The complex film Mildred Pierce (1945) commented on the appropriate roles for women in the post-war era. As one of the top-grossing films of the 1940s, Mildred Pierce provided a dark composite view of post-war suburban America and suggested that society preferred women to stay in the home. Nevertheless the film offered strong female characters and reversed the gender roles of the typical film noir, ensnaring the lead female character in a series of inescapable calamities that have been provoked by the men in her life.

Based on James M. Cain's 1941 novel of the same name, Mildred Pierce has been compared to the Greek legend of Medea, the story of a woman who seeks to win the favor of her children but who destroys them in the process. Mildred Pierce tries to create a life for herself and her two daughters apart from her unfaithful husband. After...