“Mildred Pierce” is not a comedy.

It’s the middle of the night again, but I’ll bet you’re used to this by now, right? It’s 4:25 a.m. and I just slept through a couple of excellent movies Mildred Pierce (1945) starring Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth and Teacher’s Pet (1958) starring Doris Day, Clark Gable and Gig Young. To those of you who are unfamiliar with either or both of these films I will offer a brief synopsis for you here. We’ll begin with Mildred Pierce, the soap opera that rocketed Joan Crawford to her only Oscar.

When middle-class Mildred gets dumped by her first husband, the lovely Bruce Bennett, she winds up raising her two daughters on her own, a cute little sprite named Kay who dies from pneumonia 15 minutes into the film and Veda (Ann Blyth), an ungrateful, miserable bitch. Nobody likes Veda except Mildred. Mildred is a total sucker.

So Mildred decides she has to find a way to make a lot of money to keep Veda happy and opens a chain of restaurants that turns out to be (for the most part) Kentucky Fried Chicken with homemade pies. She makes a fortune, buys a mansion and marries a repulsive gigolo named Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) who eventually has an affair with Veda, and when they get caught Veda murders him and hopes Mildred will take the blame because Mildred is still a sucker and Veda is still an ungrateful, miserable bitch. A video clip appears below for your possible interest.

Others in the cast include: Eve Arden as Ida Corwin, Mildred’s wise-cracking restaurant manager; Jack Carson is Wally Fay, her ex-husband’s former business partner who’s also a sex-starved octopus whenever he’s in the same room with Mildred; Lee Patrick as Mrs. Biederhof; and Butterfly McQueen as Lottie the maid. No, this is NOT a comedy.

And now for a quick look at Teacher’s Pet. WHAT AN ADORABLE MOVIE, PEOPLE! You get Clark Gable as Jim Gannon, the city editor of a major newspaper who learned journalism “the hard way” (with no education) and thinks college is for losers. Doris Day is Erica Stone, a journalism instructor at a local university who gets sucked into a a letter-writing feud with Gannon on the merits of a formal education, and as a prank Gannon finally decides to enroll in her class and act like a jerk. Trouble is, he falls for her and can’t figure out how to end the charade. Gig Young is on hand as a psychology professor and a friend of Doris’s who’s collaborating on a book with her.

This is a sparkling romantic comedy with a cute plot and a great script, and it’s really too bad Doris Day and Clark Gable only had one chance to work together because I think they had perfect chemistry. Come to think of it, Doris Day had perfect chemistry with ALL of her leading men. She’s fun to watch on screen and the Howdygram recommends this movie. Thank you.

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I got an AMAZING BARGAIN yesterday. I discovered a website called Pricefalls.com with short-term discounts on all kinds of fine shit ... including (in my case) glucose meter test strips for my new Easy Touch HealthPro. I bought four containers of 50 test strips for only $6.59 each, which is 30% off the regular price on other websites. In case you care, for the last several years I’d been spending up to $40 for the same quantity of test strips by a different manufacturer, which means Easy Touch HealthPro is so damn cheap I might have a nervous breakdown. If you have diabetes and test your blood glucose multiple times a day YOU NEED THIS METER AND YOU NEED IT NOW.

It’s almost 5:45 a.m. so I think I might treat myself to a nice shower and then try to get two or three hours of sleep. Try to keep the noise down, okay?