Young at Heart at the beach

Young at Heart (1954) gives us a glimpse of an idyllic beach scene on the Connecticut shore in the 1950s.  To be sure, it is mostly of Hollywood origin, or at least, California, but if the beach is not in the right location, the warm and lovely nostalgia of the beach is genuine.

This is my entry to the Fun in the Sun Blogathon, hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association.  Have a look at some great posts on this topic here.

The movie Young at Heart is a remake of Four Daughters (1938), which we covered previously in this post.  In that original story, widowed Claude Rains heads a family of four girls, played by the Lane sisters plus Gail Page, and all are musicians.  May Robson plays the auntie matriarch who lives with them.  The girls’ suitors have picked out their choices among the daughters, but all the young beaus have competition with the newcomer: handsome and happy-go-lucky Jeffrey Lynn.  But an even newer newcomer, a dour, sarcastic and self-pitying John Garfield swoops in to really disrupt things and his love for Priscilla Lane nearly tears the family apart.

We see the beginnings of the rift and a change from a lighthearted first part of the movie to a more serious and even tragic second part at a family picnic in a secluded country glen.  Here we see the sisters are really all interested in the same man. 

In Young at Heart, this scene is transported to the beach.  Robert Keith plays the Claude Rains role of the dad, Ethel Barrymore in a charming mixture of regal and down to earth plays the May Robson role.  Here the sisters number only three instead of four: Elisabeth Fraser, Dorothy Malone, and Doris Day.  Doris plays the lead Priscilla Lane role.  The boyfriends are with the family at the beach, and the heartthrob who will cause unspoken jealousy among the sisters is played by Gig Young in the Jeffrey Lynn role.

Frank Sinatra plays the John Garfield role in this movie, but this scene is just before he makes his first entrance in the film, so we don’t know yet how he’s going to upend the family.  Even without him, the seeds of discontent are already sown, making the day at the beach bittersweet.

With an almost nuclear-powered sunny disposition, Doris Day is the most lighthearted of the group and fails to see her sisters’ yearning for the man she playfully cavorts with in the surf.  Doris gets to sing two songs during this nearly 10-minute beach sequence. 

For those of us who live close enough to a coast to have spent pleasant days on the beach, the movie image of sand and sea, of wave-kissed rocks and sunshine reflecting off the constantly moving ocean is familiar and almost personal, like someone with a movie camera somehow entering our brains and capturing a memory.  Some sensations experienced going to the beach are really timeless and there is a distinct and powerful comfort about that.

But we may sense that some aspects of this scene are not timeless, and that perhaps going to the beach in the 1950s was a little more do-it-yourself, simple, and perhaps with a slower pace of life.   Yes and no.  We don’t see any arcades or water parks or concessions, or even bathhouses with facilities on this beach, but there were beaches back then and even before – though not all – with plenty of tourist amenities. 

That this beach is not crowded and there is plenty of space between the actors and the extras in the background should not be taken that beaches were not crowded in the 1950s.  Of course, they were.  But not all were, and even in these modern times, I have been to New England beaches that were just as unspoiled and unpopulated as this one in the movie seems to be.

So that is not quite it, either.  There must be something else that evokes the strong feeling of nostalgia for a 1950s beach in this film.  Is it because there are no loud radios playing?  Maybe, but we see Doris singing along to a portable record player.  We don’t see too many record players at the beach these days.  

Is it because nobody’s in a bathing suit and they come lounging on the sand in their clothes?  Maybe.  No sunscreen?  Maybe.  

It could just be that the clam digging and the large pots with New England clambake accoutrements – corn on the cob, potatoes, etc., are not seen quite as much now as in the old days, or campfires on the beach, or gathering driftwood to fuel the fires.

There is a noticeable lack of people taking selfies or scarfing packaged junk food snacks.  No one is being divebombed by seagulls for a few Cheetos. 

I get a kick out of Alan Hale, Jr., who plays the suitor of Dorothy Malone, talking about his sudden idea of what a great thing it would be “buying this strip of beach, tearing down all the bungalows on the highway and putting up some hotels, a whole string of them.” 

