CONFLICT

Bogart contemplates his actions

CONFLICT (1945). Director: Curtis Bernhardt.

Richard Mason (Humphrey Bogart) has a bit of a problem. He's married to the somewhat demanding Kathryn (Rose Hobart of Mr. and Mrs. North), but hopelessly in love with her beautiful younger sister, Evelyn (Alexis Smith). What to do? What to do? The audience learns early on that Mason intends to murder his wife, but the fun is waiting to see how he does it, if he succeeds, and how and if he'll get caught. Bogart had no problem playing (somewhat sympathetic) villainous roles, as he also did in The Two Mrs. Carrolls (also with Alexis Smith), which his homely mug might have forced him to do in some alternate universe anyway. Bogart is fine, but he has formidable (in every sense of the word) competition from Sydney Greenstreet, as Dr. Hamilton, a friend of the Masons; Hobart and Smith are also good. The twists in the picture lead to a predictable but satisfying conclusion. Charles Drake plays a young professor who's in love with Evelyn, and you may not believe whom she prefers. Conflict is a smooth, well-played, and well-paced time-passer, thanks to director Bernhardt, and while not in the league of a Hitchcock classic, the picture holds the attention and has some suspense. Supposedly Jack Warner offered this script to Joan Crawford for her first Warner Brothers assignment and wanted her to play the role of Kathryn, which is really just a supporting part -- she wisely took Mildred Pierce instead. It would have been interesting to see Bogart and Crawford together, however.

Verdict: Bogie is a bad boy. **1/2.

JEANNE EAGELS

JEANNE EAGELS (1957). Director: George Sidney.

This lamentable biopic purports to be the life story of famous stage and screen actress Jeanne Eagels, but it comes off more like a travesty, almost a parody, of movie star biographies. Part of the problem is the casting and atrocious performance of Kim Novak, who has been seen to much better advantage in such movies as Vertigo and Middle of the Night. Apparently given no help at all in shaping her role by director George Sidney, Novak -- who does have a (very) few good moments -- portrays Eagels by lowering her voice an octave and developing an imperious manner and never seeming remotely human -- in fact at times she's more grotesque than anything else. She confuses over-acting with "Great Acting" and even has trouble with simple line readings. Although there was certainly enough drama in the real  Eagels's life, with two marriages, a drug problem, and death at 39, Jeanne Eagels needs to make up even more slanderous stuff (her family filed a law suit, but you can't libel the dead in the U.S.). In the movie an invented alcoholic actress named Elsie Desmond (a creditable Virginia Grey) brings Eagels the script for the play "Rain," hoping the latter will interest a producer in mounting the play as a comeback for her. Instead, Eagels steals the play away from Desmond, who then commits suicide. Eagels is seen as being similarly ruthless in other sequences as well. 

Agnes Moorehead with Novak

The two men in her life, one of whom she briefly marries, are portrayed by Jeff Chandler (who basically gives a good accounting of himself) and Charles Drake, who is okay as her husband. As Eagels' stern if loving acting coach, Agnes Moorehead gives a competent performance but at times seems affected by the movie's sheer badness. Murray Hamilton does his typical sleazy, oily, repulsive shtick as a vaudeville performer who tries to rape Jeanne. The movie mixes facts with fantasy, such as when Eagels is suspended from the stage for several months by Actors Equity (true) and has her running to vaudeville when she actually went to Hollywood to make (mostly silent) movies (one of which is inexplicably shown at the end of Jeanne Eagels, only it's a musical!). In actuality, Eagels had a triumph in the first sound version of The Letter, and was posthumously nominated for an Oscar, but this, incredibly, is never mentioned, even though it would have added up to an effective and bittersweet conclusion. Drake and Grey played a married couple in All That Heaven Allows and George Sidney also directed Bye Bye Birdie, for which he was more suited.

Verdict: Eagels certainly deserved better than this miserable schlock. *1/2.

AIR CADET

Upper classman Rock Hudson gives those cadets their orders

AIR CADET (1951). Director: Joseph Pevney.

Three men room together in the Air Force academy with the hopes of becoming top-notch pilots: Russ (Richard Long), Walter (Robert Arthur), and Joe (Alex Nicol), who was a sergeant in the Army but now finds he has to start proving himself all over again. An unnamed upper classman (Rock Hudson) seems to delight in making life miserable for them, especially Walter. But the real trouble begins when Russ becomes sweet on Janet (Gail Russell), who is separated from her husband Major Jack Page (Stephen McNally). And Page is one of the men who decides if Russ and the others make the grade or will be given the heave-ho.

