Crawford won her long-coveted Oscar for what is perhaps her greatest performance, in a role she almost missed out on when it was first offered to her nemesis Bette Davis. While director Michael Curtiz famously complained about having Crawford foisted on him by the studio ("Why should I waste my time directing a has-been?"), the so-called "Box-Office Poison" is ideally cast as a character very much like herself: a hardscrabble worker who climbs the ladder of success through sheer will and determination.

Based on the James M. Cain novel, Mildred Pierce pits Crawford's eponymous homemaker turned hard-nosed entrepreneur against her own daughter, the vicious Veda (Ann Blyth), who repays her mother's lavish devotion and unstinting generosity by stealing the louche wastrel Mildred loves (Zachary Scott). Every trope of noir, from the flashback structure to the femme fatale, finds its essential expression in this cynical tale of obsession, betrayal, and revenge.

This free screening is exclusively for QFT Film Card holders.