Today at the Oxygen Channel at 6:00 pm, Mommie Dearest is on.

hahahahahahaha!

This just cracks me up when we have a forum of people who take a moment out of their busy lives to notify us that Mommie Dearest is on.

It truly is hilarious and heartwarming at the same time. I know that sounds odd, but it's true!

Thanks!

I love Crawford (now), but doesn't Oxygen cut its films? I only watch Joan or classics, uncut. Even though Mommie Dearest is Dunaway, I still want to see it uncut.

Click to view attachment

'Yes, LA . . . they think they're very clever. They think they can cut Mommie Dearest, and get away with it. Welllllll . . . think again . . . those who love this movie, will order it uncut, from amazon.com!'

NO WIRE HANGERS !!!!!!

Yeah. It is a bit of a letdown to hear La Dunaway shriek, "Don't MESS with me, fellas!"

And for some reason, OXYGEN cuts out that line when Christina discovers Joan drunk on the divan: "You're a poor excuse, for somebody who REALLY cares!"

And in the soap opera TV studios: "Raise those G--- D--- cue cards!"



(-:

Click to view attachment

LOL, rasputin!! LOLOL!! I'm not sure we even see Christina Darling's panties, during the 'freak out,' scene . . .

'I'm ashamed to be your mother!!'

Every time my kids have seen this movie (and I used to own it, so they have seen it quite a few times,) it sure casts me a very positive light...I suddenly look real good to them !!

Eeeeeep!!!... The queen of ice water enemas has always given me the major creeps, I can't watch it.

I prefer the book to the film. I did stop using wire hangers, though, because I never knew they ruined clothes. Still buy the padded ones till this day.

nubka . . . I'd like to talk to you . . . IN THE OTHER, ROOM!

The reason that poor Joan freaked out over the wire hangers is because she had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - see, when she was young and had nothing, she had to sleep in the back room of a drycleaning store on a cot next to all the wire hangers - maybe she breathed in too many dry cleaning chemical fumes ... Seeing the wire hangers in poor Christina's closet triggered a flashback for poor Joan. Ten minutes till showtime!!! Is it at 6 EST?

I bought some castor oil just for the occasion - I am oiling my brows while watching Faye/Joan LOL

Now this is weird-- i just noticed that, in the OXYGEN version of MD, not only are there excised scenes and lines-- but there are some added, never before seen and heard moments not featured in the original. I'm not joking.

In the "Bring me the axe" scene, Faye mutters several lines not heard in the original version of this film... There are some slightly different Mancini music cues throughout, too...

Obviously this is the "airplane", PG version of this film that had been cobbled together back in 1981.

Have you ever seen Ingmar Bergman's AUTUMN SONATA with Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann, circa 1977? I believe it was Ingrid's very last film, and it's a must-see. It's actually similar to this film in a number of ways, albeit in a more cerebral, European way: it's the story of a glamorous jetsetting pianist (Bergman) who alights home briefly for the birthday of her daughter (Ullmann), a mousy, bespectacled creature who has always lived in the shadow of her larger-than-life celebrity mother. The mother plays piano monstrously well... the daughter plods ahead on the instrument uninspiredly. The mother is possessed of a glamorous, narcissistic bravado; the daughter is a near-vacuum of aching self-loathing. The mother swills booze and chuffs cigarettes; the daughter is a Swedish ascetic. Gradually, during the course of the film, the usually wallflower-ish Liv Ullmann opens up against her mother with years and years of stored-up resentments, hurts, recriminations. The mother is largely taken aback by this, unaware that these repressed feelings were there...

I think Isabella Rossellini later said that this film was a disturbingly "close-to-the-bone" portrayal of her own relationship with her mother.

What is terribly sad about AUTUMN SONATA, is that nobody's really at fault, not really. Both mother and daughter are simply being true to themselves, living their own lives according to personal dictates and temperament. And yet their fates have been brusquely thrown together.... Leo Tolstoy once said: "The best stories are not Right versus Wrong; rather they are about Right versus Right."

Dunaway said that MOMMIE DEAREST was a classic tale depicting the perennial "differences between a child of privelege and a child of want."

rasputin, that is WILD, about Mommie!! I tried to watch this film, on the 'O' channel . . . it had been re-furbished, I think . . . brilliant colors and glitter . . . but the excision of scenes, and language . . . threw me off balance. More than usual, I mean . . .

About Autumn Sonata . . . I saw it ages, ago . . . another film with a similar plot and theme, is THE HEIRESS, with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift. OUTSTANDING film adaptation of the play called, WASHINGTON SQUARE. Ralph Richardson is superb, as the hyper-critical 'Daddy Dearest,' who can barely stand the sight of his wimpy daughter. In the end, of course . . . Olivia loses her wimpiness . . . and lives up to the film's title.

