Customer Reviews

Bette Davis: The Performances That Made Her Great

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Peter McNally asks at the beginning of this paperback, "With all the books about Bette Davis, why another?" His response is that "This is the first to analyse specifically her performances in her top work". Well not really Mr McNally but it makes good marketing hype. Many of her biographies analyse in detail her greatest performances and one book, "Star Acting: Gish, Garbo, Davis" by Charles Affron uses shots from her films to analyse her development in contrast to the very different styles of Lillian Gish and Greta Garbo. You make many references to Affron's book in your text.

So having established that this book is not really "new", what do we have? Well we have an easily read and detailed analysis of Davis's most famous performances drawing upon many sources including personal views, reviews of the time and quotes from other film historians, usually sprinkled with more general anecdotes placing the film in the context of Davis's personal life at the time and the stage her career was at. McNally has been a fan of Davis from childhood and concludes she was the best film actress of the 20th Century after all other contenders are considered. He is able to demonstrate that her best work was not simply confined to her years at Warner Brothers (1932 to 1949) by including "The Catered Affair" (1956), "A Piano for Mrs Cimino" (1981), "Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter" (1979) and others. He easily demonstrates that Davis's famous mannerisms were always subsumed when she had a good script, a good director and a good production. His comments on "The Catered Affair" were pleasing. Davis's performance was panned in America when it was released maybe due to bias against her attempting such a role. As McNally states, if you did not know of Bette Davis, then you could not fail to approve of her brilliant character acting.

While the book is an easy read, there is evidence that further editing would have improved it. The plots of each films are described in detail which is probably OK given what the author is trying to do but it is unforgiveable that he would make mistakes in those synopses e.g. in "The Man Who Came To Dinner", he credits Davis as appearing in a very funny scene with Jimmy Durante, a sequence actually played by Monty Woolley. Also, quite often, McNally repeats himself, losing a logical flow in his discussion of the particular film, then reverting to that point on the next page. Possibly the best bits are the Forward and Afterword when Davis's total contribution is evaluated.

Maybe the greatest value of this volume would be to a young person who has seen Davis in one or 2 films but has no idea about the breadth and depth of her work. I have a niece who was overwhelmed by Davis in "All About Eve" and asked for more information about her. This book will be the perfect gift for her next birthday.

.unusual approach to Davis'career selecting her best performancesandgiving deep and appreciative insight to them all.\one of the and best books in my 25 collection and one I am always referring to. A great book