Alex Nicol and Robert Arthur

There is an attempt to present some interesting drama in this story of the three cadets -- James Best plays a fourth cadet who is ousted from the program early on -- but it never really amounts to much. More interesting than the mild triangle business with Page, Janet, and Russ, is the sub-plot with Russ coming to partially blame Page for his brother's suicide (due to what today we would call post-traumatic stress disorder). Frankly, both men behave like assholes. There is, however, some terrific aerial shots, especially when the boys fly in formation with their planes only 18 feet apart throughout and one begins hurtling towards the ground. 

Gail Russell and Stephen McNally

Rock Hudson actually has little to do in the movie, but he does it very adeptly. McNally and Russell [The Uninvited] are top-billed and are more than satisfactory in their roles, while Richard Long gives one of his best performances as the troubled Russ. Alex Nicol [Heatwave] is professional, even if his character is somehow unlikable, but Robert Arthur [September Affair] is charming and appealing as the plucky "little guy" that most of the audience will be rooting for. Charles Drake is fine as another flying instructor, and Peggie Castle adds some "femme appeal" as a lady who can't seem to make up her mind between Nicol and Arthur.


Verdict: Acceptable aviation film with decent players and some good aerial shots. **1/4. 

SCREAM PRETTY PEGGY

Bette Davis

SCREAM PRETTY PEGGY (1973 telefilm). Director: Gordon Hessler. An ABC Movie of the Week.

Peggy Johns (Sian Barbara Allen) is a college student who takes a part-time job as a housekeeper for the aged, tippling Mrs. Elliott (Bette Davis) and her sculptor son, Jeffrey (Ted Bessell). Jeffrey tells the very curious -- indeed nosy and rather pushy -- Peggy that his sister, Jennifer, is insane and living in an apartment above the garage. A barely-seen female sneaks out at night to puncture people with a knife. George Thornton (Charles Drake of The Pretender) comes looking for his missing daughter and also encounters "Jennifer." Very aggressive Peggy makes up her mind to find out what's going on even though she hasn't got a clue. Scream Pretty Peggy, co-written by Jimmy Sangster, has some interesting, if unoriginal, macabre elements to it, but the ending is painfully obvious almost from the start, and Bessell [Billie] is given the most embarrassing role of his career, although his performance is better than you might expect. Allen is overly perky, but competent, and Davis phones in her performance aside from her well-delivered final speech. A far cry from Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte indeed. Hessler's direction provides little help although the pic is entertaining enough.

Verdict: Fun to see Davis but this is a bit of a "drag." **1/2.

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953). Director: Jack Arnold.

Astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) sees what he thinks is a meteorite crash to earth, but discovers it is actually a spaceship. When a rock slide covers up the entrance to a cave inside which the ship is hidden, Putnam finds that few people will believe what he saw. His girlfriend, Ellen (Barbara Rush) stands by him, but the local sheriff (Charles Drake), who also seems to have a yen for Ellen, is adamant that Putnam is nuts. Before too long the aliens, who can resemble humans, make their presence known in frightening ways. It Came from Outer Space is a creepy, very well-directed sci-fi thriller that also has a thoughtful sub-text of small-town conformity versus open-minded imagination, with Putnam and Drake representing the opposite poles. Director Arnold, as he often did, makes good use of the desert milieu. The performances are fine, and the fifties-type effects more than serviceable. There are some confusing aspects to the movie, however, such as Putnam's reaction when the alien reveals his true form to him, even though it appears that both he and Ellen have already seen the space beings in their natural form (which may have influenced the nastier aliens in The Crawling Eye). There is no on-screen credit for the composers, but the effective score was obviously influenced by Herrmann's work on The Day the Earth Stood Still.  A scene when Ellen is frightened by what is obviously a little boy dressed as a space cadet makes her seem mildly demented. Jack Arnold also directed the desert-oriented Tarantula.

Years ago I read an analysis of this film in which the author asserts that one sequence shows how the aliens aren't really that familiar with our species, citing an alleged sequence when two line men (Joe Sawyer; Russell Johnson) walk down the street holding hands. While this is certainly intriguing, this scene does not appear in the movie, and never did.

Verdict: I had forgotten how entertaining the darn thing is! ***.

TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN

Lex Baker took over the role of Tarzan

TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN (1949). Director: Lee Sholem.

