Customer Reviews

Of Human Bondage

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Yes, this movie is "dated" in a stylistic sense, but so what. Davis and Howard are both so good it doesn't matter. And there is nothing dated about being hopelessly "in bondage" to something or someone - that realization is ultimately what makes the movie so depressing to watch. We can "identify" with Phillip's horrendous treatment at the hands of Mildred because he is obsessed beyond his ability to respond rationally.

The film's most famous line...."You cad!, you dirty swine! I never cared for you not once! I was always makin' a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff, I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!"..... is so emotionally charged and devastating one can not help but relate to it at a gut level. The viewer is completely drawn in to Phillip's psyche and his unbearable pain. Davis is simply brilliant in this movie, and she utters this line as convincingly as any in her illustrious career.

A five-star movie which I have to rate 4 because of the poor DVD transfer. No better than my VHS copy. Perhaps not much can be done to improve a movie this old but it appears that no effort was made to do so.

Otherwise a classic in every sense.

Of Human Bondage, based on the novel by Somerset Maugham, is a powerful but melancholy film that I find strangely mesmerizing. Leslie Howard stars as Philip Carey, an introverted, artistic man who comes to London to study medicine after abandoning his dreams of becoming an artist in Paris. Carey was born with a club foot, and we watch rather mortified as one of his instructors makes him show his foot to the class, revealing the embarrassment that he normally keeps contained on the outside. One day in a nearby café, Carey sees waitress Mildred Rogers (played fabulously by Bette Davis), a rather ill-natured, brazenly taciturn waitress. Her attitude is rather rude and certainly strange and cold, but Carey is immediately fascinated by her. After inexplicably falling in love with Mildred, he succeeds in winning a few dates with her, putting up with her mind games, deception, and seeming lack of humanity. She is frustratingly noncommittal in everything he asks her, replying "I don't mind" to virtually all of his questions and allowing him almost no emotional contact with her at all. He finally resolves to ask her to marry him, but she shocks him by declaring her impending nuptials to another man. Carey's depression grows, and his grades in medical school suffer horribly. In time, he finds a young woman who is a bit matronly but genuinely cares for him. Then Mildred shows up again, pregnant and alone. He takes care of her with money he doesn't really have only to see her leave again with another man. This trend continues throughout the story. Whenever Carey finds happiness within his grasp, Mildred shows up unannounced, and he finds himself powerless to save himself from her debilitating influence on him.

Carey and Mildred are complicated creatures. While Mildred basically comes off as an unfeeling tramp, one can't help but believe that there is something human inside her that is genuinely attracted to Carey and the kind of gentlemanly life he can offer her, but her affections continually prove themselves fickle at best. As for Carey, his fatalistic love for Mildred makes no sense whatsoever, as she never fails to treat him harshly. Other women do come to love him deeply and truly, and Sally, the daughter of one of his patients, seems perfect for him, yet one strongly senses the fact that he can only truly love Mildred. It is really that part of the story and not the tragic life of Mildred herself which makes this movie so poignant and sad.

Of Human Bondage is the movie that made Bette Davis a verifiable star way back in 1934. Her performance is certainly fantastic, but she really provides only a hint of the actress she would become. The fact that her character is so impossibly self-serving and unfeeling makes it hard to identify with or like her (especially when she gets angry), yet Bette Davis makes her an unforgettable character of almost hypnotic fascination. I should say that Leslie Howard is also wonderful in this movie. The kind of aloof passive resistance he showed five years later in Gone With the Wind is a perfect match for the character of Philip Carey. He is almost incapable of standing up to fate, allowing his life to be brought to the point of ruin, both financial and emotional, by a woman who seemingly lives to torment him. I'm always left with a strange feeling after watching this movie, one of strange disquiet and sentimentality. Released in 1934, Of Human Bondage remains a powerful and compelling story of human passion, and Bette Davis' performance is eternally magical.

If you take into account when this film was made and that the film medium was still developing its language, you'll likely enjoy "Of Human Bondage". It's well acted and- with its wide array of "let's see what we can do" directorial tricks and flourishes- entertainingly told.

