MILDRED PIERCE, directed by Michael Curtiz, written by Ranald MacDougall, 115 minutes, not rated. Free, tonight only, Pickering Square, Bangor.

Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress, Michael Curtiz’s 1945 noir classic, “Mildred Pierce,” features a great, Oscar-winning comeback by its star, Joan Crawford, who was fired by MGM and voted box-office poison before filming began.

Not willing to take that pill lying down, Crawford, ever the workhorse, pulled herself together, signed with Warner Bros., and set out to prove the world wrong. She did, too, heaving and sighing her way through one of the finest performances of her career.

Based on a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, the film is smart and brisk, just soapy enough to be as tragic as it is fun. It’s the third movie in the River City Cinema Society’s popular Noir Beneath the Stars series, which had a huge turnout last week for “The Thin Man,” with hundreds filling the square to capacity.

“Mildred Pierce” should enjoy the same turnout. It’s one of the best movies made by Crawford, who is perhaps better known by contemporary audiences for her daughter’s corrosive biography, “Mommie

Dearest,” and the subsequent film based on it, than for her 50-year career in Hollywood.

Considering some of the entertaining movies Crawford has made, from “The Women,” “Humoresque” and “Sudden Fear” to “Female on the Beach,” “Johnny Guitar” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” that’s especially unfortunate, but such is the power of a disgruntled daughter with an ax to grind and a public hungry for scandal.

Structured like “Citizen Cain,” with plot elements reminiscent of the maternal self-sacrifice of “Imitation of Life” and “Stella Dallas,” “Mildred Pierce” finds Crawford giving one of her signature, blighted-by-love performances as Mildred, a tough soul saddled with a rotten, money-hungry daughter, Veda (Ann Blyth); a bum ex-husband, Bert (Bruce Bennett); and Monte (Zachary Scott), the debonair playboy with whom she falls in love.

Determined to give the hateful Veda the best that money can buy, Mildred scratches and claws her way to the top of the eatery business. She does so with the help of Wally Fay (Jack Carson), a realtor who wants to get Mildred into bed, and the pluckish Ida (Eve Arden), who teaches Mildred the business of shucking food.

When Mildred hits it big with her popular chain of restaurants, murder strikes and darkens her high, with Monte gunned down in a hail of bullets and Mildred standing tall over the hotplate as the chief suspect. Did she do it? And if so, why? In high style, Curtiz (“Casablanca”) serves up the mystery, with Max Steiner’s busy, masculine score promising great things – and delivering.

Based on James M. Cain’s potboiler, the film is pure chicken-fried gravy, a polished, well-acted melodrama peppered with enough tough-as-nails dialogue to seal a coffin. Even its advertising campaign was a hoot, boasting that Crawford had 14 apron and 21 house dress changes – “a new kind of record for one of the screen’s most glamorous personalities!” Indeed.

It’s tough to live up to that kind of hype, but “Mildred Pierce” follows through with aplomb.

Grade: A

On video and DVD

STARSKY & HUTCH, directed by Todd Phillips, written by Phillips, William Blinn, Stevie Long, John O’Brien and Scot Armstrong, 97 minutes, rated PG-13.

The boring Todd Phillips movie, “Starsky & Hutch,” is based on the spry 1975-79 cop series starring Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul. Here’s a tip: If you’re old enough to remember the series and were a fan of it, savor those memories. If you never saw the show and have any interest in seeing it now, catch the series on DVD.

But by all means, skip the movie.

Allegedly, this redux is a comedy, though audiences will be hard-pressed to find many laughs. The film is lame and uninspired, for sure, but not only because of its story, which finds the two bumbling detectives tracking a drug lord (Vince Vaughn) with the help of Starsky’s famed Grand Torino. Another reason it bombs is because its stars – Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch – aren’t playing Starsky and Hutch so much as they’re playing themselves playing Starsky and Hutch.

With their wigs and their hip period drag, they may look the part – sort of – but each has delivered these performances so many times before in better movies, even they seem bored by their own worn-out shtick. Stealing the movie from them is rap star Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear and Carmen Electra as a menage-a-trois tramp. This isn’t something to be proud of, folks.

Comedy is difficult. Good comedies are rare. “Starsky & Hutch” has three noteworthy moments, one that involves a horse mistakenly shot dead at a Bat Mitzvah. The scene works because it has an element of surprise – especially for the horse.

What don’t work are the film’s broader pieces, such as when our crime-fighters appear as mimes to entertain a crowd of stupefied party-goers. Though it obviously wasn’t Phillips’ intent, the children in that crowd were just as silent as the packed screening I attended when the film first premiered last spring.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 Bangor and WCSH 6 Portland, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Against the Ropes ? D

Agent Cody Banks 2 ? D

Along Came Polly ? D

Bad Santa ? B+

The Barbarian Invasions ? A

Barbershop 2: Back in Business ? B+

Big Fish ? B

The Big Sleep (1944) ? A

The Butterfly Effect ? F

Calendar Girls ? B+

Cold Mountain ? B

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights ? D

Dirty Pretty Things ? A-

50 First Dates ? C+

Fog of War ? A

Ghosts of the Abyss ? C+

The Haunted Mansion ? C

House of Sand and Fog ? B+

The Human Stain ? D

In America ? A-

The Last Samurai ? C

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ? A-

Lost in Translation ? A

The Magdalene Sisters ? A-

Miracle ? B+

Monsier Ibrahim ? B+

Monster ? A

Osama ? A-

Peter Pan ? B+

Secret Window ? C

Something’s Gotta Give ? A-

Starsky & Hutch ? D

The Station Agent ? B+

Swimming Pool ? B+

Sylvia ? B-

The Thin Man ? A

The Triplets of Belleville ? A

Torque ? D

21 Grams ? A