Aviatrix Gloria James (Evelyn Ankers of The Pearl of Death) disappeared twenty years before but her plane and diary are found by Tarzan. Since James' testimony is required to free a jailed man, Tarzan goes to a hidden city -- full of what could best be described as white Aztec-Romans -- to bring Gloria back, and discovers she hasn't aged a day in all those years. Naturally there are unscrupulous people who hope to discover the Fountain of Youth, such as Trask (Albert Dekker) and Dodd (Charles Drake). In a development that borrows from Lost Horizon, Gloria ages as soon as she gets home, and returns to Africa with her husband, Douglas (Alan Napier), where the two hope that Tarzan will guide them back to the Blue Valley where she lived all of those years. But Tarzan is opposed to the plan, and some nasty residents of the hidden city -- against the orders of their leader, the High One (David Bond) -- do their best to kill him and anyone else who knows of the pathway to their valley. Tarzan's Magic Fountain was Lex Barker's first appearance as Tarzan, and he's fine, playing it in the nearly monosyllabic mode popularized by Johnny Weissmuller. Brenda Joyce, who replaced Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane in the last Weissmuller movies, returns as Barker's Jane, but this was her last appearance in the role -- and her last picture, as she promptly retired from the movie business. Johnny Sheffield as Boy had already left the series and turned into Bomba, and he was not replaced in the role. Tarzan's Magic Fountain has an interesting premise, but not a lot is done with it, and the screenplay is mediocre, as is the direction; Lee Sholem mostly directed TV episodes. The ever-versatile Henry Brandon plays one of the Blue Valley natives who wants to kill Tarzan for allegedly giving away the secret location of their city; Rick Vallin is another one of those natives. Elmo Lincoln, one of the first Tarzan's, supposedly plays a fisherman, but he is not credited. Cheetah's cutest scene of many is her encounter with bubble gum. When she regains her youth at the end of the movie, she turns into a different species of ape! Albert Dekker and Charles Drake also appeared together in The Pretender.

Verdict: Barker is fine, but it's an inauspicious debut for him. **1/2.

THE PRETENDER

Charles Drake, Albert Dekker, Catherine Craig

THE PRETENDER (1947). Director: W. Lee Wilder.

Kenneth Holden (Albert Dekker) has been steadily "borrowing" funds from a trust set up for his client, Claire Worthington (Catherine Craig). It seems the only way Kenneth can save himself from disaster and criminal prosecution is by marrying Claire. Unfortunately, Kenneth has a rival in Dr. Leonard Koster (Charles Drake), so he decides to hire an unknown hit man to kill him. But when the rather selfish Claire agrees to marry Ken, it occurs to him that now he will be the target of the hired killer. What to do? ... Dekker  [Destination Murder] and Craig [Doomed to Die]  give good lead performances in this, and there are a host of flavorful character actors, such as Charles Middleton as the butler, William. Serial heroine Linda Stirling [The Tiger Woman] appears as Flo. The photography by John Alton is a plus.

Verdict: Fair to middling crime drama. **1/2.

THE MONEY JUNGLE

John Ericson and Leslie Parrish

THE MONEY JUNGLE (1967). Director: Francis D. Lyon.

Four geologists are killed in suspicious "accidents" and it all seems tied in to whether or not a certain field contains oil. The board of directors of the Jumbo Oil Co. hire private investigator Blake Heller (John Ericson) to look into the murders and other matters. As he proceeds with his investigation the murders continue, until an unexpected assailant is revealed. The Money Jungle pulls you along without ever developing into a good movie. On the production level it resembles a failed TV pilot, but apparently that is not the case, and there's not a trace of style or panache to be found. Luke Heller is not your typical private eye with a seedy office, many bills, and hordes of panting women (although there are a couple). Heller lives in a large, expensive house, obviously makes big bucks dealing with corporate espionage and the like, and generally kisses women on the cheek or forehead. Frankly, this might have actually made a good series, it it had been well-handled. Ericson [Honey West] is okay as Heller, and the interesting cast includes Nehemiah Persoff [The Wild Party], Don Rickles, Lola Albright [Peter Gunn] and Leslie Parrish. Persoff and Rickles are fine, while Parrish offers an oddly subdued and relatively ineffective performance. Lola Albright is a lousy singer, but she's quite vivid in her turn as one of Heller's acquaintances. Charles Drake, Kent Smith and Michael Forest have smaller roles and are all good.

Verdict: Done with a bit of flair this might have amounted to something. **.

