Mommie Dearest (film)

Mommie Dearest is a 1981 American biographical drama film about Joan Crawford and the abusive relationship she had with her adopted daughter Christina Crawford and her adopted son Christopher, starring Faye Dunaway, Mara Hobel and Diana Scarwid. The film was directed by Frank Perry. The story was adapted for the screen by Robert Getchell, Tracy Hotchner, Frank Perry, and Frank Yablans, based on the 1978 autobiography of the same name by Christina Crawford. The executive producers were Christinas husband, David Koontz, and Terrence ONeill, Dunaways thenboyfriend and soontobe husband. The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures, the only one of the Bigfilm studios for which Crawford had never appeared in a feature film.

Joan Crawford Faye Dunaway is a driven actress and compulsively clean housekeeper who tries to control the lives of those around her as tightly as she controls herself. To prepare for a work day at MGM Studios, she rises at 400 a.m. and engages in a strict morning ritual scrubbing her face and arms with soap and boiling hot water, then plunging her face into a bowl of rubbing alcohol and ice to close the pores. When Helga Alice Nunn, a new maid, thinks she has Joans living room in spotless condition, Joan finds one minor detail that she overlooked and loses her temper.Joan is in a relationship with Hollywood lawyer Gregg Savitt Steve Forrest, but her career is in a bit of a downswing. Despite desperately wanting a baby, she is unable to get pregnant seven pregnancies when she was married to actor Franchot Tone have all ended in miscarriages. When she is denied an application for adoption, she enlists Greggs help to secure a baby. Joan adopts a girl whom she names Christina Mara Hobel, and later a boy, Christopher Jeremy Scott Reinholt. Joan sometimes lavishes Christina with attention and luxuries such as an extravagant birthday party, but also enforces a very stern code of denial and discipline. When Christina is showered with gifts, Joan allows her to choose only one she likes best that she can keep, then donates the rest to charity. ........

Source: Wikipedia