Mildred Pierce is the story of a determined and ambitious woman who, after her feckless husband abandons her, by hard work and sacrifice builds a successful business to ensure the future of her pampered and selfish daughter. But she isn't prepared for the intrigues and devastating betrayals of those closest to her. This is James M. Cain's most substantial novel and a classic of the Depression years.

John Howard Sharp is an opera singer down on his luck, having just bombed in Rigoletto in Mexico City, when he meets the beautiful Mexican-Indian prostitute called Juana. She offers him the chance to rebuild his career in Hollywood and New York, but then conductor Winston Hawes comes back into his life.