【本文首發(fā)于《虹膜》公眾號】

作者：Bryan Forbes

譯者：覃天

校對：易二三

來源：標(biāo)準(zhǔn)收藏（2017年2月20日）

Dark surf and full-throated music wash over the credits ofMildred Pierce,building to a knockout opening with a volley of gunshots in a beach house and a man in black tie keeling over in flickering firelight. Almost two hours later, however, the movie closes not with the swell and crash of waves but with the toiling sponges of scrubwomen on their knees, cleaning the floors of the Hall of Justice at daybreak. These mute women have the last word, bringing to the surface the film’s undercurrent of tough-minded sympathy for unseen, undignified, and unrewarded female labor, and pointing to its unusual blend of realism and high style. Beneath the sheen of glamour and the throb of melodrama,Mildred Pierce(1945) is an acute, unsparing study of relationships poisoned by class and money. The plot reveals a cruel sting in the tail of the most essential American promise—that hard work, sacrifice, and self-improvement will find their ultimate reward in the next generation’s success. But these caustic insights are embedded in a movie as satisfying as the comfort food Mildred serves in her neon-lit upscale diners: the dialogue crisp and salted with wit, the decadently rich emotion cut by just enough acerbic tartness.

在電影剛開始的時候，伴隨著高亢的音樂，海浪沖刷出了《欲海情魔》（譯者注：本片英文譯為《米爾德麗德·皮爾斯》）的片名。隨后觀眾看到，在一座海濱別墅里，槍聲響起，一名戴著黑色領(lǐng)結(jié)的男人倒在了地毯上。然而，近兩個小時后，電影的結(jié)尾卻不是洶涌的海浪，而是黎明時分，兩名跪在地上清掃著司法大廳地板的女工。這兩名沉默的女性擁有最后的發(fā)言權(quán)，她們代表了電影對看不見、不體面、被埋沒的女性最為深沉的憐憫之情，并展現(xiàn)出了電影不同尋常的現(xiàn)實(shí)主義和高雅風(fēng)格的完美結(jié)合?！队Ｇ槟А凡粌H擁有情節(jié)劇光彩照人的魅力，同時還對被階級地位和金錢毒害的親密關(guān)系進(jìn)行了敏銳、無情的剖析。在美國社會給公民的承諾中，辛勤的工作、犧牲和自我完善的精神將會在下一代人生的成功中得到回報，然而《欲海情魔》卻揭示出，這樣的承諾得到的只有刺痛。這樣尖刻的洞察力優(yōu)雅地嵌入在了電影中，它猶如米爾德麗德在高檔餐廳享用的食物一樣，令人舒適、滿意。電影的對話干脆、利落，充滿機(jī)智，恰到好處的尖酸刻薄割裂了頹廢而豐富的情感。

We first hear Mildred’s name on the lips of a dying man, and first see her walking alone on a deserted pier that extends into the enormous blackness of the ocean. Her silhouette—the huge, boxy shoulders of a fur coat and the steep ankle-strap heels lengthening slim legs—announces Joan Crawford even before the first tearstained close-up. The role of Mildred won Crawford her only Oscar and distilled her essence as a star: a fiercely hardworking perfectionist driven by a dogged, unappeasable longing for approval. She could play tough, she could play capable and hardheaded, but in her eyes burned a volatile blend of fiendish energy and quivering need. InMildred Pierce,this molten core is tamped down by steely restraint; she was never better, and—at something like forty, depending on which birthdate you believe—never more beautiful.

