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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
dazzling Davis!, March 6, 2008
This is actually a re-packaged version of the first Warners' Bette Davis set (previously available as The Bette Davis Collection (The Star / Mr. Skeffington / Dark Victory / Now, Voyager / The Letter)). 2008 will mark Bette Davis's 100th birthday, and Warner Bros. is celebrating by re-releasing their first two Davis DVD box sets in brand-new packaging, to accompany the new third volume.
The set includes:
NOW, VOYAGER - Based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty. Charlotte Vale (Davis) flees her mother's suffocating grip and finds romance with a handsome divorcee (Paul Henreid). Co-starring Claude Rains and Gladys Cooper. Extra features: music scoring sessions.
MR. SKEFFINGTON - Based on a story by "Elizabeth". Davis shines as Fanny Trellis, a vain and self-centered beauty who only learns the lesson of true love after suffering the ravages of diphtheria. Extra features: "Mr. Skeffington - A Picture of Strength" documentary, and audio commentary by director Vincent Sherman.
THE STAR - Alcoholic washed-up diva Margaret Elliot (Davis) is saved by a former co-star (Sterling Hayden) and discovers a life beyond the false facade of Hollywood. Davis plays a thinly-veiled caricature of Joan Crawford! Extra features: "How Real is The Star?" documentary.
THE LETTER - Based on the novel by Somerset Maugham. Davis is Leslie Crosbie, a woman guilty of murdering her lover in cold blood. Although she later gets acquitted of the crime, vengeance is only a heartbeat away. Extra features: alternate ending, plus two Lux Theater radio presentations.
DARK VICTORY - Davis plays afflicted Judith Traherne, in a stirring portrait of courage under fire. A millionairess faced with a bleak prognosis, Judith decides to spend her final days with no regrets. Extra features: "1939 - Tough Competition for Dark Victory" documentary, plus audio commentary with James Ursini and Paul Clinton.
If you already own the previous release, there's no need to upgrade; it's the exact same content we had for the previous edition. Happy Birthday, Miss Davis!
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 MASTERPIECES FROM THE GREAT MS. DAVIS, June 7, 2005
This review is from: The Bette Davis Collection (The Star / Mr. Skeffington / Dark Victory / Now, Voyager / The Letter) (DVD)
I do not have the good fortune yet to have a copy of this set yet.
However, a friend of mine reviews DVDs for a living, and received it a few days ago. It is stunning.
Whereas previously the only DVD of DARK VICTORY was muddy,dirty, and downright ugly, Warner Bros. has restored it, and the difference is like "night and days". The new DVD is beautiful and one of Bette's best.
The previously released NOW, VOYAGER and THE LETTER are here, also, restored to their original theatrical glow in gorgeous presentations.
But, best of all, we get a bew to DVD transfer of the COMPLETE version of MR. SKEFFINGTON, with commentary from its (god-bless-him, 98 year old director, Mr. Vincent Sherman!). SKEFFINGTON was cut from its nearly 150 minute version to about 127 minutes soon after release, until 1988 when certain talented folks at MGM/UA knew that there WAS a longer version! And it was wonderful!
How lucky are we that Warner Home Video had the panache and taste to put this GREAT package together at such a value price!
Even if you have one of the old DVD versions, it makes sense to buy this new box as the price is hard to resist. 5 of Bette's best in a beautiful case for less than 50 bucks? Amazing!
Grab it!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is why I love Bette Davis movies--the summit, July 5, 2006
This review is from: The Bette Davis Collection (The Star / Mr. Skeffington / Dark Victory / Now, Voyager / The Letter) (DVD)
Bette Davis is close to my favorite actress. She drove studio boss Jack Warner nuts because of her uncanny ability to pick excellent properties that would challenge her as an actress and roles that her millions of fans would love her in. If Joan Crawford was a movie star who always insisted on looking glamorous, Davis was a serious and demanding actress who was not afraid to look awful if the role was great (MR. SKEFFINGTON, WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE).