She responds, “Whoever heard of a string of hotels along the beach in Connecticut?”

There are some hotels here and there on the Connecticut coast, and were, too, in the 1950s, but not enough perhaps to make Alan Hale, Jr.’s dream come true.  Instead of hotels today there are more likely to be a few condominiums, but the geography doesn’t always allow for development.  Working harbors, saltwater marshes here there, and far more protected areas than there used to be.  Thank heaven.

I think what I really like about this beach sequence is the work of the sound technicians.  Behind all the dialogue, behind Doris’s songs and the “orchestration” that seems to bloom from her portable record player, is the omnipresent, lazy, rhythmic sound of the waves rushing to the shore.  The seacoast is not a quiet place.  The sound of the surf is eternal.

The bright, almost blinding daylight of the first part of the sequence becomes a peaceful twilight with the family around the campfire, and Doris still singing, toasting marshmallows.  The large beach umbrella that sheltered Ethel Barrymore earlier in the day has been folded up.  You can almost feel the refreshing cooler breeze off the ocean, almost feel chilled by it.  It is an idyllic ending to the sequence, a calm before the storm.  A day at the beach is a respite, time to enjoy, to reflect, and to make a memory that will last through days to come.  A beach memory may mark epochs in our lives, just as it does in the movie.

Visit the CMBA website here for more Fun in the Sun Blogathon.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.

Film Stars on Stage - The Storrowton Music Fair

They also did theatre.

The stars and the character actors and the bit players, all the gang we know from the old movies we treasure, a lot of them did theatre as well—either before, or concurrently with their film careers—but these samples are, for the most part, what they did after their film careers were over.  The 1950s and 1960s was reckoned to be a kind of golden age for summer theatre in this country, and it hit just when many of the Golden Age of Hollywood stars were finding it difficult to get good movie roles.

Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that they reaped the benefit of having somewhere else to go. Maybe they fueled the fire with their tremendous talent. 

 We discussed stars on stage at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, in this previous post.  We also discussed Ann Blyth’s work in theatre after her film career.  One of her gigs was at the Storrowton Music Fair in West Springfield, Massachusetts, where she starred in Show Boat in 1976.   Today we turn our attention to the old Storrowton Music Fair, erected on the grounds of the Eastern States Exposition every summer from 1958 to 1978.  

Tent theaters are special.  They have a particular ambiance and magic, but sadly, when we lose them, we don’t even have a building left to remember it by. 

 But here, at least, are a few program covers.

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Come back next Thursday for part 5 in our monthly series on the classic film fan for a look at the TCM Classic Film Festival.

The Woman in White - 1948

 

“The Woman in White” (1948) is an example of how Hollywood can “borrow” a classic novel, change things around, slap together “locations” on a soundstage and back lot, even alter the ending, and still, sometimes, get it right.  This movie is a winner because of its engaging cast, and a director who employs film noir techniques on a Victorian mystery.
 

How the movie succeeds is probably because this is one of the few times where that old bemused studio system arrogance that altered the plots of classic novels as often as it changed the names of its contract players actually came up with a plot that works for this movie.  This is not to say that the movie is the ultimate version of this story, written by Wilkie Collins in 1859—it does not strictly adhere to the plot—but I will say that no filmed version of this story I have seen, including two BBC miniseries (and nobody dramatizes their literature like the British), are better.  All take liberties with plot and characterization.  This movie, I think more closely follows the spirit, certainly energy, of the book.

Long post.  I hope you brought an overnight bag.
 

The film, directed by Peter Godfrey, employs an economy of script and cinematography to capture the essence of the story.   If there was one thing Old Hollywood did well, it was atmosphere. 