我們最先正是在這個垂死的男人口中聽到了米爾德麗德的名字，隨后，在夜色中，我們看到她獨(dú)自走在一個荒涼的碼頭上，碼頭的盡頭是黑暗的海洋。她的身影——一件毛皮大衣，寬闊的肩膀，高跟鞋，修長的雙腿寂寞地出現(xiàn)在銀幕上。在第一個臉部的、淚眼闌珊的特寫鏡頭之前，我們就可以認(rèn)出，她就是瓊·克勞馥?？藙陴{借米爾德麗德這個角色贏得了她一生中唯一的一座奧斯卡獎，并鞏固了她的明星形象：一個極其勤奮、渴望得到認(rèn)可的完美主義者。她可以扮演強(qiáng)硬、能干、固執(zhí)的角色，但在她的眼神中，既有殘忍感，也有孱弱的渴求。在《欲海情魔》中，這個熾熱的內(nèi)核被冷酷地壓抑了起來；米爾德麗德大約40歲，不管你相信與否，她從未像現(xiàn)在這樣美麗。

Director Michael Curtiz often clashed with Crawford during shooting, complaining that she insisted on glamorizing the woman whose daughter calls her a “common frump.” But the veneer of gentility and obsessive care for her looks that clung to the actress—born into miserable poverty as Lucille LeSueur—perfectly suits Mildred Pierce, who sells cakes and pies out of her kitchen to pay for her daughters’ piano and ballet lessons, even when her husband is out of work. True, Crawford is never quite convincing as an ordinary, downtrodden housewife, but could a woman who builds a chain restaurant empire, makes a fortune, and marries the scion of a fallen old-money clan, all out of desperation to please a snobbish daughter, ever be described as ordinary? This is a woman who, forced to take a job waiting tables to support her children, throws herself into the work like an Olympian in training, becoming an almost frighteningly competent waitress.

導(dǎo)演邁克爾·柯蒂茲在拍攝過程中經(jīng)常與克勞馥發(fā)生沖突，抱怨她堅(jiān)持美化這個被女兒稱為「普通老古董」的角色。但出身貧寒的克勞馥（原名露西爾·費(fèi)伊·勒·薩埃爾）優(yōu)雅的外表和她對外表的癡迷關(guān)愛非常適合米爾德麗德這個角色，她靠出售自己做的蛋糕和派來支付女兒們的鋼琴和芭蕾舞課的費(fèi)用，即使她的丈夫失業(yè)了。誠然，克勞馥作為一個普通的、受壓迫的家庭主婦從來都不是很有說服力，但一個創(chuàng)立了連鎖餐廳，賺了一大筆錢，并嫁給了一個墮落的老財主的后裔的女人，難道還能被描述為是「普通」嗎？米爾德麗德為了取悅她那勢利的女兒不顧一切，為了養(yǎng)活孩子，她被迫去當(dāng)服務(wù)員。她全身心地投入到工作中，成為了一名精干的女服務(wù)員。

Mildred recounts her history in a police station, where she is being questioned after the murder of her husband, and the accompanying flashbacks begin with her staking a claim to averageness, recalling her street in the stereotypical Southern California suburb of Glendale, “where all the houses looked alike,” her feeling of having been born in the kitchen and lived her whole life there. The trappings of motherhood and pie baking may not seem like the stuff of film noir, but Mildred’s obsession with her older daughter is as perverse and destructive as any man’s enslavement to a femme fatale. Veda (Ann Blyth, only around sixteen when the film was made) is a femme fatale in bobby socks: manipulative, deceitful, selfish, and cold-blooded. Blyth’s primly immaculate, doll-like prettiness, with a head too big for her tiny body, perfectly suits this bad seed who is wily as a grown-up and amoral as a baby.

米爾德麗德講述了她在警察局的經(jīng)歷，在她丈夫被謀殺后，她在那里接受訊問，伴隨著倒敘的開始是她聲稱自己不過是一個平庸的人，她回憶起了自己所在的南加州郊區(qū)格倫代爾的街道，「那里所有的房子看起來都一樣，我總是在廚房里，我感覺我好像一生都在廚房里?！鼓赣H的形象和廚房烘焙可能看起來不像常常出現(xiàn)在黑色電影中的事物，但米爾德麗德對大女兒的癡迷就像男人奴役女人時一樣變態(tài)、帶有破壞性。維達(dá)（安·布萊斯飾，她拍這部電影時只有16歲左右）是一個穿著短襪的女孩兒，帶有操縱欲、善于欺騙、性格自私又冷血。她外表上看上去純潔無瑕、擁有洋娃娃般的美麗相貌，而她嬌小的身體似乎并不能承受她腦中的那些想法，就像她惡毒的內(nèi)心與她美麗的相貌不相符合一樣。