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967). Director: Mark Robson.

Three young women either in, or on the fringes of, show business endure heartbreak of varying kinds and turn to pills for comfort. Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) has a complicated relationship with her boss, Lyon Burke (Paul Burke). Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) gains success but turns into a drug-addicted monster. Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) falls in love with a singer, Tony (Tony Scotti), who must be institutionalized due to a rare illness; then she develops breast cancer. I remember that Jacqueline Susann's novel was a very entertaining potboiler, but the film version is not so successful. There is certainly enough drama and tragedy in the story to make an effective movie, but the direction and editing, and some of the third-rate acting, really sink the production. The sense of time passing is never clearly delineated, and it seems apparent that a lot has been left on the cutting room floor. Barbara Parkins' [Asylum] blandness seems to work for the role of the "good girl;" ill-fated Sharon Tate is not much of an actress; and as for Patty Duke ...? Let's say that the character Duke is playing is horrible, and that she is miscast to begin with, but even with that in mind Duke's performance is pretty much an embarrassment. Duke self-consciously "acts" all through the movie, and acts badly for the most part; she simply can't do a convincing drunk and when she sings with a dubbed voice she looks spastic. Paul Burke [The Disembodied] is not bad but Martin Milner sinks to Duke's level as O'Hara's husband. Charles Drake doesn't appear long enough to make much of an impression, but he's fine. The cast members who come off best are Susan Hayward as a Broadway star; Lee Grant as the afflicted Tony's sister; and Robert H. Harris as Burke's business partner. Tony Scotti is barely acceptable as Jennifer's husband -- this was his only film appearance -- and Richard Dreyfuss of Jaws appears briefly as a stagehand. A scene when Neely O'Hara, who is drying out in the same sanitarium where Tony must live, encounters him in the lounge and they sing together, comes off more treacly than moving. The scene most people remember is a bitchy encounter between Duke and Hayward in the ladies room. The screenplay betrays decidedly sixties attitudes towards homosexuality, and the whole business of referring to pills as "dolls" is ridiculous. The theme song by Andre and Dory Previn isn't memorable, and there are other really lousy numbers as well. This was remade as a mini-series in 1981 -- I recall it being better than this film -- and to my surprise it was also a TV series with 65 episodes in 1994. Robson also directed the film version of Peyton Place, which is superior to this.

Verdict: Not very many redeeming qualities. **.

FEMALE ON THE BEACH

FEMALE ON THE BEACH (1955). Director: Joseph Pevney.

Drummer: "How do you like your coffee?"

Lynn: "Alone!"

Wealthy widow Lynn Markham (Joan Crawford) moves into a beautiful beach house her husband owned that had formerly been leased to another wealthy widow, Eloise Crandell (Judith Evelyn). Eloise took a header off the deck onto the rocks below, and homicide is suspected, and the chief suspect is a handsome hustler named Drummer (Jeff Chandler), who has now set his sights on Lynn. Drummer has two sleazy associates who pretend to be his aunt and uncle, Osbert (Cecil Kellaway) and Queenie (Natalie Schafer), but Lynn gives the both of them a good dressing down. Unfortunately, Drummer has something the other two don't have, and that's sex appeal, so Lynn finds herself falling for the guy despite her better instincts. But has she stepped out of the frying pan into the fire? Female on the Beach has a workable premise and some good dialogue, but something's missing, and that's veracity and in-depth characterization. As essayed by Crawford, Lynn seems too smart not to walk away from Drummer when he says things like "I don't hate woman -- I just hate the way they are." True, it takes him some time to wear away her resistance, with her telling him initially "You're about as friendly as a suction pump!" The two leads aren't bad, although in some of their scenes talking of the past they seem like college students in an acting class. Kellaway [The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms] and Schafer [Repeat Performance] are fine, as is Jan Sterling [Johnny Belinda] as a real estate lady and former flame of Drummer's. Evelyn [Rear Window] makes an impression despite her limited screen time -- the opening and a couple of flashbacks. Charles Drake shows up now and then as a cop investigating Eloise's suspicious death [one has to wonder how such a tiny, frail thing as Evelyn could cause such damage to a wooden railing even if she were jet-propelled through it?] Female on the Beach is somewhat entertaining, but it's cheap, tawdry, and often unbelievable. Pevney also directed Man of a Thousand Faces with James Cagney. As an actor he appeared in such films as Body and Soul.

Verdict: Flaccid suspenser. **1/2.