Leslie Howard gives a low-key, effective performance, but it's Bette Davis who really shines. Ms. Davis realized correctly that it should be somewhat confusing to the other characters- and to us- why Leslie Howard's Philip character is so taken with her character, so she grounds her character with a kind of plainness and commonality. But she also realizes that there should be SOMETHING that we as viewers can touch on, so we can at least somewhat understand what is going on inside Philip. So Ms. Davis peppers the plainness of her character with occasional glints of edge, ice, passion, etc., things that a man would notice and be moved by, both in a positive and negative manner. These little glints of uniqueness nicely build to an emotional explosion at the end, so the quiet waitress and schemer doesn't all of a sudden become the bitter harpy who is so memorable at the end. It's a really effective performance, taking into account the future progression of the character right from the beginning.

Now the bad news. This particular DVD of the Bette Davis/Leslie Howard "Of Human Bondage" (the DVD company is called "Westlake") delivers a truly sub-par copy of this historic movie. It's watchable, but- with its faded print and scratchy soundtrack- barely so. There are also several close-ups of written letters in the film, and good luck trying to read them off the faded image.

So that's it in a nutshell. Great movie, lousy DVD. If there's any justice, a better DVD of this movie exists somewhere out there, or at least is on the way.

Those who have read Maughm's OF HUMAN BONDAGE agree that the greatness of the book is focused on the tight yet oddly bound relation of Phillip Carey to Mildred Rogers. The 1934 version intensifies the electricity between the club-footed Phillip (Leslie Howard) and the sluttish Mildred (Bette Davis). It is not immediately apparent that there is a connection between them that cannot be explained away as blind infatuation on Phillip's part or mean-spirited golddigging on Mildred's. Howard plays Phillip as a man who has suffered all his life. He was born with a club foot for which his childhood companions unmercifully ridiculed him. His shy, overly sensitive nature did not permit him to rebound from these rebukes. Instead, he sought refuge in a world of dream-filled books. He knew nothing of the kind of woman that Mildred was when she stepped into his life as a cheap waitress in a cheap restaurant. Miss Davis also plays Mildred as one who has been raked over the coals of mean-spirited men. But in her case, her good looks combined with her low-caste breeding practically guaranteed her unchivalrous treatment by the very kind of those men who either used her or were in turn used by her. Phillip sees in Mildred the passion that he lacks. She sees in him yet another opportunity to lash back at a world that contained only pain for her. Nearly as soon, as Mildred begins dating Phillip, she dates others, and does not even try to hide her infidelities. Alan Hale and Reginald Denny sparkle in the roles of men who show no shame in lowering the already low esteem of Phillip Carey. Most of the film details the same dreary rounds of Mildred's breaking Phillip's heart with unspeakably cruel actions, leaving him for another, getting dumped by those others, and returning contritely to Phillip. Phillip takes her back even after he has found some happiness with other women.Director John Cromwell presents a view of two people who seem radically unlike in everything that ought to count in a relation, yet in her desire to lash out in a rage fueled by no self-esteem and in his desire to accept that abuse because of his own esteem issues, OF HUMAN BONDAGE indelibly portrays the destruction that results when one human forms a bondage with another all for the wrong reasons.

I'm not commenting on the quality of the movie itself, but of the DVD. This DVD has been taken from a worn-out, scratchy, blurry, indistinct print. Other reviewers have commented that there is no discernible difference between VHS and DVD versions; no doubt there has been no movement by any organization or company to locate a better print. Beware of buying this for more than "cheapie, budget"prices. I recommend renting the DVD if you must see the movie; otherwise I'd be patient and wait for the day the movie is "rediscovered" and issued properly so that it can actually be seen and heard.

Bette Davis became a star with her role in this first and best film adaptation of the Somerset Maughan novel of the same name (well worth a read). This was her first nomination for an Academy Award, for her portrayal of Mildred Rogers; a tawdry, sluttish, cockney waitress who bewitches hapless Philip Carey (Leslie Howard, best known for his role as Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With the Wind"). She lost the award, receiving it for her role the following year for "Dangerous", which is generally viewed as a consolation prize.

The supporting cast includes Reginald Denny, Alan Hale Sr. (father of Alan Hale Jr., who was the skipper on the TV series "Giligan's Isle"), and a breathtakingly beautiful Frances Dee.

The film starts out with Philip, a failed art student with a clubfoot of which he is highly sensitive, turning to the study of medicine after facing the fact that he has no artistic talent. Shortly thereafter he meets and quickly becomes obsessed with Mildred, despite her sneering and obvious disdain for him because of his deformity. Her standard response to his affectionate overtures is a chilly "I don't mind." In his dreams Mildred is sweet and kind to him; during real time she uses him, well aware of his affection for her, leaving him for other men and returning when she is down on her luck, ruining his chance for having a career or a normal life with another woman; he seems to continually finds himself inexorably drawn to her, even after his love for her has waned, until the day she finally pushes him too far, and he says, "You disgust me."