In this fatally unhealthy relationship, it is the mother who fears the daughter’s judgment: the scene where Veda accuses Mildred of “degrading” the family by waitressing is so painful it’s hard to watch. Later, in a fit of ecstatic contempt, the girl insults her mother’s family and breeding—as though they weren’t also her own—and triumphantly tells the self-made success that money and a new hairdo will never give her class. But Veda also knows when to drop this crushing disdain and play what can be described only as love scenes—flinging herself into Mildred’s arms with kisses and tears and promises to change. The only change comes when her smug entitlement curdles into sociopathy; she detests the “smell of grease” on the money from her mother’s restaurants but is delighted with the $10,000 she extorts from a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy. In the end, she blames her mother for all her crimes—“It’s your fault I’m the way I am”—and for once, perhaps she’s right. Veda is a monster, but she’s the monster Mildred created with her insistence on putting the children first and giving them advantages.

在這段致命的、不健康的關(guān)系中，母親米爾德麗德畏懼的正是女兒維達(dá)對自己的評判：觀看維達(dá)指責(zé)米爾德麗德通過當(dāng)服務(wù)員來「貶低」家庭的場景是如此痛苦，讓人有些難以接受。隨后，在一陣羞辱中，維達(dá)還侮辱了她母親的家庭和與生俱來的教養(yǎng)——就好像自己不屬于這個家庭一樣——并傲慢地告訴她，金錢和新的發(fā)型永遠(yuǎn)不會給她帶來地位。然而維達(dá)也知道什么時候該放下這種帶有壓迫感的蔑視，她投入米爾德麗德的懷抱，哭泣著承諾要改變自己。唯一的變化是，她的傲嬌心變成了反社會心態(tài)；她厭惡母親餐館里的錢上的「油味」，卻對她從富裕家庭勒索得來的一萬美元感到高興。最后，她把所有的罪行都?xì)w咎于她的母親——「我變成這樣的都是你的錯」——這一次，也許她是對的。維達(dá)是個怪物，她是由米爾德麗德的寵溺所創(chuàng)造出來的怪物。

“Why don’t you just forget about her?” Mildred’s friend and coworker Ida (Eve Arden) asks, as they drink straight bourbon in the afternoon. Even knowing the bitter truth about Veda, Mildred realizes she can’t live without her and will do anything to get her back. Ida can’t shake her from this abject trance—not even with the benefit of Arden’s wry, drawling contralto, the Campari in the cocktail of American cinema. But she gives the movie a solid base of female sanity and solidarity to balance the neurotic central relationship, as well as an invaluable dash of astringent humor—from her praise of alligators that “eat their young” to her toast: “To the men we have loved—the stinkers.”

There are three men in Mildred’s life, and each has his flaws, though only one is really a stinker. Her first husband, Bert (Bruce Bennett), is a gloomy defeatist who resents her greater spine and energy, though he correctly diagnoses her toxic obsession with their children. Having lost his job, he consoles himself with a mistress, and sees his wife’s own earning capacity as a deliberate rebuke. When she throws him out, he sneers, “Let’s see you get along without me,” which she proceeds to do quite well, as he later admits. Women’s willingness to do whatever it takes to survive and support their children is a truism of Depression-era women’s sagas likeBlonde Venus, Call Her Savage(both 1932), andBaby Face(1933). These films argue that the fluidity of women’s identities and their ability to accept degrading compromises make them tougher than men, whose pride and cherished dignity are handicaps. So is their cockiness. “I’m so smart it’s like a disease,” crows Wally Fay (Jack Carson), an affable blowhard who makes a pass at Mildred at least once a week. She bats back the passes but uses him mercilessly, first turning to him for help in building her business, then turning him into a fall guy when she has need of one.

