Summer re-views: Bette's Charlotte Vale

Its on television now, as I write - on the BBC: the 1942 NOW VOYAGER - its so seldom the BBC show a 1940s classic now, that its almost one' duty to watch it, despite having the dvd. Its still a timeless classic and one of Bette's key roles. Here's what I said about it, in a gay context, a mere 6 years ago: 

"I am not one to read gay subtext into movies [well apart from in BEN HUR], but a fascinating piece I read the other day made me stop and think and look at NOW VOYAGER in a new light. Rupert Smith, author of MAN'S WORLD - the best new novel I have read in years [still available at all good bookshops, folks] - writing in ATTITUDE magazine has this to say about it, in a feature on the nature of camp:

"NOW VOYAGER, a 1942 melodrama starring Bette Davis as a downtrodden, mentally unbalanced spinster who has a nervous breakdown, has a dramatic makeover and embarks on an affair with a married man. The movie and the book on which it was based were aimed squarely at women. All the characters and all their relationships are resolutely heterosexual. And yet for all that NOW VOYAGER is textbook camp because it mirrors so precisely - and perhaps so unconsciously - the gay experience.

Ugly, unloved Charlotte with her thick eyebrows and dowdy clothes is like a gay man in his larval stage, stuck in the family, driven crazy by frustration. She then emerges from her chrysalis with fabulous clothes, great hair and plucked eyebrows. She falls in love with an unavailable man and settles, at the end, for whatever scraps of affection she can get, with that famous last line: "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon; we have the stars". For gay men watching Bette Davis in the '40s - and there were plenty - it was like autobiography, in drag."

Rupert gets it exactly right. Poor frustrated Charlotte is left to look after and put up with her domineering mother, the other family members treat her like a doormat, she is made fun of by visiting relations. Even her mother (Gladys Cooper, excellent as ever) does not love her and bullies her - so of course, after the intervention of psychiatrist Claude Rains, she cannot accept the new svelte, confident Charlotte who returns after being the the most popular woman on the cruise (and what a camp fantasy that is...). What though is the nature of those unsuitable materials which mother found when moving Charlotte's items to a new bedroom she has designated for her? Charlotte however triumphs, with wonderful bon mots along the way: "Dora, I suspect you are a treasure" to the nurse Mary Wilkes; and "let's not linger over it" when breaking off her engagement to the very solid beau that mother approves of, but whom she does not love. She will be happy with those stolen hours with married man Jerry, and looking after his unhappy daughter.

Directed by gay Irving Rapper its certainly a timeless favourite, as good as my other two favourite Bette's: THE GREAT LIE (where we have nice Bette with superbitch Mary Astor) and OLD ACQUAINTANCE with Bette at her most brittle with that fabulous apartment (with devoted housekeeper) in wartime New York, and her on-going rivalry with flouncy Miriam Hopkins. Noble Bette sends away Miriam's husband - the man she loves - and then has a silver streak in her hair for the later third act."

Its another Warner Bros classic of course, with Bette in some marvellous Orry-Kelly creations, Music by Max Steiner, Claude Rains watchable as ever, and directed by gay Irving Rapper. Bliss, utter bliss. 

4 British classics ....

As mentioned we moved house back in May, downsizing to an apartment 10 floors up, with great views. So we have been re-sorting and getting settled ok. A box of dvds though seems to have gone astray, maybe thrown out by mistake ..... I have had to re-buy several I had to have, but at least they are very cheap now. 

There were 4 essential British classics I had to have back:

THE BLUE LAMP - the 1949 thriller with a young Dirk Bogarde in his break-out role as the spiv with a gun in grim postwar London - its still terrific now, with great location filming. This is the one where PC Dixon of Dock Green (Jack Warner) gets shot by Dirk, but was later resurrected for that long-running TV series, which I remember seeing when new in London in the '60s.

POOL OF LONDON - a museum piece from 1951 showing the busy docks of London around London Bridge and surrounding bombsites after the war - its all different now of course with the new City Hall by London Bridge, ships can't moor there any more. A sterling British cast of the time headed by Bonar Colleano and Earl Cameron  as sailors on leave getting involved with crime and robbery, and there's that early inter-racial romance ....

