Melodrama is in view in 'Mildred Pierce'

Melodrama is a loaded word, conjuring silent-film villains tying pigtailed girls to railroad tracks. Or black-and-white "weepies" whose music crescendoes as Bette Davis or Greta Garbo face The Worst with tear-jerking nobility. Break out the handkerchiefs. Bring on the Oscars.

It worked for Joan Crawford in 1945, when Hollywood's pre-eminent diva finally received her Academy Award, as best actress for the sob stuff of "Mildred Pierce": Divorced mother works as a waitress to support her arrogant daughter, who rewards mother's eventual rags-to-riches business success by bedding her rake of a lover. Did we mention the climactic murder?

Even today, melodrama works for Kate Winslet as HBO premieres its own distinctive, very adult take on "Mildred Pierce" Sunday night at 9. This time, the story deepens to miniseries length, presented in five segments of about an hour each (two Sunday 9-11:05 p.m., one April 3 at 9-10:15 p.m., the final two April 10 from 9 to 11:30 p.m.).

And the plot plumbs closer to its roots, the novel by James M. Cain -- whose steamy '40s noirs "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice" were also adapted by Hollywood.

"We're not making a remake of the Joan Crawford performance," stresses this version's executive producer, Christine Vachon, working again with longtime friend and acclaimed independent director Todd Haynes ("Far From Heaven"). "We went back to the original material," Vachon says, "which, in fact, is very, very different from the film."

"I know a lot of people will hate me for saying this," warns co-star Guy Pearce (King Edward VIII in "The King's Speech"), who plays Mildred's rich-cad lover, Monty. "I understand the movie may be considered quite a classic, but it's cheesy and corny," Pearce says in a most polite Australian accent by phone from his home in Melbourne. "It skips over a lot of the beautiful detail that's in the book. All the details of the relationships between the characters seem so soapish because they're glossed over so quickly."

The movie's murder mystery? Gone. First-person flashback narration? Nope. Hollywood additions not necessary, says New York-based producer Vachon ("Boys Don't Cry"). "It kind of came organically to TV. Todd read the book and decided he wanted to make a miniseries. He hadn't been able to explore a character as much as he wanted to, and we can really explore these characters over the course of five and a half hours."

SEE PHOTOSKate Winslet

Not to mention the American culture that defines them and delineates their actions. As quietly yet gutsily embodied by Oscar winner Winslet ("The Reader"), Mildred Pierce is as much a modern woman as a Depression-era construct. Forced in a dire economy to support her family, she shoe-leathers her way up from diner waitress to restaurant owner to chain entrepreneur. Her character is further fueled by her personal life, as sensuous bed partner (and sugar mama) to Pearce's society playboy Monty and as indulgent, mystified mother to her as-if-to-the-manor-born daughter Veda (played by Morgan Turner as a tween, then by "True Blood's" Evan Rachel Wood).

Its intimate tapestry also delves at miniseries length into Mildred's stolid ex-husband (Brian F. O'Byrne), his canny former business partner and Mildred's sometime lover/backer (James LeGros), Mildred's confidants from the neighborhood and workplace (Melissa Leo, Mare Winningham), and other personalities vividly spread across the social and physical landscape of 1930s Southern California.

Which is, strangely enough, played mostly by Long Island. For protagonist Winslet, "Mildred Pierce" was an 85-day commitment, says producer Vachon, "and she wanted to be in New York, where she lives and where her kids are." Besides which, says production designer and city native Mark Friedberg ("Far From Heaven"), "There are also economic advantages to doing work in New York, given you have a very inviting tax credit."

If Hollywood's '40s "Mildred Pierce" was a stark film noir built on three-hankie sentiment, HBO's "Mildred Pierce" scripted by director Haynes and friend Jon Raymond offers a modern reflection through a cultural kaleidoscope -- juicy melodrama, character portrait, historical narrative, social study, psychological thriller.

The class-riven tugs-of-war between quiet workhorse Mildred and entitled nightmare-spawn Veda play against Mildred's vexing relationship with old-money Monty. "That money grows on trees makes as much sense to him as other people's religious beliefs," Pearce says. "So it's a strange and oddly horrendous coincidence that occurs when Mildred's daughter feels of wealthier stock than she's actually from."

Those upscale/downscale assumptions permeate these characters in ways that "the American dream" is supposed to vanquish. Yet here we are, 70 years later, finding more resonance in "Mildred Pierce" than even its contemporaries.

Shooting in LI, looking like L.A.

BY DIANE WERTS, Special to Newsday

From "NYPD Blue" to "Seinfeld," most TV shows set in New York actually seem to shoot in Los Angeles.

Now, HBO's "Mildred Pierce" pulls a reverse. Set in 1930s Los Angeles, its five hours were filmed largely around Long Island and in upstate Peekskill.

Production designer Mark Friedberg calls Long Island "an amazing part of the world." Which is saying something for a man who's circled the globe creating on-screen exotica from India (director Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited") to Hawaii (Julie Taymor's "The Tempest") to retro-Technicolor '50s New Jersey ("Far From Heaven," also directed by Todd Haynes).

Friedberg was born in New York but maintains his working residence/art studio in East Hampton ("I'm a Long Island person for sure"), where he created the distinctively East End palette of "Pollock."

With "Mildred Pierce" set in the palm-lined landscape of '30s Southern California, "we knew we'd have to bring in foliage to acknowledge the world of Los Angeles," Friedberg says, calling from the Long Island City set of his upcoming feature film "New Year's Eve."

Other elements weren't a stretch. Glendale, where Mil- dred lives in a then-new subdivision, "was a growing suburb at the same time Long Island suburbs were growing, by and large by the same people."

Here's where Friedberg "cheated" L.A. on L.I.:

Merrick creates the sense of place for Mildred's Glendale neighborhood: "One of our location scouts, John Spady, brought me to The Gables area built in the early 1930s. It was built uniformly with Spanish homes and had maintained the look of itself. Ironically, it was more intact than any few blocks found in L.A."

Glen Cove's Woolworth Mansion let the film "go Gatsby" in portraying the Pasadena orange-grove wealth of Mildred's romantic fling, Monty (Guy Pearce): "We were worried it would be too extreme, but it was spectacular."

Point Lookout provided the exterior of Mildred's first Glendale eatery, Huntington's north shore her Laguna seaside restaurant, and Caumsett State Park the locale for her wholesale food excursions.