So I've been massaging my eyebrows all evening with castor oil - so when do they start growing??? I suspect that the increase in my new thyroid medication may be the most helpful element in getting those eyebrows thick and healthy-looking again. I just read about a bunch of women using men's Rogaine on a cotton swab for eyebrow (not eyelash, too dangerous) regrowth. It seems to be the best method as long as one is very careful during the application.

You haven't lived 'til you've watched the flick with Hedda Lettuce running commentary...especially calling the fight scene. Bring a change of panties, you'll need it.

You know...even I wanted to smack that evil seed Christina...when she refused to eat the raw meat.
That sulky look...


That little actress who played her...had a weird, axe murderer look in her eyes.

ugh - if half of those scenes are true, that poor child should have been taken out of that house immediately - those night-time wake up scenes were CRINGE-worthy.

I swear there is a scene in Mommie Dearest where Joan Crawford and a man are having a drink in her home. The scene includes a shot of the bar in this room. On the bar is a spray bottle of Fantastic cleanser. Fantastic back in the 50's??? A movie blooper me thinks.

Click to view attachmentCorrect, about the blooper . . . I've spotted a couple of others . . . can't remember them, right now.

Demetrue, my sister and I lived with exactly such behavior, all throughout our childhood. My father was disturbed, no question about it. When I read Mommie Dearest, much of it, rang very true . . . and was very familiar.

I don't mean for this to come across as uncaring or as if I am making light of the abuse that may have taken place in Crawford's home, but when I was watching the movie...I actually thought that kind of abuse would have been a walk-in-the-park...compared to some of the things that happened in my home. ;-/

What strikes me about Mommie Dearest, is that in Joan Crawford and Christina Crawford's life, you just know that people around the situation had to know that something was amiss. The housekeeper, her boyfriends, the adoption agencies, if they had bothered to check, the schoolmistress from Chadwick- surely all of them had to know something wasn't right there, but she was Joan Crawford- were they going to say anything? No. It got swept under the rug. I don't think Joan had the temperament to really love children or care for them in the way they should have been loved and cared for. It's no wonder, considering the horrible childhood (if you could call it that) and traumatic adolescence and early adulthood she had, herself. She probably wanted to enrich her life in some way...but best laid plans, as they say, often go awry.

Now we live in era where celebrities' every move is scrutinized...from the position of their car seats and high chairs, to where they have their babies, and how they get married or divorced, etc. etc. I don't think we really have made that much progress, sadly.

Well armanis, I didn't want to say anything, but there are several scenes where FD as JC rang very true and familiar to me as well ...

{{{{Catie}}}} I am so sorry to hear that! No child on earth should have to suffer like that.

LA . . . I hate to say this, but I've often wondered WHO really IS, suitable, to become a parent?! Just because someone gets married and has sex, that means he or she is qualified, to be a good parent?? Must have been the way things were meant to be, but gosh . . . my father was the LAST person, who should have embarked on a 'family,' so young in life . . . particularly since his own childhood was dysfunctional, to say the LEAST. His mother was bedridden for thirty years, with depression, and died at age 59: a skeletal 60 pounds. There's that adage: 'I want to give my children everything, I didn't have . . . ' Well, okay, but I just KNEW, that no matter how hard I tried NOT to be like my father, or perhaps BECAUSE I'd be trying so hard NOT to be like my father, that I would end up BEING EXACTLY, the way he was, vis a vis the head of a family. My sister too, felt that she had internalized way too much from our deplorable childhood, to embark on motherhood . . . so, both of us, have stayed together and taken care of ourselves.

Meanwhile, our father lives on and on, and our money goes and goes . . . so that he can be kept comfortable, and safe.

Armanis - you and your sister have broken the cycle.

[quote name='Armanis' date='Jun 16 2006, 08:31 AM' post='114232']
LA . . . I hate to say this, but I've often wondered WHO really IS, suitable, to become a parent?!

How very true. You have to have a license to hunt or fish, tags to prove that your pets have been vaccinated, take a test to prove that you are competent to drive a vehicle, but almost everyone can have a baby and "be" a parent...scary thought!

Thanks, Dem . . . that's exactly how we feel about it.

nubka, even with DOLLS to help, I couldn't have made it, as a father . . . no way.

Demetrue...you are right. No child should have to suffer, period.
I don't know what got into me to post so personally on this thread, and I certainly wasn't trying to make light of any abuse those children may have endured in Crawford's home.

