The Silver Screen Oasis

I didn't know what category to put this in.

While I was putting together Angela Lansbury's profile for 'In the Spotlight' I was reminded of her outstanding role as probably one of the worst mothers in movie history as Mrs. Iselin in "The Manchurian Candidate".

What other 'bad mommy' roles are you reminded of?


Question for debate: Was Rosalind Russell as Mama Rose in "Gypsy" a bad mother?

Yes, Roz was definitely a 'bad mommie' in Gypsy.

Another was Shelley Winters in A Patch of Blue.

Anne

Hi,

I agree with you on Shelley Winters but I think Roz was trying to live her life & dream through her girls and was also trying to escape from her "humdrum life" in smalltown America.
She was over demonstative and just couldn't see that Louise & June weren't that interested in the same dream, but she really wasn't 'bad'....
She ended up alone which is sad more than bad, I think.....

Larry

Hi again,

I forgot to nominate my choice(s):

Piper Laurie in "Carrie" was a religious harbanger and nutcase.

Mrs. Bates (Norman's mother) although only seen as a corpse in "Psycho"..

Larry

Wellll . .
It's still about 13 years shy of being a "classic" by most standards, but -
How 'bout Diane Ladd in David Lynch's Wild At Heart(1990)?
Ah, mais oui: maternal evil as relentlessly simmering venom, and unnerving schemes of brutality.

Makes my skin jump to remember the seething ferocity of her face.
Hey, any extra points for the screen daughter being portrayed by the real-life daughter?!

Good topic Mongo.

Kim Stanley playing Jessica Lange's (Frances Farmer) mum in the 1982 biographic film "Frances" was an absolutely cruel and despicable mother, if I ever saw one. I remember hating her character for a long time. I must say though, that I've read other accounts of Ms. Farmer's life in which the facts are quite different from those portrayed in the film and that apparently her mother wasn't the monster showed in the film.

Barbara O'Neil is another selfish, self-centered, bad mother in "All This and Heaven Too". She gave a great unsympathetic portrayal as the Duchesse de Praslin.

Concerning Rosalind Russell's charcater in "Gypsy!", IMO she played a typically selfish stage-mother who wants to fulfill her "stardom" dreams through her daughters (with a kind of similar personality than that of Betty Grable's mum, as she is described in Spero Pastos' biograpphy of the actress), but I feel she wasn't really such a bad mother as the previously described.

The Neva Patterson character in "David and Lisa"

Larry beat me to the first one that came to my mind: Piper Laurie as Carrie's fanatical mother. So I'll have to go with Gladys Cooper's Mrs. Henry Windle Vale, the mother of Charlotte Vale in Now Voyager. Controlling and domineering, but some lovely ivory boxes came out of it.

I would have to cast a vote for the "all time enabler", Mildred Pierce

Jo Van Fleet, "Kate" in East of Eden.

(She also played an evil step-sister in the Lesley Ann Warren R & H musical Cinderella, and another "Kate" in Gunfight at the OK Corral. )

That is an impressive group of bad mommies listed thus far, especially Shelley Winters.
Might I add Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate", and Mary Tyler Moore in "Ordinary People".

I too believe that Mama Rose wasn't a bad mother to her daughters. I expect that she meant well, not realizing that her dream wasn't theirs.

Say, Mongo, I was just thinkin' (dangerous, I know, but I so dig livin' on the edge!) . . .
Shelley W. might just have an even greater distinction in this category than we had, til now, realized . .
Besides playing that female-dog-on-wheels from A Patch of Blue, didn't she also portray real-life-but-grossly-exaggerated female gangster "Ma" Barker, in Bloody Mama?
Course you could argue that her character went out of her way to be doting & indulgent to her four miscreant sons, but undeniably she also goaded them into becoming drug-addicted, homicidal bank robbers, kidnappers and rapists!
And for that matter, how good a protector/nurturer was she in her role in Night of the Hunter? A lonely, insecure, droozy young widow, to be sure, but certainly she should have had at least a qualm or two about placing her two frightened, nervous little children entirely under the the thunderous authority of her brand new, religious-fanatic husband!

Nope, I think you best sign-up for Dr. Phil's Maternal Responsibility Seminar, Ms. Winters, toute suite!

What about Bette Davis! Even when she played a mother who really loved her child, she was an alcoholic street peddler("Pocketful Of Miracles.")
I loved her in "Of Human Bondage" and, especially, "The Anniversary."
I recently found a used VHS copy of "Sophie's Choice" (in a thrift store-for a dollar!) It was the first time I've watched it since it's theatrical release. I had forgot about the "choice" she was "forced" to make in regards to her two children...

Sophie's Choice: Good 'Bad Mommies' point, benhowell!