This promotional still for the film featuring a tuxedoed Zachary Scott taking a bullet to the chest advertises the hard-boiled crime aspects of the story.

    In her entry on Mildred Pierce for The Film Noir Encyclopedia Ellen Keneshea describes Mildred Pierce as a film noir without a tough guy. She notes that while the character of Mildred is not a detective “she is perhaps the hardboiled detective’s counterpart in the only way suited to a 1940s heroine. Mildred has opted out of her patriarchal socially well-defined milieu to become a free agent and successful businesswoman.”

    She adds “Like a Marlow or a Spade, she is subjected to beatings in the course of her work, which are appropriately financial and emotional rather than physical” (Keneshea 2010, 191).

    The murder of Scott’s character Monte Beragon, though initially added to the screenplay to appease Breen and his need for an element of moral retribution to the story, actually strengthened the film’s narrative by providing an anchor that the story could revolve around.

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Works Cited:

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Keneshea, Ellen. 2010. "Mildred Pierce." In The Film Noir Encyclopedia, ed. Carl Macek, 191. New York London: Overlook Duckworth.