SAPPHIRE - a fascinating re-view now from 1959, with the murder of that girl whose body is found on Hampstead Heath, as we follow detectives Nigel Patrick and Michael Craig as they discover that the girl, Sapphire, was passing for white - we follow the investigation through the London night clubs and to that ordindary suburban family. Yvonne Mitchell is marvellous as ever here. Those gals passing for white just can't resist those bongo drums, as detective Michael Craig realises in that seedy Notting Hill clip-joint ....

VICTIM - London in 1961 with those homosexuals being blackmailed, as we see all sections of society from titled toffs to grubby bedsits, taking in the famous Salisbury (gay then) pub, and the bookshops around Charing Cross Road, as barrister Melville Farr (Bogarde again) determines to find the blackmailers who have caused the death of the young man (Peter McEnery) he had been seeing, to the consteration of his wife Sylvia Syms, who does not understand ....

It was only after ordering them I realised all four are of course directed by Basil Dearden (killed in a car crash in 1971 aged 60) - one of the great directors of British films, but not as lauded as the Schlesingers, Loseys or Richardsons were. 

Other British classics of that post-war era, which I like a lot, and are reviewed here, at British/London  labels include IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY, HOLIDAY CAMP (both 1947), and  DANCE HALL from 1950. The early '50s also provided those enjoyable entertainments like TURN THE KEY SOFTLY, THE WEAK AND THE WICKED, THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, IT STARTED IN PARADISE (with Kay Kendall in a small role before hits like SIMON AND LAURA). Then there's those enjoyable Rank romps like AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, THE SPANISH GARDENER, CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM, DANGEROUS EXILE, PASSPORT TO SHAME and more, keeping the likes of Dirk Bogarde, Glynis Johns, Joan Collns, Yvonne Mitchell, Stanley Baker Michael Craig, Laurence Harvey, Diana Dors, Belinda Lee busy ...
So British cinema in the 1950s was very productive too, the Forties may have been the golden era of David Lean, Michael Powell, Carol Reed, Anthony Asquith, and the Sixties to early Seventies saw the new crowd of Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey, Richard Lester, Clive Donner etc. before the Trash merchants took over. 
The Fifties also saw that British War Era as they re-fought World War II keeping Dirk in uniform, along with Richard Todd, Kenneth More, John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Peter Finch, Stanley Baker, Michael Redgrave etc: THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, THE CRUEL SEA, SEA OF SAND, DUNKIRK, THE DAM BUSTERS, REACH FOR THE SKY, THE MALTA STORY, APPOINTMENT IN LONDON, THEY WHO DARE, ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT, BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE, YANGSTE INCIDENT etc. 

Deborah's Sister Clodagh and Sister Angela

Two of our enduring favourites were screened again recently, and despite having them on disk I had to tune in once again. We simply love Deborah Kerr's two nuns:  the superior Sister Clodagh in Michael Powell's masterwork BLACK NARCISSUS from 1947, when Deborah was all of 26 and in charge of those nuns in that convent in the high Himalyas - as per my other posts of it, so I won't repeat myself, see Narcissus label.

A decade later in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR ALLISON in 1957 she is that much simpler Irish nun Sister Angela alone on that pacific island (it was filmed in Tobago).... as this blurb states:  As World War II rages, tough marine Robert Mitchum is stranded on a desert island with nun Deborah Kerr. Cracking romantic chemistry in this ace John Huston adventure. Screenplay by John Lee Mahin the veteran who scripted that chemistry in 1932's RED DUST and and its 50s remake MOGAMBO as well as the fun western NORTH TO ALASKA (his last credit is a Jean Seberg movie I love MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1965. 

We have written about this before, here - see Kerr, Powell labels - it remains a deeply affecting movie, among Huston's best, I certainly prefer it to his similar AFRICAN QUEEN. MR ALLISON actually has a lot of affinities with Mitchum's RIVER OF NO RETURN in 1954 - people in the wilderness having to survive while surrounded by hostile enemies, and there's the similar scene where there Mitch has to warm up numb Marilyn Monroe, and here the wet sister Angela; they catch and cook a moose in RIVER, its that unfortunate basking turtle in MR ALLISON .... 

