For a dull bank holiday .....

While we wait for FEUD here in the UK .... (thanks to Dan-O-Rama).

FEUD ?

WHEN is this going to be screened here in the UK? The word is good and it looks super, with Susan Sarandon an effective Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. Alfred Molina looks right too as BABY JANE director Robert Aldcrich .... 9 episodes I understand, we looking forward to this Ryan Murphy extravaganza.

Feud: Bette and Joan

Here's one to look forward, a new tele-docu drama airing in March. It should be a prime slice of enjoyable trash as it portrays Bette and Joan filming WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? with Susan Sarandon (those Bette Davis eyes!) as of course Bette, and Jessica Lange as the more refined Crawford. 

And that 1963 "Films & Filming" cover ..... 

Bette is Madame Sin

Here's a delicious doozy for a dull winter afternoon. Bette Davis as MADAME SIN, a 1972 release, originally meant as a pilot for a tv series, but released in cinemas here in Europe. Another unintentional comic Trash Classic! 

Bette Davis is Madame Sin, a sinister-looking, totally evil, half-Chinese woman who indulges in endless machinations. Ensconced in a Scottish castle that is packed with an array of spy gadgetry, she runs afoul with counter spy, American CIA agent Anthony Lawrence (Robert Wagner), who is out to counter her plots for control of a Polaris submarine.

The budget ran to a helicopter and renting a castle in Scotland - Robert Wagner, a friend of Bette's, co-stars and co-produces, some British stalwarts are lined up: Denholm Elliot, Gordon Jackson, Dudley Sutton, Roy Kinnear ... what, no Harry Andrews? but it all looks rather cheap and second rate capturing that seedy London of the early 70s. 

Bette though has a whale of a time chomping out her lines in that Eurasian get up - is she channelling Ona Munson as Madam Gin Sling in THE SHANGHAI GESTURE or maybe Gale Sondergaard in her own THE LETTER, or even Death (in that black cape) in THE SEVENTH SEAL? She needed to do something to liven it up, Wagner looks good here in his early 40s, and there is an unexpected ending. Director David Greene did some interesting 60s films but is on auto-pilot here. Perhaps for Bette addicts only?

This was the year she appeared before us at the London BFI  (right) and brought the house down - as I have reported before - Bette, NFT labels, so it must have been after she filmed this. 

Summer re-views: for the RVT boys

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of London's oldest gay pubs, is a Grade II listed entertainment venue, which has been catering to confirmed bachelors and their friends ever since it was a music hall in a previous incarnation. I had a lot of pleasant evenings there myself; it now has a free film club on the 1st of every month, and this evening's choice is - wait for it - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? so I am sure the boys in the band will be singing out the lines along with Bette and Joan. Take it away guys: "Butcha are in that wheelchair, Blanche, you are ... " and that delicious end line: "You mean all these years we could have been friends". Here once again is the BABY JANE cover from my favourite magazine ... (I was 17 when I got that issue in 1963). 

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. 

Summer re-views, briefly

WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED. Gilliam Armstrong's 2014 documentary on Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly, which we have mentioned here a few times before (Costumes label). The documentary, based on Orry's lush memoir which I enjoyed a lot, has taken its time appearing here, in fact in has not yet, but I got the Australian (Region 4) dvd, which plays perfectly on multichannel players. 

Its a fanciful conceit, with an actor playing Orry, who seems to be rowing a boat a lot of the time, but then we get all the clips: Orry's costumes for CASABLANCA, GYPSY and his three Oscar-winners: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, LES GIRLS (where Kay, Mitzi and Taina look divine in his creations), and of course Marilyn's still daring costumes for SOME LIKE IT HOT. Orry continued up to 1964, so we get Jane Fonda and Angela Lansbury talking about his costumes for their 1963 IN THE COOL OF THE DAY - one I have never seen and can't get now, so thanks for the clips. 

Bette Davis also reigns supreme here, with those costumes Orry did for JEZEBEL, MR SKEFFINGTON, NOW VOYAGER, THE LETTER etc. 