The novel was a smash in its day.  It was at the forefront of the rise of the sensation novel, and one of the first to use a character, or in this case, two characters, to follow logical detection to solve the mystery.  Or mysteries.  There are several.  According to Matthew Sweet, who wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classic version published in 2009,

“The progress of the plot became a dinner-table topic and bets were struck on the outcome of this or that situation.  Collins received letters from single men demanding to know the identity of the original for his heroine Marian Halcombe, and if she would accept their hand in marriage…The future Prime Minister William Gladstone cancelled a theatre engagement in order to continue reading it...Prince Albert was a great admirer, and sent a copy to the royal family’s most trusted adviser, Baron Stockmar.” (p. xv)
 

The book is very long and the subplots are intricately entwined.  A modern reader might be surprised to discover that a book written in 1859 could have such a “modern” feel in pacing, but it really is a quick read if only because you can’t put it down.  A charming approach the author uses to create intimacy with the reader is to break up the book into separate first-person narratives with many different characters each taking a turn at bat and giving their perspective on what is happening. 

We know that Marian Halcombe is intelligent, loyal, and forthright, speaks her mind, because of her impressions as she relates them.  We know others regard her with admiration because they say so.  We know Walter Hartright is the hero because he tells us he suspects the ladies are in danger and he wants to help them.  We don’t entirely know who the villains are at first, but slowly we begin to realize from the testimony of others that some people are not to be trusted.

The movie similarly sets us up right away on the characters of Marian, played by Alexis Smith; and Walter, played by Gig Young.  We know right off the bat they are to be trusted, because both director and novelist know we have to come to the table trusting somebody.  We experience the mystery through them.  I like Gig Young in the role.  He’s stalwart and transparent, and we need to see him as the Rock of Gibraltar.

In the book, Marian is described as tall and graceful, but with an unattractive face.  Some critics may fault the film or at least smile at it because Alexis Smith was not unattractive.  However, the previously mentioned BBC offerings featured actresses in the role who were also attractive, so it seems a moot point among directors to regard that bit of information on Marian as unimportant.  And so it is.
 

Miss Smith is warm and natural in her role, speaks her accent with a greater ease than the other Americans, enjoyed good reviews, but this was one of the last films she made for Warner Brothers, having finally worked her way to star billing.

Walter Hartright is called to the mansion of Frederick Fairlie to teach his nieces to draw.   In the book, the young women are half-sisters, who share a mother.  Their parents are all deceased and Laura, the younger, is Fairlie’s ward.  Laura, through her father, is the heiress of a great fortune.  Marian, who is a few years older, has only a small income.  They are inseparable and devoted to each other.  Marian tells Walter at the beginning that neither she nor Laura can do without the other, so he must please both of them.  In the end, he does.

In the movie, Marian and Laura are cousins.  I’m not sure what necessitated this particular change in script, but the novel deals with Laura’s father having an illegitimate child, and maybe this was too close a relationship to make the censors happy.  Beats me.  That child is Anne, who in this movie becomes yet another cousin.  She is a near lookalike to Laura.  So, in this movie both Anne and Laura are played by Eleanor Parker.

I won’t go play-by-play from here on in, but what the movie does change from the novel is a skillful paring down of a very long story to under two hours of film.  The movie should be taken separately from the novel as its own creation, and will be best appreciated as such.
 

For instance, and here is a big fat spoiler—in the movie, Walter falls in love with Laura, but later circumstances change and he falls in love with Marian.  In the novel, Walter falls in love with Laura and marries her.  In this case, I prefer the movie version.  Laura is a weaker character and by the end of the novel, quite emotionally and physically dependent on Marian and Walter to take care of her.  She draws our sympathy, but does not seem like she should be an object of passion.  Marian, however, has been at Walter’s side through thick and thin, helping him and facing danger.  He tells us how much he admires her, and other characters in the story do, too.  One villain in particular is infatuated with her. It seems more logical that Walter would be, too.  The author’s only reason for Walter’s romantic disinterest in Marian seems to be that she’s ugly.
 

Eleanor Parker, one of Hollywood's most gifted actresses, is quite good in the dual roles of Laura and Anne.  Laura is charming, lighthearted, and unaffected.  Anne, who has just escaped from an asylum, is tense, with a wandering mind and an overly emotional response to others.  There may be a bit of scenery chewing here, but Anne’s at the edge and sometimes all an actress can do is go to the edge with her.