Deborh's nuns are as iconic as her governesses (THE KING AND I, THE INNOCENTS) and she worked with Huston several times, also in the silly 60s spoof CASINO ROYALE in 1967 and to great effect in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA in 1964. She and Mitchum had great chemistry together, as also in THE GRASS IS GREENER in 1960 and perfectly in Zinnemann's THE SUNDOWNERS which should have bagged her the 1960 Best Actress Oscar, in fact, as I mentioned before, I would have made it a tie with her and her friend Jean Simmons (not even nominated for ELMER GANTRY where her co-stars Burt and Shirley Jones got their awards) - Liz could still have (deservedly) won in 1966.  It would have been culmination of Deborah's and Jean's great decade, the two British roses who went to Hollywood and were very big stars indeed in the 1950s and early '60s. But it was not to be .... Deb's nuns though remain an evergreen treat. She also teamed with Mitchum again later in that 80s telefilm about an army reunion. of course had great chemistry with frequent co-stars Cary, Burt, Niven, Brynner,  More on her at Kerr label. 

Bette Davis classics: Old Acquaintance, 1943

Do camp classics get any camper than OLD ACQUAINTANCE? Do ‘Bette Davis Classics’ get any Bette-ier than OLD ACQUAINTANCE? Probably NOW  VOYAGER or THE GREAT LIE … or JEZEBEL or THE LETTER for dramatics – but however you view it OLD ACQUAINTANCE is sheer perfection, turned out in 1943 during WWII, with the men away at war, it remains the perfect “woman’s picture”. Here is my previous review:

Bette is brittle and amusing in Vincent Sherman's OLD ACQUAINTANCE (1943) from John Van Druten's play. I love that '40s ambience of the New York literary high life, Bette's apartment, her devoted housekeeper, her sending away the man she loves as "a woman just does not do that and live with herself" if she took her best friend's husband - and the older Bette with that streak in her hair, rescuing Deirdre from that lothario's apartment, and that young Gig Young (with his little moustache) whom she turns over to Deirdre (Dolores Moran), nobly giving up a man she loves a second time .... its all just too too.

Jealous of best friend Kit, a critically acclaimed but financially unsuccessful author and playwright, Millie writes a novel, the first in a string of bestselling trashy novels. After eight years of neglect and taking a backseat to Millie's fame, her husband Preston leaves her. Another decade passes and Kit announces her intention of marrying the decade-younger Rudd. Millie thinks Preston wishes to reconcile, only to discover he is engaged. He also admits that he was in love with Kit, who had turned down his many advances. Feeling Kit to blame for the failure of her marriage, Millie flies into a rage and confronts Kit. Later, learning of Rudd's affection for Millie's daughter Diedre, Kit graciously steps aside to bless their union. In the end, Millie and Kit make up, sharing a champagne toast for each one's old acquaintance.

Bette's rival here of course is Miriam Hopkins (her THE OLD MAID co-star) flouncing around as the trashy novelist whereas Bette's Kit Marlowe is the intellectual one while Miriam turns out one bestseller after another. That New York during wartime in the early '40s is nicely depicted too. And there is of course the famous scene where Bette finally has enough of Miriam's histrionics and returns to the room, puts down her package and advances on Miriam to give her a good shaking. Finally the two women toast each other with that flat champagne .... the women and the gays must have loved it at the time, and ever since.  

PS: It was good to acquire this TCM Classics pack (Region 1) of 4 Bette titles, one of their many 4-packs - I have the individual films which I can now pass on, as the one pack frees up more space, the disks have the extra features too which were on the individually packed films 

Bette goes beyond the forest ...

Is BEYOND THE FOREST a camp stinker, a Trash Classic or an undervalued late Forties melodrama proving Bette Davis with one of her great roles, in her last film at Warner Bros? Its hard to decide....

Rosa Moline is bored with life in a small town. She loves Chicago industrialist Neil Latimer who has a hunting lodge nearby. Rosa squeezes her husband's patients to pay their bills so she can visit Chicago; her husband's patience is also tried: he tells her to go and never come back. Once there, Neil tells her he doesn't want her. Back home and pregnant, Neil shows up and now wants her. The caretaker at Neil's lodge threatens to reveal her pregnancy... 

Legend has it that Bette at 40 was all washed up in the late '40s, her Warner Bros contract was running out, her films were under-performing ... King Vidor's meller certainly finished her off in style.