「你為什么不干脆忘了她呢？」米爾德里德的朋友和同事艾達(dá)（伊芙·阿登飾）在下午喝純波旁威士忌時問道。即使知道了有關(guān)維達(dá)的一切，但米爾德里德意識到她不能沒有她，并會做任何事情讓她回到自己身邊。艾達(dá)無法將她從這種可憐的恍惚狀態(tài)中解脫出來——不論是她沉穩(wěn)、緩慢的語調(diào)，還是金巴利威士忌都不能幫到米爾德麗德。但艾達(dá)在電影中展現(xiàn)了女性的才智，正是她平衡了米爾德麗德母女之間的神經(jīng)質(zhì)關(guān)系。另外，艾達(dá)身上還帶有一種辛辣的幽默感——在片中，她稱贊鱷魚，因?yàn)樗赋缘羲鼈兊挠揍獭?，她的祝酒詞也意味深長：「獻(xiàn)給我們愛過的男人——那些討厭的家伙?！?米爾德麗德的生活中有三個男人，每個人都有自己的缺點(diǎn)，盡管只有一個是真正的混蛋。她的第一任丈夫伯特（布魯斯·班尼特飾）是一個憂郁的失敗主義者，他對米爾德麗德的精干恨之入骨，盡管他感受到了她對孩子們中毒般的迷戀。失業(yè)后，他找了個情婦來安慰自己，并把妻子的掙錢能力視為一種對自己的故意指責(zé)。當(dāng)米爾德麗德把他趕出去時，他冷嘲熱諷地說，「讓我們看看你在沒有我的情況下過得怎么樣?！故聦?shí)是，她后來過得很好，他后來也承認(rèn)了這一點(diǎn)。在經(jīng)濟(jì)大蕭條時期的那些電影中，女性常常不顧一切代價謀求生存，贍養(yǎng)自己的孩子，比如《金發(fā)維達(dá)斯》（1932）、《她是野蠻人》（1932）和《娃娃臉》（1934）。在這些電影里，女性身份的流動性，以及當(dāng)她們對有辱人格的事情妥協(xié)的經(jīng)歷，使她們比男性更加強(qiáng)大，這讓男性的自傲和自以為是的尊嚴(yán)看上去像是一種缺陷。他們的驕傲和自大也是如此。吹牛大王沃利·費(fèi)伊（杰克·卡森飾）每周至少都要向米爾德麗德求愛一次，他說：「我太聰明了，這就像是一種疾病?！姑谞柕蔓惖戮芙^了他，但同時也毫不留情地利用他，她先是讓他給自己的生意幫忙，然后當(dāng)她需要的時候，把他變成自己的替罪羊。

Mildred Piercewas made during the Second World War but not released until about a month after V-J Day. There are only a few glancing references to the war—for instance, a line about the shortage of nylon stockings—but the film captures its pivotal moment by looking back at the struggles of the Depression and ahead to postwar prosperity. (The latter is gloriously envisioned in the gala opening of Mildred’s first restaurant, trumpeted by searchlights like a Hollywood premiere, with carhops serving drive-in patrons, swing music on the jukebox, fried chicken and dry martinis, and the sweet music of greenbacks riffling in the cashier’s hand.) Similarly, in its treatment of men, the movie follows the pattern of classic 1930s women’s pictures, in which males remain marginal plot devices, and at the same time previews film noir’s gallery of suckers, heels, and pawns of fate.

《欲海情魔》制作于第二次世界大戰(zhàn)期間，但直到1945年8月15日（二戰(zhàn)勝利紀(jì)念日）大約一個月后才上映。電影里，對戰(zhàn)爭的提及只有寥寥幾筆，例如一句有關(guān)尼龍絲襪短缺的臺詞——但這部電影通過回顧大蕭條的掙扎，以及對戰(zhàn)后社會繁榮的展望，捕捉到了大蕭條時期的關(guān)鍵時刻（在探照燈的照射下，米爾德里德的第一家餐廳的開業(yè)儀式就像好萊塢電影的首映式一樣，為顧客打開車門的餐廳侍者，點(diǎn)唱機(jī)里播放的搖擺樂，炸雞和干馬提尼酒，收銀員手中揮舞著美鈔，這些場景都是對戰(zhàn)后繁榮景象的一種美好憧憬）。同樣，在對男性角色的處理上，這部電影遵循了20世紀(jì)30年代經(jīng)典女性電影的模式，在這一模式中，男性仍然被置于影片情節(jié)的邊緣，同時也預(yù)示了黑色電影中那些社會邊緣人、蛇蝎美人的高跟鞋以及人物作為命運(yùn)棋子的設(shè)置。