Other talking heads include the notorious Scotty Bowers, and it rehashes all the Cary Grant and Randy Scott gossip and pictures. In fact, Orry gets sidelined for a while while the documentary focuses on Cary, who "roomed" with Orry when they were both young and starting out. But then legendary tightwad Cary always needed someone to pay the rent, hence all those years sharing houses with Randolph .... between their many marriages.

JANE EYRE - the Franco Zeffirelli 1996 version. There have been a lot of Janes around, the 1944 one with Orson and Joan Fontaine is still the one to beat for me, with delicious roles for Agnes Moorehead and Henry Daniell - but this Zeffirelli one is a nicely paced (if rather hurried at the end) version, with Charlotte Gainsbourg a suitably very plain Jane indeed (unlike Janes Joan Fontaine or Susannah York)  but William Hurt (so ideal in films like BODY HEAT or KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN) all wrong here and hardly making any impression, 

It is all grimly Victorian and Franco as usual ramps up the supporting players: a very severe Geraldine Chaplin and Amanda Root (PERSUASION) at the Lowood Orphanage; Fiona Shaw as Aunt Reed, Billie Whitelaw as Grace Poole, Joan Plowright as Mrs Fairfax, Samuel West, and two sadder appearances: Richard Warwick (whom I knew slightly) silent here in his last role as the manservant, the year before he died (he also pops up in Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET and HAMLET); and poor Maria Schneider as the madwoman in the attic ..... a worthwhile but low-key JANE then.  

JOE MACBETH, 1955. This re-view goes way back to the Fifties, as I first saw this when I was a kid in Ireland, but it made a vivid impression - though I would not have the got Shakespeare part then. It is a modern gangster version of MACBETH, by Ken Hughes, almost impossible to see now, (so thanks Jerry.) Paul Douglas is impressive as usual, and one of our Projector favourites, Ruth Roman, is as ever terrific as Lady M. Its a British production, so supporting cast includes Bonar Colleano, Gregoire Aslan and Sid James. I was pleased to see it again, and to get it on a flash drive. Its more entertaining than that dreadful recent Michael Fassbender version which nearly drove me screaming from the practically empty multiplex ...

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS. For real horror you can hardly beat Leonard Kastle's 1969 chiller, which I first saw as a supporting feature back then. My pal Stan and I were both gobsmacked by it, I can't even remember what the main feature was. 
I had not seen it since then but it lingered in the memory. so its good to see it again now on dvd.  Seems this could have been Scorsese's first feature,but he was replaced. It is a bleak tale of a murderous rampage by two seedy killers: the obese nurse and her scuzzy boyfriend (Tony Lo Bianco) as they plot to fleece lonely widows whom he romances and lets them think he is going to marry them, while she, posing as his sister, tags along in the background. Once seen, it is not easily forgotten. The film is made by the marvellous Shirley Stoler (1929-1999) as the malevolent Martha - she also pops up in KLUTE and is terrifying again as that Nazi concentration camp commandant in SEVEN BEAUTIES in 1975 .... (whom prisoner Giancarlo Giannini has to romance in order to survive - we raved about it, at Italian label). Her 40+ credits also include THE DEER HUNTER.  
It is not violent by today's torture porn standards, but once seen it is not easily forgotten as we enter than downbeat world of cheap motels and diners. It is Kastle's only credit. 

Orry, Ingrid, Tab documentaries .....

Documentaries on movies and movie-makers don't seem to turn up here in the UK. We first mentioned Australian director Gillian Armstrong's film on Australian gay costume designer Orry-Kelly, WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED, here 6 months ago back in February, when that lush coffee table tome WOMEN I'VE UNDRESSED was published, based on his memoirs and costume designs for all those classic Hollywood movies of the Golden Age, from CASABLANCA to SOME LIKE IT HOT, with those dresses for Bette (as in JEZEBEL, see below), Marilyn, those LES GIRLS etc. See Books label for more on that.)

I now find the documentary opens in Los Angeles today, but I have also found and ordered an Australian dvd (Region 4 - my first, which should play ok on the multi-region blu-ray/dvd player) which should arrive in a week or so. More on that then, meanwhile here's the trailer:

Also mentioned last year was that documentary based on Ingrid Bergman's home movies, with narration by Alicia Vikander using Ingrid's text. This is now finally being issued here in English in September, and we have pre-ordered it.