Bette plays Rosa Moline, a small town strumpet ("a 12 o'clock girl in a 9 o'clock town") who wants more than her hick doctor hubby can provide. Sporting a Dracula-like black wig and pounds of lipstick, quivering with impatience at being stuck in a coal-mining town as the wife of a dull doctor, she's Madame Bovary in a major key, spitting out her lines with gusto (yes,"What a dump" as spoofed by Elizabeth Taylor, below) as everyone else cowers around her. Our other favourite Ruth Roman barely gets a look in ...

Bette's explosive performance is among the best of her career (and that's saying something!). Her character has to be among the most evil in 1940s movies. What is remarkable is that Bette compels us to care about and, even root for this greedy and self centered woman. 

As the opening title, in keeping with Forties morality, puts it:

This is the story of evil. Evil is headstrong - is puffed up. For our souls sake, it is salutory for us to view it in all it's ugly nakedness once in a while. Thus may we know how those who deliver themselves over to it end up like the scorpion, in a mad frenzy stinging themselves to eternal death. 

Bette seems to have a whale of a time sashaying around, snarling at everyone, including her saintly doctor husband Joseph Cotten. What though does the visiting millionaire see in her? Surely there are more attractive and younger cuties around? As my very-knowing friend melvelvit puts it: "How could a past-her-prime, dimestore siren like that keep Joseph Cotten and David Brian in such thrall? Why, sex of course. Rosa no doubt did things in bed they couldn't get enough of ... , its the most extreme portrayal of a malignant bitch of the forties."

Bette was in luck though, as ALL ABOUT EVE fell into her lap next year, giving her perhaps her most iconic role, and she continued throughout the Fifties in lesser roles (THE STAR, THE VIRGIN QUEEN, THE CATERED AFFAIR) ending the '50s doing two cameos in 1959: coming on as Catherine The Great for the last five minutes of the otherwise dull JOHN PAUL JONES, and a few scenes with Alec Guinness in THE SCAPEGOAT; (Joan was also cameo-ing that year, "as Amanda Farrow" in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, a Fox Trash Classic) - they both rose again in 1962 .... BEYOND THE FOREST though remains a Trash Classic.

Joan Fontaine on stardom ...

Joan Fontaine's 1978 autobiography NO BED OF ROSES, which I have just rescued from a box filed away in the garage, is a fascinating re-read now. Written by Joan herself it captures her style perfectly, one can almost picture her raised eyebrow as she casts a cool eye over her life and career, plus the story of the "feuding sisters" - her and sister Olivia De Havilland - and the ups and downs of her career and personal life. Here is a taste: a few paragraphs on stardom in the 1940s: 

In the Forties, no chic woman appeared on the street in New York without hat or gloves. We wore real silk stockings, high heels, occasionally a bunch of violets or a fresh camellia on the lapel. On a warm day a scarf of mink or sable was carelessly thrown about a pearl-necklaced throat. Diamonds were only worn at night. At the theatre, hats or velvet ribbons, flowers or feathers were quite appropriate, while I cannot remember anyone not dressing for a performance at the Metropolitan Opera.

 During the Forties, I flew to New York on business. Often I took the train. It was a luxury to board the Super Chief at Los Angeles or Pasadena, knowing that for the next three days I would be rid of outside pressures, of interviews and telephone calls from producers and agents, of the petty problems presented by the morning mail, of the never-ending details of running a house.

In the days of transcontinental train service, smiling porters were as solicitous as mothers. They guarded one’s privacy, acted as alarm clocks upon request, conjured up icy-cold martinis. …. As the long black train snaked eastward over the Rockies, fresh Colorado trout would be boarded, then crip Utah celery, grouse and pheasant from the western plains. The uniformed dining-car steward would tip you off in advance, stowing away the best of the delicacies , so he implied, until you appeared in the dining car. Here silver cutlery danced on starched white linen tablecloths. Wineglasses tinkled against the silver as you looked out the steamy window.  Lights from towns flashed by during the meal, then suddenly darkness until moonlight revealed a snow-capped mountain or shining desert floor.

Often friends would be discovered. This meant cocktail visits in staterooms perhaps ten cars away; then a return visit with all the guests to your stateroom seemed essential. After idle days of reading, writing letters, playing cards, or simply staring out the windows, arrival suddenly became exciting.