Bette Davis is at her absolute peak in THE BETTE DAVIS COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE from Warner Home Video. DARK VICTORY (1939), THE LETTER (1940), NOW, VOYAGER (1942), MR. SKEFFINGTON (1944), and THE STAR (1952) all got her Best Actress Oscar nominations. In most cases, I feel she should have won over the eventual winner. Her performances hold up better.
Directed by Edmund Goulding (GRAND HOTEL), DARK VICTORY has Miss Davis as a young woman going blind from brain cancer. Made during Hollywood's greatest year, 1939, it is a supremely well made tearjerker that is too well acted by Bette to be depressing. Max Steiner did the music, Casey Robinson wrote the screenplay, and the co-stars include Geraldine Fitzgerald and Ronald Reagan.
THE LETTER, one of three masterpieces Bette Davis made with director William Wyler, is based on a W. Somerset Maugham story. It is about murder and adultery on a Southeast Asian rubber plantation. Nominated for seven Oscars, including Picture and Direction and Actress, this is a gorgeously photographed and gripping tale of a woman who kills her lover, then tries to get away with it. Herbert Marshall is flawless as her likeable husband and Henry Stephenson is her lawyer. With this, OF HUMAN BONDAGE, and THE RAZOR'S EDGE, Maugham hit gold with Hollywood adaptations of his work.
I adore NOW, VOYAGER. also written by Casey Robinson and directed by Irving Rapper. It may be Miss Davis' crowning achievement. She has a fabulous role as Charlotte Vale, who is a brow-beaten and timid spinster under harridan mother Gladys Cooper. But kindly sanitarium owner Claude Rains and likeable lover Paul Henreid (both the same year they did CASABLANCA) draw Charlotte out of her shell and make her love herself. She tells off Cooper ("If I am a guest in this house, then treat me like one!"), who meets a "stand up and cheer" bad end. Eventually, in one of the loveliest set of scenes she ever played, Davis' Charlotte gets to help draw Henreid's insecure young daughter out of HER shell. This tearjerker masterpiece is the film classic where Henreid keeps lighting two cigarettes and giving her one ("Shall we have a cigarette on it?") It is incomparable, maybe my all-time favorite Bette Davis movie.
MR. SKEFFINGTON, restored from 127 to 146 minutes, is one of Bette Davis' most neglected tearjerker masterpieces. It is an elegantly produced and written (Julius and Philip Epstein) feast of a soap opera that spans several decades of the early 20th Century in two-and-a-half hours. It is about a woman who is so beautiful that men flock to her and overlook her intense vanity. We are in 1914 on a movie that will go all the way to when it was made in 1944. When Davis' Fanny contracts disfiguring diptheria, only Claude Rains' Job Skeffington, her husband by then, stands by her. This movie knockout, another Davis film I truly love, was directed by Vincent Sherman, who is still with us at age 99. He does the audio commentary!
The fifth Bette Davis film in this pure gold boxed set from Warner Home Video is the little-known THE STAR, with Bette playing a variation of herself when the movie was made independently and on a low-budget in 1952. Oscar-winning actress Margaret Ellis is losing her looks, has bills to pay,.and no studio in Hollywood will give her a job. So she proudly takes humiliating work outside the film colony. Stuart Heisler directed an original screenplay by Katherine Alpert and Dale Eunson that may be one of the best movies ever made about the real workings of Hollywood. Sterling Hayden and an adolescent Natalie Wood co-star.
THE BETTE DAVIS COLLECTION (VOLUME ONE) is an absolute must-own feast for her fans, and at least a must-see for fans of vintage Hollywood B&W tearjerkers. This collection is the summit for me, and VOLUME TWO (also out now) is also worth seeing. Recipient of two Oscars and ten nominations, Davis has been done proud by these two boxed sets from Warner Home Video, the Rolls Royce of the DVD industry.
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