But where is that Tab Hunter documentary, TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL, which Tab - now 86 - introduced here last year ago at the LGBT Film Festival at the BFI.

Bette as Jezebel, 1938

While movie fans were abuzz over who might play Scarlett O’Hara in the upcoming GONE WITH THE WIND, Bette Davis got another Southern belle role – and gave a fiery performance that won the 1938 Best Actress Academy Award. Davis plays Julie Marsden, a New Orleans beauty whose constant attempts to goad fiancé Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda) to jealousy backfire. Angry and disgraced, Pres breaks their engagement and leaves town. Julie endures a year of remorse until Pres comes home – married. Then her vengeance explodes.

JEZEBEL is also noted for its sumptuous sets and costumes, Fay Bainter’s Oscar-winning performance and William Wyler’s vivid direction, highlighted by a recreation of a yellow fever epidemic. But the film’s greatest strength is Davis. Whose titanic talent has never been better displayed than in JEZEBEL. So ran the dvd blurb. 

I saw some clips of it at the BFI in 1972 with Bette in attendance to discuss them, but had not actually seen it in full before. Its fascinating now, and surely Bette's most ferocious performance since her 1934 OF HUMAN BONDAGE. Her capricious Julie is certainly one of her greatest roles, Fay Bainter is marvellous too, but Henry Fonda seems a dull fellow here - what does Julie see in him and go to such lengths to look after him when the dreaded yellow fever strikes? Then there is George Brent, dull as ever; and of course all those happy slaves down on the plantation with all that hanging moss and antebellum gracious living ..... Bette has some powerful scenes during the first half, but the second half is rather turgid wth duels, plague and all that plot. Warners though were making films in colour that year (Erroll's ROBIN HOOD) so why wasn't this also in colour, to highlight that famous red dress ..... its a brilliant sequence though and Max Steiner contributes that great score and Orry-Kelly as usual costumed her. Davis of course had two more huge successes with Wyler with 1940's THE LETTER and THE LITTLE FOXES in '41. They may be her three greatest roles, apart from NOW VOYAGER and ALL ABOUT EVE. 

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 

Bad Movies We Love

Here is a Trash Classic indeed. Rebello and Marguilies' 1995 tome on those bad movies we love, with a foreword by Sharon Stone, who gets a whole chapter to herself. The usual suspects though are here in force: Lana, Susan, Joan (Crawford), Bette and all those delirious movies of theirs.

Browsing it again makes one want to dig out QUEEN BEE (Joan - ["wearing the kind of gown a female impersonator would choose"]: "Any man's my man if I want it that way" or: "You look sweet - even in those tacky old clothes"); or Lana's PORTRAIT IN BLACK or LOVE HAS MANY FACES - perennial favourites of ours. Others like THE CHAPMAN REPORT, THE  BEST OF EVERYTHING, SERENADE, PARRISH and those Troy Donahue spectaculars get their due (I will have to look out for PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND, which sounds a hoot).

Pity they did not include Suzanne Pleshette's opus A RAGE TO LIVE, or THE SUBTERRANEANS or THE SOUND AND THE FURY or Lee Remick's SANCTUARY or Jean Simmons' HILDA CRANE or Jane Russell's THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER or Shelley's A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME or Debbie's THE SINGING NUN.... maybe in a new edition, and with a foreword by Joan Collins please? At least JOHNNY GUITAR gets it due - a delicious piece on its gay subtext, as does TORCH SONG, AUTUMN LEAVES, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, Bette's THE STAR and DEAD RINGER and Lucille's MAME, plus the pure trash of THE OSCAR and THE LOVE MACHINE and ... those 'disasters' get trashed again too: those AIRPORTs, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, EARTHQUAKE etc. too easy to make fun of those! 

Lets' savour a few comments on the usually-respected THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (the 1968 one, natch): "Its not the money" business tycoon Steve McQueen drawls soulfully "Its me and the System" - that 60s phrase explains why the ineffably cool McQueen - who plays polo, drives a Rolls, pilots his own glider plane and dune buggy, and lives in a killer Boston mansion - masterminds multi-million dollar bank robberies on the side.... Everything's so terribly, laughably with-it in Norman Jewison's chi-chi epic - that you could bliss out with glee from all the faux hip dialogue, multiple-screen images ... Dunaway, all teeth and legs, and blissfully unaware of how disasterously dated she is going to look in those Theodora Van Runkle costumes, sets a trap to catch a thief, McQueen, whom she just knows is the mastermind".