In New York during those years I usually stopped at the Hampshire House on Central Park South or at the St. Regis at Fifty-Fifth and Fifth Avenue. Upon my arrival I would find the suite massed with fruit and flowers, a chilled bottle of champagne, courtesy of the management. Bouquets of long-stemmed roses and colourful floral arrangements bore cards from the studio currently employing me, from my agents, from fans. Friends would have left messages and invitations, publicists their long schedules of interviews, autograph seekers crowded outside on the pavement. A studio limousine waited on the street to whisk me to appointments.

Joan (1917-2013) lived to be 96 - Olivia is 99 now and will surely make 100 this summer. Joan is a favourite of ours here at The Projector, in fact one could say Fontaine is our favourite Joan. I like this posed still from ISLAND IN THE SUN, 1957 where Joan has a chaste romance with Harry Belafonte and looks great in those '50s outfits (plus gloves of course). She and Belefonte don't actually touch in the film (off set it was the other Joan in the film - Collins - who had a fling with Harry...); Fontaine though got a lot of hate mail after the film, as she says "it was too soon to tackle the race question with honesty". 

Joan was wonderful of course in THE WOMEN and Hitch's REBECCA (she won the Best Actress Oscar for his SUSPICION in 1942), I also like FRENCHMAN'S CREEK and of course Ophuls ' LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN. She is disparaging about a lot of her other films, including those Fifties ones like IVANHOE, ISLAND IN THE SUN, UNTIL THEY SAIL, and a Bob Hope comedy (CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT in '54 which I liked a lot as a kid) and that Mario Lanza extravaganza SERENADE in 1956 where she is perfectly divine as society rich dame and superbitch Kendall Hale (a gay man in the Cornell Woolrich novel) who drives her pickups mad before she discards them - its one of our favourite Trash Classics here. Reviews on this and more at Joan label, including her last film, the hilarious horror THE WITCHES in 1966.

She also did TEA AND SYMPATHY on stage, with Tony Perkins - thats a version I would like to have seen, replacing Deborah Kerr in the original stage production directed by Kazan (Ingrid Bergman played it in Paris), As Joan relates in the book, Kerr later replaced her in real life, as Joan had been dating writer Peter Viertel in the late '50s and was considering him as her next husband and she flew to Vienna (where he was working on Litvak's THE JOURNEY) to surprise him, but it was Joan who got the surprise, as Viertel and the film's star Deborah Kerr had discovered each other, which led to their long marriage.

Still Notorious after all these years ...

NOTORIOUS, Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 classic, does not look or feel like it is 70 years old.

This is surely the high-point of Hitch's 1940s output. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are both are their zenith, and Claude Rains is again superalative too, and lets not forget Madam Konstantin as his creepy mother, and Louis Calhern splendid as usual. 

This is a twisted romance with a vengance as Ingrid's Alicia Hubermann joins spies in Rio to spy on those Nazis - what is in those bottles in the wine cellear. Alicia is set up to meet a former friend of her father's who was smitten with her and still is now. They meet, with the connivance of agent Cary Grant who loves Alicia but does not trust or love her enough to keep her from marrying Rains, to enable her to spy on him and his colleagues ..... the moment Rains discovers the truth and goes to his mother to help him is marvellous cinema as is the moment when Alicia realises she is being poisoned by them. Cary thinks she is drunk when she is unwell at their last meeting - before, finally, he goes to the house to rescue her, leaving Claude and his mother at the mercy of those Germans ..... Its a simple plot but marvellously executed, script by Ben Hecht, like that great zoom shot of the camera on a boom descending to the close-up of the key in Alicia's fist. I like that balcony scene too and the great long kissing sequence between the lovers, and their early meeting when Grant first meets Alicia who is drinking heavily, before she redeems herself for her father's crimes, by flying down to Rio with those American agents ..... We almost sympathise with the villain who it seems loves Alicia more than Grant does. 

Its a certified Hitchcock classic and the best of his 3 with Bergman in the 1940s. SPELLBOUND has its moments but is not quite as good, and I am one of the few who quite like a lot of UNDER CAPRICORN in 1949, not least for Jack Cardiff's photography, and I now like the 1950 STAGE FRIGHT a lot, even if minor Hitchcock - great cast of British players and Marlene plus that fake flashback ... before his great run of 1950s movies. 

