"Mommie Dearest" seldom gets the hugs it deserves for being a great film and too often it suffers the wrath of cineastes who flog it -- with figurative wire hangers, yes -- as a freakish embarrassment of Hollywood.

"Mommie Dearest" not only suffered the outrage of "winning" five Razzies in 1983, including worst picture and actress (Faye Dunaway), but later was voted the worst picture of its decade. Five years after that, it was nominated as the Razzies' "worst drama of our first 25 years," but, luckily, it lost to John Travolta's "Battlefield Earth." Whew! Finally, something in the celluloid universe to thank Travolta for!

Sunday morning, the outrages suffered by "Mommie Dearest" came up in idle conversation between Village Voice wag Michael Musto and me as we lounged around the MSNBC green room in New York in between periodic TV segments on various showbiz topics. I told Michael how passionately I cheer his recent blog item about the 10 performances that should've been nominated for an Oscar.

No. 1 on his list: Faye in "Mommie!" Hooray! I also told Michael how I took lots of lumps while defending her performance earlier this year when I did a video chat with my pal, Razzies chief John Wilson (watch HERE).

"People forget that Faye Dunaway came in second place in the vote for best actress at the New York Film Critics Circle that year!" Michael harrumphed as we dished on Sunday.

Bravo! I was very impressed that he knew that. I've carried on (and on) about that here at Gold Derby in the past, of course (remember, she lost by an edge as thin as a wire hanger -- 34 points to 36 -- to Glenda Jackson in "Stevie"), but I didn't realize that trivia was widely familiar to other Oscar nuts like Michael. My book "Movie Awards" published the first historic record of ballot scores at past voting sessions of the NYFCC, so I'm always startled when my research is quoted back to me.

What I didn't know about Dunaway's "Mommie" role — and I was fascinated to hear the story from Michael — is that the firebrand diva is ashamed of it today. I knew she was upset about how that pic was originally marketed to theaters. (She once, famously, fumed, "It was meant to be a window into a tortured soul, but it was made into camp!") But I didn't realize something that Michael pointed out in a blog post earlier this month: Journalists nowadays are forbidden even to mention "Mommie Dearest" in her presence.

Michael thinks that is a bit, ahem, over the top, even for Faye. He tells me, "After I first saw 'Mommie Dearest' at a screening, I immediately called all my friends and told them they had to run to see it. I didn't even view it as camp. I felt it was a strong film that works on many levels -- biopic, cautionary tale, fashion show, and maybe even Sci Fi! Faye is brilliant as Joan, and though I'm sure it was painful to her that they marketed the film as camp and that it became a chance for people to mockingly chant 'No wire hangers,' I still feel she should embrace it the way Patty Duke finally made peace with 'Valley of the Dolls.' Whether Faye agrees with me that 'Mommie Dearest' is a terrific piece of work, it's certainly provided pleasure for millions of people -- even some straight people. Be proud, Faye!"

Another Oscars nut, John Waters, agrees with Michael and me. He says in a scene of commentary in the DVD add-on to "Mommie Dearest," "I don't think this is a campy movie. I don't think it's so bad it's good. I think it's so good it's perfect." What do you think?

Photo: Paramount