Edmund Goulding provides a great canvas to show off Bette Davis’s range in Dark Victory.* Davis, aside from cycling through the stages of grief, makes a wealthy socialite a sympathetic character while wooing George Brent, a reserved and quiet doctor who knows he doesn’t know enough about brain tumors to be of any help.** This is a solid capsule of its time from the lack of information given to the patient, to the copious amounts of cigarette smoking.
The verdict: Good
Cost: Free via TV Land Feature Films (which didn’t have ads for the first film I watched, but now does. Tricky!) Where watched: at home.
*It’s a weepie, though removed enough from its time and place that I did not weep. **This is the first time I’ve seen Ronald Reagan in a movie. I didn’t recognize him when he faced the camera, he was only identifiable in profile. Also of note. Humphrey Bogart is hardly in this .
Questions:
If you had a terminal brain tumor, would you want to know? Why or why not?
Did it seem like there was a big age difference between Bette Davis (Judith) and George Brent (Dr. Steele)? IMDB tells me they are only four years apart.
Does the name Dr. Frederick Steele sound kind of bodice-rippery?
Favorite IMDB Trivia Items:
The scene in Dr. Steele’s office where Judith can’t light her cigarette, and then a few minutes later she can’t light Dr. Steele’s, was devised by Edmund Goulding. He explained, “When Bette Davis can’t light her own cigarette, you know something is seriously wrong with her.”
When the band is packing up and Judith tips them to play a song, she gives the singer a $50 bill and they immediately jump to it. Adjusting for inflation, this is the equivalent of about $900.
William Wyler’s Jezebel is an excellent movie for showing off Bette Davis’s range. Aside from Davis, it’s fun to watch Fay Bainter as the ever worried, silent-suffering Aunt Belle Massey as well as to see 1850s New Orleans society mores.* I wasn’t fully convinced by the transformation,*** but was all in on the journey to get there.
The verdict: Good
Cost: Free via TV Time Feature Films which is a Roku Channel that has TONS of old movies! Where watched: at home
*I thought I was headed in for a film full of shaming and was delighted to discover a more nuanced narrative.** **Less delightful: the many “happy slaves” portrayed in this movie. That element has not aged well. ***I also wasn’t convinced that I was supposed to be convinced.
Questions:
Was Julie’s transformation complete, or was she still working an angle?
What other 1930s films do you enjoy? Filmspotting recently did a starter pack.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Fay Bainter became the first actor to receive nominations in the Lead and Supporting acting categories, being nominated for Best Actress for White Banners (1938) and for Best Supporting Actress for Jezebel (1938).
Top movies watched in 2018 from individual decades
I like some structure to my movie watching. But only some.
I’ve got a scratch-off movie poster* that had me chasing some old classics in 2018, plus some catch up viewing for Filmspotting Madness, 2000s edition. That meant that I watched some things from decades other than the current one.
Oh, and there was a movie that was scheduled to be released that had three previous versions. I couldn’t let that opportunity go by.
Here are my favorite old favorite discoveries in 2018
Janet Gaynor is Esther Blodgett, an aspiring actress and Frederic March is the aging alcoholic actor who wants Ms. Blodgett to be the film star she’s always dreamed of being.
While there was a lot of subject matter that usually would sink the film for me (May-December romances, falling in love with an alcoholic) I adored this film.
John Huston’s classic is a classic for a reason. You may be intrigued because it’s a Humphry Bogard film, but John Huston cast his own father as Howard, the old gold prospector delighted to be out in the gold fields again. Howard steals the show.
1950s
6 movies watched from the 1950s I really hit the jackpot with this decade
Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly
Directed by
Fred Zinnemann
Five stars.
Gary Cooper doesn’t have much time to raise up a posse to greet Frank Miller, the criminal Cooper sent to prison several years before. But it shouldn’t be too hard. After all, everyone remembers how bad things had been when Frank Miller was around.
A publicity still from the 1950 Academy Award®-winning drama “All about Eve” features (left to right): Gary Merrill, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm. “All about Eve” received a record 14 Academy Award nominations and won six Oscars®, including Best Picture. Restored by Nick & jane for Dr. Macro’s High Quality Movie Scans Website: http:www.doctormacro.com. Enjoy!
Five stars.
If you’re like me and your only exposure to this movie is a few quotes, well then “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Bette Davis is amazing, as is the rest of the cast.
Billy Wilder, Marlenia Dietrich, Tyorne Power, Charles Laughton. Big names! And a big story of a lawyer defending his client from a murder charge. Best enjoyed if you know nothing about the film. Do you like courtroom dramas? Queue this one up!
Okay so 2018 was the year I spent a goodly amount of time gushing over three of the four versions of this movie. But there is a good reason for that! This time, Judy Garland plays the aspiring actress and James Mason plays the alcoholic has-been. And Judy Garland was a force. Watch the below scene and see if you don’t want to invest another another 150 minutes in this movie.
1960s, 1970s, 1980s
For these decades I have no movies to recommend. I didn’t watch any movies from the 60s, only one from the 70s (that was the terrible version of A Star is Born) and only two in the 80s.
Four stars. This film isn’t going to be for everyone. You’ve got to be a fan of stories incrementally told while not a lot of action happens. In fact, the action that mostly happens is young men in the French Foreign Legion doing training exercises in the sun. But watching young, fit men work out isn’t the worst way to spend your time. And if you are like me, the ending scene with Denis Lavant will captivate you.
2000s
I watched 18 movies from the ‘aughts in 2018. Only one of them was a five-star movie.
Five stars. Eleven actors, all at their sparkly best. A heist plotted against a guy who deserves to lose his money. Julia Roberts. This film is the filmiest of films and so much fun. Get the team together, get the plan together, execute the plan, deal with the fallout. It’s hard to stop smiling while watching this.
Further sentences:
*It appears that my version of Pop Chart’s 100 Essential Films Scratch-off Movie Poster has been substituted for this one. Most of the movies look the same, though. Oh, but they added Lady Bird (my #1 movie of 2017) Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley for the win!) and Black Panther (If you’re only going to see one Marvel film, this is it). Good choices.