Bette, dressed by Orry

Bette Davis's 3 films with William Wyler are undoubted classics (JEZEBEL, THE LETTER, THE LITTLE FOXES) where she was dressed by Orry-Kelly (see post below), but perhaps NOW VOYAGER in 1942 is her most perfect role (along with DARK VICTORY) where her repressed mother-dominated frumpy spinster Charlotte Vale is transformed into a soigne, sleek woman of the world due to Claude Rains psychiatrist ..... Bette is helped immeasurably here by Orry-Kelly again who designed a perfect wardrobe for her .... looking at the film again the clothes seem not to have dated at all.  (See Bette-1 label for feature I did on this 5 years ago..) 

As Bette herself said in a 1965 "Films and Filming" interview: "I was terribly fortunate only in one thing that in my personal taste I never was one to go in for the “present style” in clothes. I wear basically the same kind of clothes today on the screen and off as when I played a modern part back then. That is really what has hit many of the films, when a woman wore all the mad clothes and they really are ridiculous. It’s because I always basically wore what we call classic clothes today - all the wardrobe for DARK VICTORY you could wear today, with the possible exception of an inch or two in the skirt. I never wore padded shoulders and I very seldom wore hats and I never had crazy hairdos. And that really is what hurt the old films the most.”
I particularly like Bette's THE GREAT LIE (with Mary Astor) and OLD ACQUAINTANCE (with Miriam Hopkins) as my favourite '40s movies of hers - and its another look at her two sisters in the 1946 A STOLEN LIFE (with Glenn Ford - see below) coming up soon.  

Fabiola, 1949

Sticking with vintage epics & peplums (see the 1925 BEN-HUR below), the 1949 Italian FABIOLA may well be the first of those costumers that became so popular in the 1950s and early 60s. It is a gleaming black and white production, directed by Alessandro Blasetti, starring the French husband and wife team of Henri Vidal and Michele Morgan. He is the gladiator ambitious to get ahead, and she is Fabiola, popular with the people - the daughter of a senator who is murdered early on. The film does start to drag half way, with too much dialogue, but once we get to the gladiators and the arena with those wild animals on the loose, it certainly livens up.

In ancient Rome a love story blossoms between Fabiola, daughter of a senator, and Rhual, a gallic gladiator. When Fabiola's father is killed, the Romans blame the Christians and the persecution begins. Rhual confesses to be a christian and is accused of the murder and sentenced to fight to death in the arena.

Morgan (now in her 90s) is an alluring presence, but the hunky Vidal (more on him at label) died young - aged 40 in 1959. The large cast also includes Michel Simon, Franco Interlenghi , Rina Morelli, Paola Stoppa and Massimo Girotti as the martyr St Sebastian. Its certainly worth a look if your taste runs to sword-and-sandal stuff set in ancient Rome with Christians in peril and Roman mobs lusting for their gruesome entertainments. Its almost as much fun as QUO VADIS,

Another Bette double ...

We have spent a few lazy afternoons re-watching some Bette Davis classics. Is there a more weirdly enjoyable '40s melodrama than THE GREAT LIE?  which teamed with Wyler's THE LETTER made a marvellous double-bill. Of course NOW VOYAGER and OLD ACQUAINTANCE are delicious fun too, and may be the next double bill. (You can keep MR SKEFFINGTON). 

Bette worked well with a strong female co-star (Miriam Hopkins, Olivia, Joan Crawford, Geraldine Fitzgerald) and so it is with Mary Astor here. THE GREAT LIE is really Mary's film, the role of concert pianist Sandra Kovac was built up for her and she deservedly won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, in that good year for her. (By 1944 she was playing the mother in MEET ME IN ST LOUIS). Sandra is one of the great bitch-on-wheels roles and Astor delivers in spades - she was re-united with Bette for that cameo in HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE as Jewel Mayhew in 1965, where she is sadly aged - but she ramps up the glamour here as her impossible Sandra.

THE GREAT LIE is plush - Orry-Kelly did the costumes, Max Steiner the music and gay Edmund Goulding directs. This is one of the great smoking films - they smoke all the time, Sandra even smokes non-stop throughout her pregnancy.  Bette is nice Maggie who lives in Maryland - but her home seems like a Deep South plantation with all those trees and moss, where the white folk are ministered to by the happy singing coloured folk, led by Hattie McDaniel (outdoing her Mammy in GWTW!). Here, one dresses for dinner and rings for the black manservant to make some more mint juleps. 