 

John Abbott plays Frederick Fairlie, plays him so well you wonder why he didn’t star in films instead of just play bit parts or uncredited walk-ons.  Frederick is a self-absorbed fop, dramatically fussing about his nerves and comically displaying a disinterest in everything but himself.  Mr. Abbott is spot-on and terrific in this role.  He’s hysterical.  It’s like this guy knew he was given the role of his life.  He takes the baton and runs with it.

Poor Curt Bois, who I think gets one line in the film, is his bullied servant.  With a slackened stance and hangdog look, he seems to be channeling Buster Keaton in a couple scenes, and makes the most of his part.
 

 

John Emery is Sir Percival, who is engaged to marry Laura.  He’s charming one minute, and a villain the next.  He’s out for her money.

The best for last.  Sydney Greenstreet.  It’s as if Wilkie Collins had Sydney Greenstreet in mind when he wrote the complicated character Count Fosco.  A brilliant man of self indulgence, who plays human beings like chess pieces, and is so wicked that writes his own rules.  And usually gets away with it.

We know early on Mr. Greenstreet must be wicked, because the director gives us a hint at the very beginning of the movie.  Gig Young is walking in the twilight mist of the English countryside of the back lot.  He meets Anne, learns a bit of her story, learns she is running away, and then she bolts as a carriage approaches. A man asks if Young has seen an escapee from the asylum.  Inside the carriage where Gig Young can’t see him, is Sydney Greenstreet with a scowl on his face.  He looks mean.
 

We next see Greenstreet when he pops through the French windows from the terrace as Mr. Young is welcomed to the mansion by Alexis Smith.  She is delighted to see Mr. Greenstreet, and treats him like a fond and funny uncle.  It's as if he is a different person.  So, we see from the start his character is duplicitous. 

We are quickly fed the plot in bite-size chunks—about asylums (there will be more than one escape before the movie is through), about inheritance, and getting robbed of one’s inheritance, and how to foil the bad guys. 
 

Alexis, by virtue of her being the older girl and because John Abbott can’t be bothered, takes responsibility for the younger Laura.  When she senses Gig Young falling for Laura, she warns him that Laura’s already engaged and he has to knock it off.  We see, though he does not, that Alexis is falling in love with him.  A few nice very light touches by the director indicate her desire.  In one scene, he questions Mr. Greenstreet's motives, and she tells him not to overstep his bounds. 

 

The camera is on her as she turns her back to him and proceeds to leave the room, but she thinks the better of it, softens, and turns to address him again.

 

The camera shows us he has already turned his back to her and is walking out to the terrace to be with Laura.  Camera cuts back to Alexis, who looks like a despondent wallflower at a country dance.  We can imagine she has been in this situation before.

In another scene he plans to leave the estate because Laura is going to marry John Emery.  He kisses Alexis’ hand and she leans over him slightly as his head is bowed.  She lingers as if she will touch him or say something, but doesn’t.  These are great clues that will make their union logical at the end, except we get no clues from Gig Young.  The director doesn’t set up any scenes with his reactions to her.  His later declaration of love for her seems a surprise, to us as well as her.

 

The director gives us some other shots though, that are splendid, uniting the 1940s with the 1850s in a neat way.  Lots of ground-to-ceiling film noir shots that show menacing figures, a few shadows on the wall. 

There’s a spiffy scene shot from the ceiling to the floor through the crystal jungle of a chandelier.  It is morning, and a few characters leave the room through a door, closing it behind them. 

 

Then, instantly it is night, the chandelier is lit, the door opens, and another character walks through.  It is a seamless showing of the passage of time.

On another occasion, Gig Young and Eleanor Parker are spied on through a telescope, and the camera takes a view of them through the telescope that looks like an iris shot from a silent movie.  Then it opens up, and we are no longer watching them from a distance; we are right behind them.  We could touch them.

I also really like the score of this movie.  Max Steiner is credited, but some of the English country ballad flourishes sound authentic to me, and I wonder if he adapted some traditional music?
 

Laura, who has now married Sir Percival, may be in great danger.  We suspect this when Alexis, who has spent a few months with relatives in the country while Laura and Sir Percival are in Europe on their honeymoon, returns to silly John Abbott’s mansion to wait for them.  Hey, none of the servants are familiar!  They’re all new!  Including marvelous Anita Sharp-Bolster, who we discussed here in this previous post.  That woman, with her stupendous profile, could play scary/funny like nobody. 