THE SCREAMING WOMAN

THE SCREAMING WOMAN (1972 telefilm). Director: Jack Smight.

Wealthy widow Laura Wynant (Olivia de Havilland) has just returned from a stay in a sanitarium when she encounters a strange little dog while out walking on her property, and then hears a woman calling for help from below the ground. Laura tries to get her family, staff and police to take her seriously, but no one will believe her, thinking she's "nuts," and when they finally go out to investigate, hear nothing. In spite of this Laura is determined to free the poor buried woman before she dies, and when she can't do it herself tries to enlist the aid of some neighbors, one of whom knows more about the situation than she suspects ... The Screaming Woman is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury which was adapted [probably more than once] for the infamous EC comics back in the fifties. [I believe in the original story the protagonist is a child given to tall tales.] This version is intriguing, although it runs out of gas long before the expected finale. Another problem is that the audience knows all along that Laura isn't imagining things because we're shown the woman under the ground at the beginning. Along with de Havilland there are some other familiar faces, including Ed Nelson as a neighbor, Walter Pidgeon as Laura's doctor, Charles Drake as another embittered neighbor, and Lonny Chapman as the police sergeant. Charles Robinson is Laura's son; Laraine Stephens is his hateful wife; and Alexandra Hay is a young woman who is friends with Nelson. This was presented as an ABC "Movie of the Week." Miss de Havilland [spelled DeHavilland in the credits] is adequate but then this is not exactly The Heiress.

Verdict: Acceptable TV thriller. **1/2.

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS

Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955). Director: Douglas Sirk.

"As Freud says, when we reach a certain age sex becomes incongruous."

""You were ready for a love affair, but not for love."

Cary Scott (Jane Wyman), a small-town widow approaching middle age, finds a second chance for happiness with a somewhat younger gardener named Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson). Even though Ron has his own successful business, he is seen as a poor choice for Cary, whose first husband was an affluent businessman. While the town busybodies gossip, even wrongly suggesting that something was going on between Cary and Ron even before Mr. Scott's death, Cary's son, Ned (William Reynolds), and daughter, Kay (Gloria Talbott), have strenuous objections to their mother's relationship with Ron. Concerned about her children's feelings, Cary makes a fateful decision, only to discover her children haven't time to give much thought to their mother's feelings. [A great scene has the children giving Cary a television set for Christmas, and the camera pulls in toward her sad reflection in the screen as she realizes this TV is meant to be her "companionship" for the future.] Jane Wyman gives an excellent and sensitive performance that holds up through all of the plot contrivances, and Hudson, if not on his co-star's level, is good and romantic and at the height of his male beauty. This is a typically handsome Ross Hunter production with picture postcard Technicolor cinematography. The screenplay tries [and fails] for added depth by making Kirby a Thoreau addict who tries, along with his friends Mick and Alida (Charles Drake and Virginia Grey), to turn aside from mindless ambition and enjoy life's simpler pleasures. [Only in a Hollywood movie can people who eschew the rat race and Keeping Up With The Jones' live in such utterly sumptuous surroundings. Anyone who lives in a reconverted, refurbished mill house has to have bucks.] That being said, there is some good dialogue and supporting performances from such as Gloria Talbott [as the constantly psychoanalyzing daughter], William Reynolds, Donald Curtis as a lecherous suitor, and Agnes Moorehead as Cary's good friend, Sarah. Jacqueline DeWit is the bitchy Mona, who dishes dirt on everyone, Nestor Paiva is one of Ron's circle of friends, and David Janssen is Kay's boyfriend. Although the film makes some attempt at dealing with ageism, it's also guilty of it in its treatment of Harvey (Conrad Nagel), who is Cary's steady date. Harvey may be twenty years older than Cary, but it's still a bit ludicrous to suggest that a man in his late fifties [as Nagel was] would settle for a sexless marriage with a younger woman, as Harvey more or less suggests. Setting aside these and other quibbles, All That Heaven Allows is not without appeal, although it is nowhere near as good as a similar vehicle with Barbara Stanwyck, My Reputation. Nice Frank Skinner score with classical themes.

Verdict:  Attractive soap opera with compelling leads [if for different reasons]. ***.

BACK STREET (1961)

BACK STREET (1961). Director: David Miller.

"There isn't a marriage in the world where one doesn't love more than the other."