Sandra and Pete elope but their marriage is invalid since she's not yet divorced. Sandra is, however, pregnant by Pete. Pete marries his former fiancée Maggie, then flies to South America where his plane crashes. Maggie pays Sandra to let her adopt Pete's baby. Pete returns "from the dead". Sandra and Maggie contend for Pete and the baby.

It begins with the aftermath of Sandra's marriage to Pete (George Brent - what did women see in him?), as they recover from a 3-day party, but Sandra got her dates wrong, her divorce from her first husband is not yet final, so they are not legally married. She has her concert tour and will not change the date for them to marry again and Pete is having doubts ..... he goes off to Maryland to see Maggie, the woman he really loves. Maggie wants him to pursue his aviation interests and soon they are indeed married for real. The on-going rivalry between Sandra and Maggie escalates and then Sandra finds she is pregnant with Pete's child, just as Pete goes missing on some mysterious government work, in Brazil.  

Maggie comes up with the idea of she taking Sandra's child which she can bring up as Pete's, so he could have Pete's name and money, while Sandra can continue her music career. Sandra agrees - she is not the maternal type - and the centre of the film shows the two of them holed up in Arizona waiting for the birth, as Sandra fumes and smokes, and Maggie strides around in jodhpurs waiting for the delivery .... 

then Pete is rescued and comes back, and thinks the child is his and Maggie's.  Sandra then decides she wants the baby back and Pete too, as his being alive changes everything. The scene is set for the climax as the two women battle over the child and Pete, who finally learns the truth - which will he choose? 

THE LETTER by comparison is serious drama, previously done by Jeanne Eagles in 1929 and I like Lee Remick' 1982 version where Leslie Crosbie is a right tease. Bette's version is much more duplicitous as she schemes to evade justice for shooting her lover, but this being the 1940s justice is waiting for her in that garden in the moonlight.   

The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense. Her poise, graciousness and stoicism impress nearly everyone who meets her. Her husband is certainly without doubt; so is the district officer; while her lawyer's doubts may be a natural skepticism. But this is Singapore and the resentful natives will have no compunction about undermining this accused murderess. A letter in her hand turns up and may prove her undoing. 
Maugham's version of life in those steamy tropics still engrosses now. It may be Bette's defining role, along with Margo Channing of course  Those 'Bette Davis eyes' are dominant here, 
Soon: A Claudette Colbert double\; MIDNIGHT and THE PALM BEACH STORY.

A new top 100 movies ! (1)

I am compiling, in odd moments,  a new top 100 favourite films - not 'best' films, but films I love and can re-see any time, 100 "essential favourites" then ? It will be more than 100 - 150 maybe, as I have already used up 50 for the 1930s and 1940s .... The list covers from the 1930s to the 1980s - I will have to do a separate one for from the 1990s to now !  So here are my 20 from the 1930s and 30 from the 1940s:

1930s: I have to have 2 Garbos, 2 Dietrich/Von Sternbergs, Hawks, Mae West, Bette, Erroll, Fred & Ginger, Cary, Katharine, Loretta, Irene Dunne, Margaret Sullavan, some Pre-Codes, and some screwball ...

KING KONG / MATA HARI / THE SCARLET EMPRESS / BLOND VENUS / GOLD-DIGGERS OF 1933 / THE GAY DIVORCEE / BRINGING UP BABY / THE AWFUL TRUTH / ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS / I'M NO ANGEL / SYLVIA SCARLETT / MIDNIGHT MARY / LADIES IN LOVE / CAPTAIN BLOOD / SHOWBOAT / SWINGTIME / THE MORTAL STORM / 
JEZEBEL / MARIE ANTOINETTE / THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD / THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH & ESSEX / NINOTCHKA / THE WOMEN. (ok, thats 22).

1940s: including 13 British classics (6 David Leans!) and some noir dames:

CITIZEN KANE / REBECCA / THE SEA HAWK / SON OF FURY / CASABLANCA / TO BE OR NOT TO BE  / TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT / MEET ME IN ST LOUIS / NOTORIOUS / NOW VOYAGER / THE GREAT LIE / OLD ACQUAINTANCE / TWO FACED WOMAN / DOUBLE INDEMNITY / LAURA / GILDA / MILDRED PIERCE / IN WHICH WE SERVE / THIS HAPPY BREED / BRIEF ENCOUNTER / GREAT EXPECTATIONS / OLIVER TWIST / THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS / I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING / BLACK NARCISSUS / A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH / THE RED SHOES / THE WAY TO THE STARS / ODD MAN OUT / WHISKEY GALORE / DESERT FURY / ROADHOUSE / THE HEIRESS / ADAM'S RIB / A LETTER TO 3 WIVES. 