My father was part of a cycle of abuse.
Fortunately, for my sanity, I realized that he had been horribly abused, himself, and forgiving him came like a miracle, swifly...and overnight, really...after leaving all of my hurt and anger in God's Hands.
My father did try to change in his last years, and that was also not lost on me...despite his lapses, and when he did lapse...I saw that it was in times when he was in completely despair and horrid pain...and I was the only scapegoat he could find, after years of releasing his anguish in that manner...
Oh, it's rather complex to explain...
I think that the nature of our relationship is one of the reasons I am finding it EXTREMELY hard to cope with his death.
Of course, it was just not quite six months ago, and I'm still in deep grief...but, the way I have been dealing with the grief is way atypical for me...and profound.
I know he loved me.
He didn't know how to deal with the scars a childhood of pain left him with...and he wasn't a bad person or an evil person. Just a very scarred, very scared human being.
Once I was old enough to grasp the whole vicious cycle of abuse, I vowed that I would break it. And I think I was quite successful in meeting that goal, but it wasn't always so easy.
I'm sure my son would be glad to illuminate some of the ways I messed up ... in some of the more extreme parental situations I encountered, but on the whole...he had a warm, peaceful, contented childhood...and he KNEW he was loved.
In fact, he was one of the main reasons my father was able to attain a measure of peace. He could do no wrong in my father's eyes...and the two of them had a bond that was pure and lovely to behold...and before my father would have ever hurt that child, in any manner, he would have cut off his own hands.
So...I think the cycle was broken, and for that, my prayers were answered.
Oh, I've rambled here...but...abuse, in any form...is so darned complex an issue...
Ack.

Thanks for responding to my post, Demetrue.
Children really are at the mercy of the sins of more than just the parents...in the long haul.
And...again...you are right. No child should have to suffer like that.

Yes, the issue is very complex. I think that if there was some sort of love, coming from somewhere, whether from a grandparent, a kind teacher or even from the abusive parent, then that love can be the light in the darkness that gets you through it. That's one of the reasons I teach very young children, so that no matter what else they encounter in life, there will be a memory implanted in their psyche that someone treated them with love, kindness, gentleness and respect.

My mother loved me, and my sister. But, she witnessed the abuse that our father hurled in our direction. Over, and over, and over, and over again. To be very frank, Mother did little that we know of, to ease our burden. She was a very bright, educated woman. I think Mother knew that she had married a man with big problems, but she did not believe in divorce. So, she tried simply to keep things moving somehow; trust me, this was not easy. Especially since K. and I were very bright children, and had formed opinions about our Father that remained fixed, irrespective of our Mother's endless attempts, to promote him in our eyes. I believe that the situation between my sister, my father and me, took ten years off my mother's life. The tension, hurt, confusion and futility that she must have dealt with, all during her married existence, had to be crushing. There were times, when I'd hear her crying in her bedroom, but Mother never wanted me to intervene. She never asked for my sister, either . . . Mother just tried to deal with things in her own way, and by herself.

Things REALLY spiraled downward, when my sister and I got old enough to hurt, back. We were brighter than our father, and had now a salvo of ammunition, whenever we wanted to use it. The cutting remarks, double edged comments, snide asides, and sarcasm got so fine tuned, that even our hard boiled relatives, couldn't endure it. We stayed pretty much to ourselves, for a number of horrible years. When our mother succumbed, at age 69 . . . Daddy collapsed, almost at once. This did not surprise my sister, or me. Mother had coddled him and 'carried' him, for 47 years. He didn't want to face life, without her.

I am four years old, in that picture. By this time, I had been screamed at daily, in Greek and English, had been cursed at and told to 'go to the devil,' and worse . . . in Greek and English,' had been blamed for things no four year old even could have begun to comprehend, and was beginning to withdraw into myself. My sister and my maternal grandmother, came to the rescue.

{{{{ AW ARMANIS, Darling Mou}}}} Big Hugs from Down South!!

Thank you, sweetie . . . mou. As you wrote earlier: K. and I, have broken the cycle.

Is that why you have been thinking about your mother lately? You admit that your mom tried really really hard to convince you and your sister that your father was really not a bad person. You must realize the pain she was going through. Could you imagine the guilt and pain she was carrying. It was hard for her. To be a good mother and a good wife to an abusive husband.

The reason why he was abusive is that how he was raised when he was a child. He thought that was the correct way of raising children. It's true, no child should hear vulgar words from their parents. He's angry and decided the best way to toss out his anger is at the kids. It made him feel superior and thought that was the way of getting respect from the children.

You said that he had a dysfuntional upbringing. His mom was bedridden and he had no mother raising him. Now, he had a family of his own, I guess he just felt lost, no guidance. I guess it brought up bad memories seeing you as a child and remembering his childhood how lost he was and guilt that he can't raise you properly. Maybe the cussing wasn't really directly at you.