NOTE: This review contains spoilers. The third film version of Fannie Hurst's novel [earlier versions appeared in 1932 and 1941] makes just about every mistake conceivable in adapting the material. Rae Smith (Susan Hayward) falls in love with soldier Paul Saxon (John Gavin) without realizing that he's already married. She is going to fly to New York with him to start a new life, but misses the plane. They meet up years later and resume their affair while Paul's conveniently drunken and nasty wife (Vera Miles) insists she'll never give him a divorce. The first problem with the picture is that mistresses, while still capable of raising eyebrows, were not quite as scandalous in the sixties as they were in the thirties, forties and earlier. Another problem is that the life-long affair of the novel and other two film versions only occupies a few years in this version. The wife, mostly unseen in earlier versions, was never supposed to be a shrew but a perfectly nice person, one of the reasons the married man never divorces her. The earlier film versions concentrated on the loneliness endured by women in back street affairs, but Hayward has a successful career and lots of friends. Worst of all, in this version the married man's son is just a child, incapable of eventually reaching an understanding as regards to his father and the other woman he loved, (making the ending all the more inexplicable). In the first two film versions, Walter/Paul was only engaged and decided to marry Ray/Rae, but in this version he wants her to run off to New York with him without first telling her he's got a wife! At the end, after his and his wife's death in an accident, his very young children suddenly show up at his mistress' door and want to be friends with her -- which makes absolutely no sense at all [their being orphans notwithstanding]! At the time of filming Hayward was 44 and Gavin was 30 and the difference in their ages quite apparent, but the script unwisely ignores it. Hayward, who seems justifiably bored with the material, just goes through the motions for the most part. Gavin makes an effort and is acceptable. Miles comes off the best, with good support from Virginia Grey, Charles Drake, Natalie Schafer, Reginald Gardiner, and Robert Eyer as the son.The liveliest scene has Miles invading a charity auction to make snide remarks about Hayward and carry on in supremely bitchy fashion.

Verdict: A completely unnecessary remake that shows some promise at first but gets more tedious with every passing minute. **.

NOW, VOYAGER

NOW, VOYAGER (1942). Director: Irving Rapper.

“No member of the Vale family has ever had a nervous breakdown.”

If you take the time to analyze this classic soap opera, you might find yourself wondering why you enjoyed it so much, as it is certainly full of moments both contrived and overly convenient, yet it works from start to finish on an emotional level, in no large part (although not exclusively) due to Max Steiner's memorable, intensely romantic musical score [which he recycled for at least one later movie]. Bette Davis gives one of her best performances – she is not as affected and mannered as she is in The Little Foxes, for instance -- as Charlotte Vale, who is dominated by a mother (Gladys Cooper) almost as bad as the old lady in Night Must Fall. Getting psychological treatment (it's never really specified what this consists of, although weaving is one of the components), and a major make over (it's also never specified who does this for her), her doctor (Claude Rains) suggests she open herself to life by taking an ocean cruise. There she meets a man (Paul Henreid) – unfortunately married -- who helps bring her out of her shell and feel attractive for what she suggests is the first time in her life (she obviously has forgotten her own flashback in which she relates her romance with a handsome wireless operator [Charles Drake] on a ship when she was twenty). Even though Henreid's wife sounds like a neurotic monster who is jealous and unloving of her own daughter, it never occurs to the man that a divorce might be in the offing. Certainly his daughter wouldn't be adversely affected by this, as she winds up meeting and loving Charlotte when she goes for a spell to – would you believe it -- the very same sanitarium where Charlotte got her “cure” (Charlotte has returned there after the emotional turmoil of her mother's death, which she unfairly blames on herself). Recognizing Henreid's child, another “ugly duckling,” Charlotte takes the girl under her wing and helps her, too, to blossom. In the famous ending -- “let's not ask for the moon, we have the stars” Charlotte tells Henreid – you get the impression that it won't be long until this supposedly wonderful man realizes which woman he should be spending his life with. This may not be a “serious,” profound drama, but the darn thing is nevertheless poignant and affecting because it deals in its own way with such compelling themes as loneliness; fitting in; the traps in choosing the right path in life and love; being cut off from the one person you need the most etc. It also has always struck a chord in the audience because of its intelligent exploitation of the ugly duckling/Cinderella aspect of the storyline: the hopeless geek makes good. Despite its many dumb moments, the well-acted and handsomely produced Now, Voyager is a cut above most of the other “Oh, how the rich suffer!” movies of the thirties and forties. Although it never could be said that Bette Davis was a genuinely beautiful woman, in some shots of this film she is genuinely stunning.

Verdict: Great Old Soap Opera. ***.