Next: the 1950s and 1960s, then the 1970s and 1980s. 

My very favourite film

Take the usual ingredients: a wilful heroine, an unconventional leading man, supporting characters we like and want to see more of, mix in the mystical highlands of Scotland, add in some Scottish castles, Scottish dances and songs, and the result is perfection. 
"Yes, but money isn't everything" ... That is probably the key line in I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING - Powell & Pressburger's timeless romantic fantasy from 1945 (the year I was born). The very independent Joan Webster who wants to marry a rich man travels up to the highlands on her way to the remote island of Kiloran which the millionaire has rented, but a storm forces her to stay on the mainland, at Erraig the house of Catriona (whose husband is away in the Far East, and children at boarding school), the war must be still on. Also staying is a friend of Catriona's Torquil whom Joan realises she is falling for, hence her desire to get away to the island. Navy officer Torquil [who is the real Laird of Kiloran] realising her dangerous plan to go out to sea in the storm helps her but the storm defeats them and the weary travellers arrive back at the house where Catriona puts Joan to bed in her own room with a roaring fire. (how wonderful it seems now to have real fires in bedrooms!). Catriona soon puts Joan to rights as Joan thinks that all these highland people are poor because they have no money so why doesn't Catriona sell her house Erraig, and their neighbour Mrs Crozier could sell her estate Achnacroish and Torquil could sell Kiloran - Catriona thinks about it and then says decisively "yes, but money isn't everything".  
The early scenes are marvellous too, at that fancy restaurant with Joan and her father and her trip by train to the Highlands - this was the real age of rail travel with sleeping compartments and attentive stewards. 

The next morning sees the storm abated, Joan has come to her senses as she sits on the table and says "I can't do a thing with my hair" and wonders where her wedding dress is (it was lost in the storm) to which Torquil replies "a mermaid will get married in it". The boat from Kiloran finally arrives to collect her, but will she have a change of heart? .... enter 3 pipers and the most perfect ending imaginable.

There is also that lovely detour to the Castle of Sorne to visit some snobby neighbours whom the pompous millionaire thinks are the only people worth knowing locally - it is the most perfect location with that high window seat (and young Petula Clark is the daughter) and then there is that lovely interlude at Achnacroish with Rebecca Crozier (Nancy Price) who sees Joan's worth at once and we have the highland dancing as the magic works on Joan. Torquil who is also there explains "highland economics" to Joan - letting Kiloran for three years means he can live there for six - and the millionaire installing a swimming pool means that "money spent is money earned" for the local workmen whom they travel with on the bus. The highlands scenes are marvellously shot, as we visit Tobermoreyand the Western Isles Hotel, and the Isle of Mull. 

These are just some moments from this lovely film, which grows on one at each viewing. The cast are all superb: Wendy Hiller as Joan, Roger Livesey (that voice!) as Torquil (he was not actually at the highland locations due to being in a play in London - his scenes are interiors, with a stand-in for location shots), Nancy Price as Mrs Crozier and that very individual actress Pamela Brown as Catriona, the resourceful woman managing on her own, in that perfect 1940s house, while her husband and children are away (she was Powell's lover at the time and until her death aged 58 in 1975) - her entry here with her dogs and gun and a rabbit presents her like Diana the huntress - as she says "if I don't shoot this rabbit then I don't eat"! She and Torquil are old friends and she soon realises the attraction between him and Joan. Hiller is delightful too as Joan who is used to getting her own way (as set out in the breezy introduction). The climax with the ruined castle and that curse and the highland tune are also just right. I also like the great photography with those great black and white images [like WHISKEY GALORE that other great film shot in Scotland in the '40s]. A film to cherish then, it may well be my favourite film of all. Like THE QUIET MAN or THE SEARCHERS it's admirers are legion and devoted, just like for Powell's others like BLACK NARCISSUS, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH and THE RED SHOES all of which I also love dearly.