History Literature / MommieDearest

In a nutshell, ''Mommie Dearest'' (1978) was a memoir written by Creator/ChristinaCrawford, depicting her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother, famed actress Creator/JoanCrawford. It led to the equally famous [[TheFilmOfTheBook Film of the Book]], which starred Creator/FayeDunaway in the role of Joan.

In a nutshell, ''Mommie Dearest'' (1978) was a memoir written by Creator/ChristinaCrawford, depicting her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother, famed actress Creator/JoanCrawford. It spawned the equally famous [[TheFilmOfTheBook Film of the Book]], with Creator/FayeDunaway in the role of Joan.

To put it more bluntly and in more detail, the book pretty much destroyed Crawford's reputation in the eyes of the public, as far as the book's revelations about her systematic abuse of her children, Christina in particular. The book's vivid recounting of Joan's psychotic behavior and abuse of her children polarized Hollywood into camps of those who confirmed Christina's story (or would at least acknowledge that signs of abuse were apparent but ignored) and those who decried the book as a revenge plot to ruin her mother's name after being disinherited and raise Christina's profile after her own failed attempts at an acting career.

The book can be seen as one of the first (and arguably most successful) of the genre of nasty tell-all biographies of stars, mostly from UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood, told by their children. The kids of Creator/MarleneDietrich, Creator/JudyGarland, Creator/HenryFonda, Loretta Young, Music/BingCrosby, Creator/BetteDavis, Creator/LanaTurner, and Creator/PeterSellers all tried to replicate its success with varying results (the Davis book flopped and was debunked, for example, but the books that Dietrich's and Crosby's respective broods wrote did quite well).

The 1981 [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation of the book]] was an even bigger debacle: Dunaway (who ironically had been praised by Crawford in print prior to her death and who even suggested that she should play her in the inevitable bio-film of Joan's life) was cast and Paramount mounted it as a serious bio-film. Sadly though, after numerous re-writes and a director (Frank Perry) who had a penchant for hammy melodramas, much of Joan's character development ended up missing, which turned her into a deranged cartoon character, and the abuse segments took on larger than life sadistic tones. By the end, even Christina Crawford (whose husband had a hand in producing the film) thought the film was too over-the-top and too focused on Joan at the expense of Christina's personal journey as a child abuse survivor. As such, Dunaway came off as a LargeHam--her acting career never really recovered--and the film picked up a huge word-of-mouth regarding it as [[SoBadItsGood an unintentional comedy]]. This forced the studio to {{retool}} the marketing to focus on the over-the-top abuse. Despite being savaged by critics and resulting in Golden Raspberry wins and nominations all around, the film was a success at the box office, grossing $39 million worldwide on a $10 million budget, and it also secured itself as a CultClassic.

* DemotedToExtra: Christina’s memoir was naturally written from her point-of-view and chronicles her journey as a domestic abuse survivor. The film adaptation focuses almost entirely on Joan Crawford and downgrades Christina to a supporting character in her own story.

* AdaptationalContextChange: In the book, Joan’s hacking down the rose garden was described a random event, part of Joan’s erratic night raids. In the film, she destroys the garden in response to being let go from MGM as a means of channeling her anger. Christina Crawford heavily disapproved of this change, feeling the cause and effect explanation was too simplistic.

* DenserAndWackier: The book is a self-portrait of a now grown woman remembering her adoptive mother and how she could be both loving and abusive at the same time. The film is much more melodramatic, focusing on Joan as a POV character and is full of over-the-top scenes such, as Joan chopping down an orange tree in the middle of the night or throwing a fit when she sees Christina hanging her clothes on wire hangers. Unsurprisingly, it gained a reputation as an unintentional comedy.

* AdaptationDistillation: The film condenses many of the characters and scenes from the book.

** Christina Crawford later said that the scenes of Joan chopping down a tree in her garden, and the infamous wire hangers scene were taken out of context and greatly exaggerated in the film.

* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed: While the character of Carol Ann is an amalgamation of several servants and assistants that worked for Joan throughout her lifetime, the majority of the character is influenced by Joan's longtime personal secretary, Betty Barker and Mamacita, a housekeeper she hired during the latter half of her life.

** For the sake of simplification, the film omits the fact that both Christina and Christopher were originally named Joan and Phillip, respectively, along with the fact that the ''original'' Christopher was reclaimed by his birth mother.

** The unfilmed scene showing the production of ''Ice Follies of 1939'' would’ve been an example of this had it been shot. As written, Joan injures her ankle during a skating sequence, but perseveres anyway, much to the crew’s admiration. In real life, Joan’s role in that film was a non-skating part.

* CompressedAdaptation: The wire hangers and bathroom floor meltdowns were two separate events in the book; the film merged them into a single night.

** Crossing with using CompositeCharacter on real people, Joan also had four husbands, though she was on her third by the time she became a mother. The movie combines the three first husbands with her attorney and on-again, off-again lover Greg Bautzer ([[AdaptationNameChange renamed]] 'Greg Savitt' in the film), though one scene has Joan mentioning that she suffered several miscarriages while trying to conceive with a former partner, something that actually happened to Crawford with her second husband Franchot Tone.

* BlandNameProduct: A unique example regarding Joan's acting career. Since Paramount owned the rights to very few of her films,[[note]]In fact, Paramount had been the ''only'' studio Joan had never made a film for[[/note]] most of Joan's work is left intentionally vague.

* CompositeCharacter: In the film, Greg is a combination of the various husbands and lovers Joan had, while the housekeeper and Carol Ann are meant to represent several employees in Joan's house.

** Joan’s mother, Anna Cassin, and brother, Hal [=LeSueur=], do not appear and are never mentioned.

* AdaptedOut: No mention of Christina and Christopher's other siblings in the film version.

In a nutshell, ''Mommie Dearest'' (1978) was a memoir written by Christina Crawford, depicting her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother, famed actress Creator/JoanCrawford. It spawned the equally famous [[TheFilmOfTheBook Film of the Book]], with Creator/FayeDunaway in the role of Joan.

* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: In the film, Crawford's son Christopher is frequently seen strapped to his bed, but the moviegoing audience never gets any explanation why he is subjected to this treatment, thus causing a lot of confusion. Only those who've read the book would know [[spoiler:Joan strapped Christopher down to his bed to prevent him from [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbating]].]]

* FosteringForProfit: Christina claims that this was Joan's intention, and her film counterpart [[CallingTheOldManOut chews]] Joan's film counterpart out for it.