the other, the admittedly bumpier ride, Mildred Pierce, has the lesser reputation, even though it borders on being film noir, and was, perhaps, the first class-conscious look at an American woman’s struggle for economic (and hence, capitalistically-oriented) independence. Yes, there have been movies before Mildred, indeed a long tradition, centered on women who use their feminine wiles to achieve status and a kind of freedom, both economic and personal. But in this picture, Pierce doesn’t use her feminine wiles to achieve her place in the (marketplace) sun; she does it by making a better product. In this respect, she might be seen, but never is by the critics, as a feminist icon, and given her era, one well ahead of her time. Is it, one wonders, a coincidence that the film coincides with the end of World War II, during which American women got a first good bite out of the capitalistic apple?
      At least two of the principals responsible for the story are tough guys, James M. Cain, who wrote the novel, and William Faulkner, who on the evidence of the script and much of the dialogue, was the key contributor to the film’s tough-minded and multi-layered twists and turns.
      In the film, there are two intertwining strands at work, and, if you look with a sharp eye, you’ll see how director Michael Curtiz used a different photographic “look” for each. The story of Mildred’s rise from waitress to restaurant-chain owner is told in bright, flat, high-contrast black-and-white—saturated with L.A.’s cruelly revealing light. For the other story, that of Mildred’s personal life, and the vampires who cling to her (and eventually drain her of her strength), the look is straight out of German Expressionism, with deep shadows, reflecting glass, and decidedly offset camera angles.
      Because of the quality of the transfer, the transitions between the two photographic styles become immediately evident. Warner’s DVD of the film is absolutely sensational in its rendering of these black-and-white compositions. I think, after a quick comparison, that Pierce looks better than the much-lauded Citizen Kane transfer also from Warner. That is, sharper, clearer, with much higher definition. You can even see the way makeup was applied to Joan Crawford’s face, and both the sagging and tight muscles flexing in her jaw. If you want a reference disc that will show you any abnormalities in your video viewing device, this transfer will do the job.
      On the other hand, despite Fox’s crowing about the quality of its DVD transfer of Eve, one careful look at the “restoration” work (a/b-ed in a supplement) will convince you, perhaps, that the new version is inferior to the older laserdisc, if, that is, you prefer a greater range of contrast, with blacker blacks. This film never had a high contrast look, and, to my way of thinking, it is important that those contrasts that existed be preserved. On this DVD, the restoration looks blander, with less definition, than does the earlier transfer and on film in the revival houses. Somehow, I think, a loss of the black contributes to a slight flattening of the film’s emotional contrasts.
      Of course, Eve has one of the most flawless scripts ever conceived for the screen, but, as pure cinema, it really doesn’t have a lot to offer, other than the very last shot of the aspiring starlet, Phoebe, in front of the three-paneled mirror. What grabs you and holds you is the dialogue, and that, once you think about it, is saying something.
      Both movies have quite wonderfully toxic villains, Eve here, and in Pierce, the daughter Veda. Eve, the subtler of the serpents, wants stardom. Veda, in keeping with the class conflict in Pierce, wants money and the social status it can buy (she complains, snottily, that her mother smells of restaurant “grease”). The clashes and machinations that these two bitches generate are the emotional mainsprings of both films and you may, like me, wonder at the unspoken subconscious drives that bind Margo Channing and the other women of Eve, and Mildred and her daughter Veda, together in their respective dances to the death.
      Great stuff. It goes without saying that movies of their kind and quality don’t come this way anymore.

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