In an echo of the general revulsion the Breen office had towards the plot of Mildred Pierce one cultural commentator, surprisingly a writer for a leftist daily New York newspaper, was sufficiently upset enough to devote a column to what he deemed the “ugly, rapacious slice of American life presented in Mildred Pierce.” 

    He adds “the whole mess comes to a violent, unlovely end, with a shooting in the beach-house. This, I understand, is a ‘cleaned-up’ ending for the screen; the original story having ended with adultery triumphant.”

    Ironically the text of McManus’s overheated column almost reads as advertising copy for the film. Alas he was in the minority.​ The film, directed by Michael Curtiz, opened October 20, 1945 and was a huge critical and box office success. It remains a benchmark of enduring film noir style.