Alexis is given a different room on the other side of the mansion!  Away from Laura!
 

Alexis confronts John Abbott about this.  He attempts a tantrum, but his blood sugar level is too low.

Alexis discovers that Sydney Greenstreet is living here now with his wife, played by Agnes Moorehead.  She is an enigma, and takes the character from the novel to a different, more intense, level.  We may puzzle at Greenstreet’s hold over her, that allows him to taunt and manipulate her, but still waters run deep.  There’s a lot more going on here.  We will soon see she’s not just a wax figure under her husband’s thumb.  Miss Moorehead does so much with a small role, it's like she conducting a master class in acting.
 

When the honeymooners return, Laura is a changed person—haughty, gaudily bejeweled and attempting to smoke at the dinner table.  (GAD!)  She has not replied to Alexis’ letters to her during their separation.
 

Back in her room that night, Alexis writes her fears in her diary that Laura is lost to her.  This is about the only scene, except for some beginning narration by Gig Young, that tries to imitate the novel in first-person perspective, but that’s hard to keep up in a movie.

Later Laura sneaks into Alexis’ room, tells her  she has to act out a part because she’s in danger.  Alexis gets to do some girl power stunts when she climbs out on a ledge in a storm to eavesdrop (quite literally under the eaves) on the plans of the bad guys.
 

She returns to her room and we see her figure in a shadow on the wall as she is changing from a rain-soaked nightgown to a dry one.  Then the curtains part, and it’s Sydney Greenstreet!  He thinks she knows too much.  He’s also attracted to her.

There’s a nifty exchange between them when she asks, “Was it necessary to hide there and shame me as well?”

He responds with that gravely-voiced huff, “I was only too happy to discover at last something as flawless in form as it is in spirit.”  It took me several viewings of this movie to realize that meant he’d been watching her undress.  Yes, I am that obtuse.

There’s nothing quite so charming as Victorian lechery.
 

And, funny enough, just before this a scene where we hear John Emery muttering his frustration and he appears, if I’ve heard right, to use the word “bugger”.  Obviously, to us in the US this is just a funny sounding oath, but in British English it’s a vulgarity.  It may have lost quite a bit of its punch through the decades and no longer so offensive, but at the time story is set, it was quite vulgar and author Wilkie Collins never used it.  I guess those minding the store didn’t know that.

Actor and screenwriter 1, Production Code 0.
 

 

Because Anne and Laura are played by the same actress, we do have one Patty Duke Show scene where they’re together, but it’s not overdone.  I don’t think we ever mistake one for the other because they behave differently, and Anne’s makeup, with her dark circles under her hollow eyes indicates she is sickly.  But others mistake them, and I won’t tell you what happens because of it.  So there.

Mr. Greenstreet gloats over Alexis when she refuses his offer to be his mistress, predicting she will return of her own accord.  She does, when she thinks Laura’s in too big a jam and Walter unable to help.  She offers herself to the big guy if he lets Laura go.

Alexis Smith appeared with Sydney Greenstreet in “Conflict”(1945) discussed here, and she enjoyed working with him.  On “The Woman in White”, her husband in real life, Craig Stevens, was quoted in The Women of Warner Brothers by David Bubbeo (McFarland and Co., Inc.: Jefferson, NC, 2002) “Alexis was mesmerized by Sydney Greenstreet…He memorized the entire script.  He knew everyone else’s role.  She just thought he was fascinating to be around.”

In the novel, Marian describes Fosco as a man, “who devours pastry as I have never yet seen it devoured by any human beings but girls at boarding-schools…”  In a nutshell we have Fosco’s love of food, and Marian’s witty sense of humor.
 

In another passage, she tries to get Laura to leave her cruel husband, “Are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease?  No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women.  Men!  They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace—they drag us away from our parents’ love and our sisters’ friendship—they take us body and soul to themselves and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel.  And what does the best of them give us in return?  Let me go, Laura—I’m mad when I think of it!”