It is often said that men’s discomfort with women’s entry into the workforce during World War II conjured the figure of the femme fatale, which demonized strong, ambitious women. This theory makes no sense, since the femme fatale is never a woman who works or is independent; she is always a woman who uses men to get what she wants, relying on the most traditional feminine wiles. Women who do work, like Mildred and Ida (or like the secretaries played by Ella Raines inPhantom Ladyand Lucille Ball inThe Dark Corner,or the nightclub performers portrayed by Ida Lupino inThe Man I Loveand Ann Sheridan inNora Prentiss) are invariably good eggs, while femmes fatales are like Veda, avaricious gals who would rather cheat and exploit their desirability than work for what they want.

人們經(jīng)常說，第二次世界大戰(zhàn)期間，男性對女性進(jìn)入勞動力市場的現(xiàn)象感到不適，「蛇蝎美人」的形象開始出現(xiàn)，然而這一形象卻妖魔化了堅(jiān)強(qiáng)、有抱負(fù)的女性。這一理論毫無意義，因?yàn)樯咝廊藦膩矶疾皇且揽抗ぷ骰颡?dú)立生活的女性；她們總是利用男人來得到她想要的東西。那些努力工作的女性，比如米爾德麗德和艾達(dá)（或者像埃拉·雷恩斯在《幻影女郎》中飾演的秘書和露西爾·鮑爾在《死角》中飾演的秘書，以及艾達(dá)·盧皮諾和安·謝里登在《我愛的男人》、《風(fēng)流如夢》中飾演的夜總會舞女）都是都是好女孩，而蛇蝎美人都像維達(dá)一樣，是貪婪的女孩，她們寧愿欺騙和利用自己的欲望，也不愿為自己想要的東西工作。

The male version of this type is Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), the penniless heir to a once-wealthy Pasadena family, who proudly admits that all he does is loaf “in a highly decorative and charming manner.” At first, his seduction of Mildred seems to be motivated by sincere if superficial attraction, and it’s easy to see why the grass widow （離婚的女子）who spends her life sweating in kitchens succumbs to a man who makes her feel desirable again. Soon she is bankrolling the lifestyle he can no longer afford, eventually buying him outright when they marry—not because she’s in love with him but as a means of holding on to her daughter, who worships the aristocratic, polo-playing gigolo. Monte and Veda are two of a kind, equally devious and narcissistic, and between them they strip poor Mildred of everything she has or cherishes.

在影片中，蛇蝎美人的男性版本則是蒙特（扎查瑞·斯考特飾），他是曾經(jīng)身無分文的帕薩迪納家族的繼承人，他自豪地承認(rèn)，他所做的一切就是「以一種高度偽裝和迷人的方式」游手好閑。起初，他對米爾德麗德的誘惑似乎是真誠的，即使只是表面上的吸引，很容易理解為什么這個「一生都在廚房里忙碌」的離婚女人會屈服于一個讓她再次感到被吸引的男人。很快，她就為蒙特這種奢靡的生活方式提供了積蓄，并且最終在他們結(jié)婚時接受了這種生活——這并不是因?yàn)樗龕凵狭怂?，而是為了留住她那崇拜貴族身份、打馬球的小白臉的女兒。蒙特和維達(dá)屬于同一類人，他們一樣狡猾和自戀，他們剝奪了可憐的米爾德麗德所擁有和珍視的一切。