I'm sorry if I crossed the line. I know it is not my place to butt in. I'm not a therapist. I'm sorry.

Oh, not at all!! I wouldn't be posting about this, if I didn't want to share my story with POL. Believe me, I've heard EVERY possible explanation . . . including that my father 'lacked the capacity,' to be any other way. Perhaps that's true . . . but, that didn't make his behavior or abuse, any easier to absorb to to combat. My sister and I, have been marked forever. Both of us stayed to ourselves, fearing a similar situation would evolve, lest we even think to become parents. Maybe it was meant for K. and me, to break the cycle, as Demitrue, said.

As for my father . . . he costs thousands and thousands of dollars every month, to be cared for, and kept safe. Yes . . . my mother's life was destroyed, as well. Imagine what it was like to have two intelligent children, who detested their father.

Armanis, your father did lack the capacity. He was terribly scarred by what was happening to his mother. Seeing her destroying herself and not being there to help him grow. Every child needs a mother and father to balance the upbringing. Remember, your father was and still is hurting.

I'm so sorry that you had to deal with this. Did you seek help at all? You could pm me if want discuss it in private.

Oh, sure . . . but 'help,' only goes so far. The expense, both emotional, and now financial, involved in dealing with this man . . . is staggering.

(((((Mietros))))) Big hugs from Staten Island, darling.

Thanks, besotted . . . truly, I don't post about this, to get sympathy. I do it, so that those who haven't endured abuse from a parent, or parents, can understand that dysfunctional childrearing marks a person, forever. My sister and I have been dealing with our father, since the day we were born; his abuse went FAR beyond cursing!! And we continue to do so, because he cannot care for himself, and is too far gone to live with us, even with round the clock, care. My father will be 80, in August. He has been 'out of commission,' since the age of 73.

Expense, anguish, and a constant preoccupation about his 'status,' is what occupies us . . . aside, from our work. That's one reason why I love, POL . . . it's cheap entertainment!

Really, it's only been in the last 20--30 years that the subject of child abuse (physical, psychological, sexual, emotional... yes, all four are distinct, discrete or overlapping, legitimate types of interpersonal abuse) has been "discussable" as a topic. Say what you will about the whole "tell-all" ethos of OPRAH, SALLY JESSYE RAPHAEL, JERRY SPRINGER, et.al., arising in the mid-1980's, but it has had some beneficial side-effects in American society, opening up many closets that needed cleaning out.

The Crawford story in the film is believable to me because, for one thing, the REDBOOK reporter "Barbara Bennett" (Jocelyn Brando) surely had her bread buttered by the whole Hollywood machine, and was not about to bite the hand that was feeding her. I think, in those days, press agents dispersed some faux "disinformation factoids" as supposed juicy magazine gossip for the public to leer and salivate over, but some of the REAL skeletons the stars had in their closets never came to light until well after their deaths...

Click to view attachmentYes, rasputin . . . and Joan Crawford, wielded POWER!! She had only to raise her voice, and get her way. Remember too, that J.Edgar Hoover, tore up the arrest warrant Crawford received, after being picked up for prostitution . . . legend has it that Crawford outfitted Hoover's alter ego, who was named Mary . . . she wore lots of Crawford's old hats, and stoles . . .

Armanis, I've thought long and hard about your question, and no, I don't know what would make someone "qualified" to be a parent. I'm pondering this decision in my own life, so I have no answers. Surely it is not a simple matter of having adequate biology, but so many people do not take that into consideration.
The only point I was trying to make with Crawford, is that in an adoption scenario, one would hope that the authorities would be more involved and make more of an effort to make sure that adopted children were placed into proper homes.
A star's home, does not mean a proper one. Now- and then.

I'm sorry for what you have been though-Armanis, and Catie. I'm fortunate to not have that kind of life experience. All I can do is send you good vibes from my computer and wishes for healing in your lives.

This is truly one of the funnist things I have ever seen! Rock on, Armanis - I love the pics that accompany your posts. You are certainly a survivor and with a wicked sense of humor!

Thanks, LA . . . I enjoy interacting with you, on this subject . . . my father was working on his PHD, when he first showed signs of strain. His book learning didn't mean a DARNED thing, when it came to knowing how to raise children.

ellen . . . all we can do sometimes, is to laugh . . . that's how I've gotten through my tough times . . . so glad you enjoy my 'talking pictures.'

What ellennyc said.

I was watching Mommie Dearest the other night, and felt such a kinship with you, Armanis, during the great boardroom scene. I will never be able to watch that movie (or any JC movie, come to think of it) without thinking of you with affection and admiration.

Thanks, bookworm . . . you're very sweet.