Doesn’t sound very Victorian, does it?  The book also has an astounding subplot of murder by a 19^th century style Italian Mafia. 

Watch the movie and enjoy it for all it is, which is plenty.  But treat yourself to the book as well.  Hollywood exploited popular literature and classic literature, but also introduced  a fair number of its audience to these books for the first time.  A lovely co-dependence.  Like Marian and Laura.

Old Acquaintance (1943)

Old Acquaintance (1943) is a tour de force for both stars Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a film could be this good with two terrific actresses and a witty, literate script by John Van Druten. Somehow, though, the movie can still astonish, in large part because much of it seems like a lighthearted romp, even though we get splashed with soap opera elements and Miriam’s personality disorder that hammers us like a hangover.

Perhaps because it flows something like a concerto with different movements. The soap opera quality to the plot involves the complicated relationship between two old friends who face, together and separately, the “passing parade of years” (which should be a movie genre unto itself), but there are also elements of screwball comedy, and social commentary.

The film, something in the manner of the play on which it is based, is presented in three acts. First, we come upon a young and triumphant first-time author, Bette Davis, returning to her hometown. It is 1924, and she arrives as the guest of her girlhood chum, Miriam Hopkins, now a housewife expecting a baby.

Davis breezes into town, spirited, somewhat hoydenish, exuding good-natured self effacing humor, when she is carried away by a flock of serious co-eds who make her their heroine. Davis laughs off their attention, but Miriam Hopkins is furious when her plans to lead the welcoming committee are derailed. Miss Hopkins gets into a minor car accident with a farmer’s truck loaded with cages of chickens. Seems to be a mainstay of old movies, doesn’t it? Car crashes with chicken cages. You don’t hear things like that happening these days, but apparently in the 1930s you couldn’t back out of your own driveway without smashing eggs, or plowing into squawking chickens.


Miss Davis meets Hopkins’ good-natured husband, played by John Loder, and they become fast pals. Look for Roscoe Karns as the annoying local newspaper editor. We saw him as the annoying traveling salesman in It Happened One Night. If only we could all make a living just being annoying, what a wonderful world it would be.

Miss Hopkins returns, furious at her grand welcome being foiled, especially since she is chafing in the mundane life of the housewife. She envies Davis’ fame. She confides to Davis that she herself has literary ambitions and has written a romance novel. We have a few flippant, but spot on, observations on the monetary success of genre fiction as opposed to what is called literary fiction, the kind that Davis writes that gets applause from the critics but that doesn’t sell well. Not much has changed in the publishing world, though it would be interesting to see what the future has in store for “eBooks” and the literary market.


Getting ready for bed, Miss Davis shocks Miss Hopkins by appearing in only the pajama top and not the bottoms, exposing her legs to us as she strolls to her bed. Even before he says goodnight to her, we see that swell guy husband John Loder is charmed by Bette Davis, a hint for what will follow.

This first “act,” so to speak, is screwball comedy, but the tone changes in the next act when we find ourselves in the mid-1930s. Davis, who plods carefully along in her writing, still critically successful but still not rich, is nervously preparing for the opening night of her first play. Meanwhile Hopkins, ever confident and prolific, has by this time dashed off one potboiler after another, making buckets of money.

Miss Hopkins is no longer the homey housewife, but has morphed into a career woman with all the charm of a steamroller. Society columnist Anne Revere has come to interview her in her New York City hotel digs. Anne Revere as a gussied up Manhattan sophisticate is treat, a 180-degree turn from her usual earth mother type roles. Perc Westmore must have slapped the pancake makeup on with a trowel to cover up those peasant freckles of hers.

Miss Revere asks about the progress of Bette Davis’ new novel, to which Davis modestly replies, “Well, I write and re-write, and I still don’t like it.”

Revere encouragingly replies, “Well, at least when you do turn one out it’s a gem. None of this grinding them out like sausage.” Miss Revere suddenly realizes the indirect insult to romance novelist Hopkins and offers, “I suppose I could cut my throat.”

“There’s a knife on the table,” Hopkins replies.