In this respect, the movie is faithful to the 1941 James M. Cain novel from which it was adapted, but there are subtle differences in tone, as well as a glaring departure: the murder that frames the film and has no equivalent in the book. This is a case where infidelity to the source is mostly well judged, particularly in the abandonment of Veda’s sudden transformation into a celebrated opera singer, a twist in the novel that not only is unconvincing but seems to validate the girl’s haughty conviction that life with her “common” mother can never be good enough for her. The murder serves both to sharpen the dramatic thrust of the story and to satisfy the Breen Office censors who enforced the Production Code, by pushing amorality into outright villainy and ensuring punishment. It also seals the movie’s status as a film noir, though the body count matters less than the emotional violence that hits as hard and cuts as deep as bullets.

在這方面，這部電影忠實(shí)于1941年詹姆斯·M·凱恩的小說，但在風(fēng)格上有些許細(xì)微的差異，以及明顯的不同：構(gòu)成電影關(guān)鍵情節(jié)的謀殺，在書中是沒有的。尤其是在維達(dá)突然轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)橐幻鑴⊙莩叩倪^程中，這是小說中的一個轉(zhuǎn)折，電影改編得不僅令人信服，而且很好。這似乎證實(shí)了這個女孩的傲慢信念，即與「普通的」母親一起生活，對她來說永遠(yuǎn)是不夠的。這起謀殺案既強(qiáng)化了整個故事的戲劇性主旨，又通過將不道德行為的行為轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)閺氐椎牡膼盒?，并且確保惡行得到懲罰，以此來滿足《海斯法典》的嚴(yán)苛要求。這也印證了這部電影作為黑色電影的重要地位，盡管電影中的死亡人數(shù)沒有通常的黑色電影中那么多。

This was Curtiz’s first noir, and he pulls out all the stops in the opening sequence, aided and abetted by veteran cinematographer Ernest Haller. The beach house is a modernist labyrinth of split levels, spiral stairs, dark rectangular spaces sliced by diagonal low-angle shafts of light. Huge shadows loom on the walls, watery ribbons of light play on the ceiling, and firelight twitches spasmodically in the room where a man lies dead. All of the film’s interiors—from the California Spanish bungalow where Mildred starts out to the oppressively grandiose mansion where she winds up—are exceptionally detailed and expressive. Curtiz matches each scene’s style to its mood, from the flamboyant prologue to the plain lighting and framing of Mildred’s everyday life in the suburbs. The director’s films of the forties are all lustrously handsome, often suffused with a faintly visible atmosphere—like humidity, or breath—that gives volume to the light and shade. But Curtiz is never distracted by style; his power as a storyteller comes from the simplicity and stinging clarity he can give the most dramatic moments.Mildred Piercehas its flourishes of operatic excess—Veda slapping her mother is perhaps the most stunning—but its most painful scenes are quiet and pitilessly straightforward, like the one where Mildred watches her younger daughter, Kay, struggle for life in an oxygen tent.

《欲海情魔》是柯蒂茲的第一部黑色電影，在資深攝影師歐內(nèi)斯特·哈勒的幫助下，他在開場的場景中努力展現(xiàn)了自己的功力。這座海濱別墅是一座現(xiàn)代主義的迷宮，錯落有致，它的樓梯呈螺旋狀，黑暗的矩形空間被光柱分割開。在墻上，巨大的陰影隱約可見，在天花板上浮現(xiàn)著水面的回光，當(dāng)那個男人倒地身亡時，壁爐里的火光不斷在他的身旁跳動著。影片的所有內(nèi)景——-從一開始米爾德麗德敘述中的加州的西班牙式平房，到她最終落腳的令人壓抑的宏偉豪宅——都異常細(xì)致和富有表現(xiàn)力。柯蒂茲將每個場景的風(fēng)格及其對應(yīng)的情緒相匹配，從令人眼花繚亂的開場到米爾德麗德在郊區(qū)的日常生活。這位導(dǎo)演在1940年代的電影都非常精致，彌漫著一種隱約可見的氛圍——比如電影里的濕度或呼吸的韻律——這給明暗兩色賦予了音量。但柯蒂茲從來不會被風(fēng)格分心；作為一個講故事的導(dǎo)演，他的敘事力量來自于他對場景簡單、清晰的描述。《欲海情魔》的華麗感正是來自于其歌劇式的，對情感的過度表達(dá)——維達(dá)扇她母親的耳光的場景可能是最令人驚嘆的——但在電影里，最痛苦的場景反而安靜、無情、直截了當(dāng)?shù)?，比如米爾德麗德看著她的小女兒凱躺在床上逐漸死去。