Lots more here too on bad girls we love like Gina Lollobrigida in GO NAKED IN THE WORLD, Taylor and Burton get roasted for THE SANDPIPER and THE VIPs and Liz' THE DRIVER'S SEAT and X, Y AND ZEE (one I have been meaning to return to...). Carroll Baker gets her due (SYLVIA, THE CARPETBAGGERS, HARLOW) as does Natalie Wood (MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR), Ann-Margret ("THE SWINGER might just be the all-time tackeiest major studio  movie") and so many more .... its well worth seeking out for Trash devotees.   

Above: Bette, Susan and director Edward Dmytryk who after his early successes (THE YOUNG LIONS, RAINTREE COUNTY) hit the Trash trail with a vengance: WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, THE CARPETBAGGERS, BLUEBEARD ...

Bette and Dirk / Dirk and Bette

People We Like, continued. Dirk Bogarde (the man who knew everyone) didn't get to meet Bette Davis until late in both their careers and lives, but I remember seeing them in some tribute show in the 1980s.  

Here they are with Dickie (Lord Attenborough) too - I met him and his wife the time we were all queueing for Dirk's first personal appearance/Q&A at the London BFI in 1970, and Bette was a wow there in person in 1972  (above right), as we have reported before here, Bette, NFT labels.

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.

Bette and Bette share a stolen life

A STOLEN LIFE comes at the end of Bette Davis's great run of hits in the 1940s. This 1946 romantic drama though seems under-appreciated and hardly seen now. (I also like her DECEPTION that year and JUNE BRIDE in 1948, as she came to the end of her Warner years). Warners do her proud here, dressed by Orry-Kelly, music by Max Steiner, directed by Curtis Bernhardt, with Walter Brennan and Charlie Ruggles in support. 

The fascinating thing about A STOLEN LIFE is that Bette play identical twin sisters - nice Kate who paints, and more vivacious go-getting Patricia. Set in New England near Cape Cod, Kate arrives and meets nice guy Glenn Ford (GILDA was his next one after this - see recent review, Ford label) and the film takes its time setting the scene as they get close as we savour those New England lighthouses and boats .... the other sister does not appear until over 20 minutes in and the special effects are simply marvellous, for the 1940s - we really  believe she is two different sisters in the same scenes (just like Tom Hardy as the Krays now in LEGEND). Patricia of course makes a play for Glenn and gets him as gentle Kate backs off and won't fight for him. Pat and Glenn marry and while he is away the sisters go sailing and hit a storm. Pat is washed overboard and drowned and when Kate is rescued from the capsized boat everyone thinks she is Pat and she goes along with the deception .... when Glenn returns will he think she is Pat too? Can Kate go on with the deception?, will Glenn realise which sister he is now living (or sleeping) with? - it does not quite come to that as things are not as they seem for Kate (now Pat) - Pat and Glenn were on the rocks due to her infidelities and he wants a divorce as it was Kate he really loved all along before being dazzled by the shallower Pat; then at their house which is her bedroom, will her maid suspect, and Pat's dog does not recognise her ... kindly uncle Charlie does know though ... how is Kate going to resolve things?

This must have been just the stuff for mid-40s audiences coming out of the war years. It captures that 1940 dreamworld perfectly - roomy comfy houses with real fires, discreet servants in the background. Its almost as marvellous as Bette's NOW VOYAGER, THE GREAT LIE, OLD ACQUAINTANCE - those favourites we like here at The Projector.

Bette of course returned to playing sisters in the 1964 DEAD RINGER, (right) that delirious farrago we love - that was a souped-up Trash Classic. A STOLEN LIFE is a much classier affair. Bette and Glenn were re-teamed in Capra's 1961 sentimental POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES - where Glenn was the star and Bette doing a cameo small part, but then BABY JANE came along the next year ...

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.