We see by now that Miss Hopkins’ swell guy husband is still full of comic asides, but there is a note of sarcasm now. He drinks a good deal, is neglected by his wife for the sake of her career, just as she neglects their young daughter. He puts up with it gallantly, without seeming jealousy for her success, but becomes angry only when Hopkins flings one too many cruel barbs at her old pal Davis. Hopkins’ irritation has grown with her income. No matter how successful she has become, she is still insecure and jealous over Davis. Davis, perhaps because of her quiet seriousness about her work, appears to have grown more introverted in contrast to her friend’s more explosive personality. Davis also chain smokes through the movie, and I lost count after a while.

John Loder’s fondness for Davis has evolved into infatuation, which Davis will not return, holding him off out of loyalty for Hopkins. She recounts for him her lonely childhood when Hopkins was her only friend. When she was orphaned, Hopkins’ parents took her in. Another actress could take the speech and make it maudlin, but Bette Davis has that quality of hard unblinking honesty that makes it work. This section of the movie has become a soap opera, but the pace is not slowed. There is poignancy to the growing resignation and sadness of the Bette Davis character, after having appeared so resilient and devil-may-care in the preceding act when she was a younger woman.

At the end of this “act,” John Loder gets fed up with walking the tightrope of Miriam Hopkins’ moods, and leaves her.

Act three brings us to the 1940s and the solemn urgency of wartime. Davis, appearing in a Red Cross volunteer’s uniform, makes a plea for support during a radio broadcast rally. We see she has entered middle age by the heavy glasses she wears to read her script, and that artistic streak of gray in her hair that, like driving your car into a chicken-filled truck, was a movie cliché.


Miriam Hopkins’ daughter is now grown up, dating a gigolo, and Bette Davis is dating Gig Young, a man ten years her junior. She is sensitive about this, and hesitant to marry him because of it. Now, nearly twenty years after we first met her, she is bedeviled with insecurities and regrets, but still steadfast in her loyalty to Hopkins, and by extension, to Hopkins’ daughter.


She is also, delightfully, still wearing only pajama tops and still giving us a glimpse of her legs as she strides across her bedroom. We see that despite the gray streak in her hair, despite the fear of aging alone, she still has a tiny bit of that careless young Jazz Age writer in her. It’s a nice bit of continuity.

We have a bit more soap opera with the reappearance of John Loder, a fuming Hopkins who seems to destroy Davis’ one last chance at happiness, and the romantic troubles of the daughter, but here again, the pace never slows. This act contains one of the funniest Bette Davis scenes ever, where she finally gets fed up with Hopkins, shakes her nearly to death, shoves her on the couch, and mutters a perfunctory, “Sorry.” We are back to screwball comedy.

Other nice touches that reflect the war period are the way when Davis, needing time to think, tells the cab driver to just drive around and he replies he is not allowed to because of gas rationing. Also, John Loder, now in uniform, appears to have something of a military haircut, which is realistic detail we don’t often see in Hollywood films of this period, despite their intention to reflect what was happening in the country at this time.

Miriam Hopkins is the engine that drives much of the conflict, and though one might accuse her of overacting, I would guess many of us actually know people like this character she plays, over-sensitive, quick to accuse, where almost any conversation turns into high melodrama.

The film’s final moments with Davis and Hopkins drinking flat champagne in a tribute to their cockeyed friendship, and especially to the passing parade of years, is another astonishing scene, made so by the unexpected sudden camera pan back from behind and above them. It seems they will age together, as their characters did in their previous film The Old Maid (1939). In films of later decades, two women aging without romantic partners might be depicted either as a sad failure, or else not depicted at all. Here, there is almost a note of triumph that they have weathered the years and the ups and downs of their relationship.

Inevitably, one of the guilty pleasures of watching the film is doing so with the knowledge that Hopkins and Davis disliked each other in real life. You don’t see it in this film, where both actresses are deeply engaged in the dynamics of their characters’ relationship, like two old warhorses charging out of the gate.

Well, maybe you see that dislike in one scene. Have a look at the famous shaking scene from Old Acquaintance.