3 reviews for the price of 1

Swedish poster for Design for Living (transl: "Between us Gentlemen"), and two Italian posters for Dark Victory (same transl.) and The Old Maid (transl: "The Great Love").

I still have a cold (probably the swine flu, I really shouldn't socialize with all those strange men down at the docks), so there have been some film viewing.

When I had seen three really great films in a row, I felt it hard to decide which one to write about - so I thought I would try to make short reviews of all of them instead. Summarizing the plots in a few lines, and focusing on what I liked/disliked about them. And lots of pictures. Sound any good? I'll do it anyway.

The films: Design for Living (1933), Dark Victory (1939) and The Old Maid (1939).

Frequently used ingredients: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Edmund Goulding and socially awkward situations.

Spanish film poster (transl: "A Woman for Two").

Design for Living

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

USA 1933

91 min

Starring: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton and Isabel Jewell, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

Gilda (Hopkins) meets two young artists on a train in Paris: painter George (Cooper) and playwright Tom (March). Complications arises when both men fall in love with her, while she keeps up a liaison with both of them. She admits that she can't choose between them, so they make a gentleman's agreement: They will all three live under the same roof, but no sex can occur.

The ménage à trois seems to work, and Gilda becomes their artistic muse. But when Tom goes away to London to work on his successful play, Gilda and George are left alone with their frustrations. Around this time, Gilda proclaims that "It's true we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman.", and the carousel of relations suddenly spins at top gear, making all the contestants feel sick and confused, but no less a-mused.

What I like about Design for Living:

• The amazing actors and actresses, down to the bit parts. E. E. Horton is a comical genius playing the old friend of Gilda's, Max Plunkett, who only deeply cares about his social position. His stenographer is played by pretty Isabel Jewell, an actress that worked in a lot of great pictures (including Gone With the Wind. 1939), but seldom had any meaty parts. She is highlighted in Kate Gabrielle's Silents and Talkies [post] and Mark Clark's Film Noir Photos [post] blogs.
• Miriam Hopkins. When I first saw her in a film, I thought I would hate her. I always adored Bette Davis, and they are known to be each other's nemesises. But I can't avoid it - I like Hopkins. Her accent and voice is so charming, and she is a darn good actress with a lot of charisma.
• Tom's silly play. Hilarious.
• George's seriously good paintings. (I really want to believe that Cooper painted them in real life.)
• Two strikingly good-looking men in the leading parts. I understand Gilda's problem - I would have had trouble choosing too. I love their drinking scene, obstinately trying to find something to drink for every time they raise their glasses (which is frequently).
  
• "The Lubitsch Touch". Such a great picture! Probably impossible to get bored by, no matter how many re-runs of it you participate in.

What I don't like about Design for Living:

• Ehm... nothing? That I haven't seen enough of it, perhaps.

Italian film poster (transl: "Sunset).

Dark Victory

Director: Edmund Goulding

USA 1939

104 min

Starring: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Ronald Reagan, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

A spoiled 23 year old heiress, Judith (Davis), is faced with the fact that she is dying of a brain tumour. When Judith falls in love with her brain surgeon, she is afraid that he proposes to her out of pity.

Since we know from the beginning that Judith sooner or later has to die, the film focuses on the environment's inconvenient feelings toward the tragedy and how Judith tries to make the best out of the time she has left, rather than focusing on the question "Will they find a cure?" or "Will she really die?". A brilliant plot direction.

What I like about Dark Victory:

• A brilliant script, that doesn't chicken out with an un-realistic happy ending, as post-codes tend to do.
• Bette Davis in her probably best role. I can't see any other actress do the part of Judith as perfectly as Davis. Those big eyes of her hold a lot of emotions.
• Ronald Reagan. I mean, seriously. How mant other countried than the USA could make a presidant out of a, perhaps only decent, actor?
• Well, the rest of the amazing cast. George Brent is really growing on me as an actor (hadn't any opinion of him just a few months ago), and Geraldine Fitzgerald is amazing as the heartbroken best friend of Judith's.
• The ending. So sad, beautiful and artistic.

What I don't like about Dark Victory:

• How could Warner Bros do this to Humphrey Bogart? He is just so wrong as the Irish stableboy. His accent is embarrassing, and his part has really no great purpose in the film.

The Old Maid

Director: Edmund Goulding

USA 1939

95 min

Starring: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Donald Crisp, George Brent and Jane Bryan, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

A costume "woman drama" set in the days during and after the Civil War. Delia (Hopkins) is just about to be married when her previous fiancé Clem (Brent) comes home from the war. Delia breaks her engagement to him and goes on with the marriage, but her cousin and friend Charlotte (Davis) has feelings for Clem and spend time with him before he goes to war again. He is later killed in the war, and the next thing we know Charlotte runs an orphanage for children who lost their fathers in the war. Among those children are her and Clem's love child, Clementina, who for security purposes is adopted by Celia and raised as her own.

Charlotte moves in with Delia and her family and grows into an old maid, while her daughter Clementina only knows her as the stubborn, unsympathetic "aunt Charlotte".

What I like about The Old Maid:

• Donald Crisp. It feels almost surreal to watch him as a kind, child-loving doctor in this film, the day after I saw him as the tyrannic father in Broken Blossoms (see previous post)!
• Davis' and Hopkin's chemistry. They may not have likes each other in real life, but every scene they have together is almost magical. Perhaps the tension between them did it. Whatever the reason may be, we always feel the unsolved problems and unverbalized thoughts hanging in the air between them.
• Miriam Hopkins, again. She is a really great actress. I read that she was very difficult to work with, but you can't blame an artist for being eccentric, can you? Anyway, Hopkins is, like George Brent, growing on me big time.
• My Darling Clementine. The tunes of the song is played when Charlotte and Clementina have a scene together, and it's so heart tearing. Charlotte really loves her daughter, while Clementina never aknowledges her, except for complaining and yelling. (Nothing wrong with Jane Bryan, but the character is a horrible, spoiled brat.)
• Charlotte by the fire. When Charlotte practices her speach to Clementina when she comes home from the ball. At first she is the loving mother, then at an instant she changes into the strict aunt. An obvious proof of Davis' acting qualities.
• The final scene.

What I don't like about The Old Maid:

• George Brent dies. Okay, his characters can die, but not 20 minutes into the film! That was just brutal.
• Yes, the Clementina character. I want to hit her.