Mildred Piercewas Crawford’s great comeback after a string of flops and a humiliating departure from MGM in 1943, and it led to a late-career peak at Warner Bros. Having struck black gold, she continued to mine it in a series of terrific noir melodramas, likeHumoresque(1946),Possessed, Daisy Kenyon(both 1947),Flamingo Road(1949, again with Curtiz),The Damned Don’t Cry(1950),Sudden Fear(1952), andAutumn Leaves(1956). In many of these films, she plays gritty, determined women who work—as a carnival dancer, a model, a magazine illustrator, a playwright, a typist—and for whom love and marriage, far from representing security, are violently destabilizing, leading to suicide, beatings, murder, madness. Challenging the false assumption that noir always takes the male point of view, these films find in women’s dilemmas the essence of noir’s you-can’t-win pessimism. Mildred gets everything a woman can have—marriage, children, a high-powered career, a passionate love affair, a fur coat—yet none of it brings her happiness. She wants only the one thing she lacks, her daughter’s love.

《欲海情魔》還是克勞馥在1943年經(jīng)歷了一系列失敗，恥辱地離開米高梅之后，偉大的復(fù)出之作，這也促成了她職業(yè)生涯后期，在華納電影公司的巔峰。在被這部電影鼓舞之后，她繼續(xù)在一系列極好的黑色情節(jié)劇中延續(xù)了自己的表演，比如《銀海香魂》（1946）、《作繭自縛》（1947）、《情迷意亂》（1947年）、《手足英雄》（這部電影同樣由柯蒂茲執(zhí)導(dǎo)， 1949年）、《虎穴幽蘭》（1950）、《驚懼驟起》（1952）以及《怨婦悲秋》（1956）。在許多這樣的電影中，她飾演堅(jiān)韌不拔、意志堅(jiān)定的女性——在其中狂歡節(jié)上的舞者、模特、雜志插圖畫家、劇作家和打字員等等——對她們來說，愛情和婚姻非但不能代表安全，反而極不穩(wěn)定，導(dǎo)致人物的自殺、毆打、謀殺和發(fā)狂。這些電影挑戰(zhàn)了黑色電影總是從男性角度出發(fā)的錯誤臆斷，在黑色電影「你贏不了」悲觀主義的本質(zhì)中，找到了女性的困境。米爾德麗德得到了女人能擁有的一切——婚姻、孩子、一份有地位的工作、一段充滿激情的戀情、一件毛皮大衣——但這些都沒有給她帶來幸福。她只想要她所缺少的一樣?xùn)|西：女兒的愛。

This is where film noir and melodrama converge: both are fueled by people wanting what they can’t have, and going too far trying to get it. With her talent for going too far, and for glamorously suffering the consequences, Joan Crawford was made for the noir melodrama. In a career marked by endless transformations and hard-fought comebacks, she also embodied the glamour of work: that hard work of being a woman that is never done.

這就是黑色電影和情節(jié)劇的結(jié)合：兩者在劇情上的推動，都是因?yàn)槿藗兿氆@得他們得不到的東西，并且為了得到它而鋌而走險。瓊·克勞馥憑借其過人的天賦和努力，是黑色情節(jié)劇的不二人選。在以沒有盡頭的改變以及艱難的復(fù)出為標(biāo)志的職業(yè)生涯中，她也體現(xiàn)了工作的魅力：那種作為一個女人永遠(yuǎn)無法完成的艱苦工作。