With those words, the camera fully turns to Mildred as her facial expression shifts from suppliance to surprise to full-on b**ch in a matter of seconds, and she reacts to Philip's statement with a barrage of blood-curdling insults. Bette Davis as Mildred never fails to raise the hair on the back of my neck and arms with her performance in this particular scene. Below is a link to hear a very small clip from it; of course to get the full effect you really have to see and hear the film, and this scene especially, in its entirety. This is the role that made Davis a star. It's also one of my all-time favorite Davis films, along with such others as "The Little Foxes", "The Letter", and "All About Eve".

Charged with electricity, intensity and style, it is no wonder that "Of Human Bondage" made Bette Davis the star we have all come to know and love (and love to hate) today. Mildred Rogers, a trampy waitress, uses and abuses a hapless man she meets, to get what she wants. You love to hate the character Davis portrays and though her cockney accent is at times noticeably put-on, she slides through the part with tremendous ease, taking charge of the screen, and Leslie Howard (the man she uses) and makes this movie all her own. She dared to do things no other actress would attempt to do and it is certainly clear why so many actresses turned down the role of Mildred when it was first suggested a film be made from W. Somerset Maugham's novel. She is not portrayed in the glamorous, beautiful sense that most actresses were portrayed in (regardless of character) back in the early 1930s and before. However, Bette Davis does capture your hearts, despite her portrayal and the scene in which she verbally bashes Leslie Howard is incredible.

"Of Human Bondage" is a long novel which is said to contain many biographical elements from the life of its author W Somerset Maugham. RKO filmed many such novels in the early to mid thirties. The films were always literate and slow moving and often directed by John Cromwell. This movie focuses on a section of the novel when the disabled Philip Carey falls in lust with the sluttish waitress Mildred Rogers. For those who have read and enjoyed the novel, the film captures it very well. For those who have not, the film will seem talky and turgid.

Leslie Howard is perfectly cast as Philip but Bette Davis wipes him off the celluloid as Mildred. In 1934, Davis's style, where she acts with every pore of her body, her stance, her eyes and even her inexpert Cockney accent were a revelation which shocked the critics and public. Nothing like this had even been seen before. For some of the audience at the time, the film was considered "dirty" because Davis's character was so repellant and Howard's obsession with her was masochistic.

Cromwell uses a plethora of close ups to study the faces of the cast and it is very effective. There is also a lovely Max Steiner theme which permeates the drama. The film also benefits from a first rate supporting cast. Kay Johnson creates a fully realised character in just a few scenes as a girl who falls for Howard in between his interludes with Davis. There is a memorable moment when she leans against a door and delivers a piece of dialogue which makes your heart bleed. The contrast to the raw Davis is very effective. The young Frances Dee, the girl with whom Howard ends the film, is also very effective and breathtakingly beautiful. The sets also capture the dreary atmosphere of grey England with small cluttered apartments and rain soaked weather.

The climax of the film is the diatribe which Davis delivers to Howard. It still resonates with the power which Davis generates. It is shocking and perverse, an extraordinary scene for 1934 Hollywood.

The DVD print I have has been digitally restored and is by far the best copy of the film I have ever seen and very good, given that the negative of the film has long been lost. The other "so called" extras are a short essay on Davis and her films which is so inaccurate to be hilarious.

This film offers excellent portraits of three very different women. Each woman is connected to the clubfoot milquetoast Philip, played exquisitely by Leslie Howard.

Norah (Kay Johnson) is a striking Nordic beauty. She writes Romance novels under a male pseudonym. She is strong, devoted and demonstrates her love for Philip by insisting that focus on his medical studies. This means nothing to Philip because Norah's love takes on mundane characteristics. It isn't full of histrionics or morbid devotion.

Sally (Frances Dee) is quite young and fickle in her way. She seems fascinated with Philip and appears "fond" of him. However, she lacks any passion whatsoever and comes across as merely a mirror image of Philip. She's capable and strong, but ultimately dull. She's not the kind of girl one goes mad over or that causes one to nearly flunk out of medical school because he can't stop obsessing over her.

Those afflictions attack our hero because of Mildred, famously played by Bette Davis and her flickering Cockney accent. Mildred is unencumbered by almost every affectation expected in polite society of the well-bred woman. Mildred is ill-bred, snotty, corrosive, opportunistic and terminally bored. Philip falls into the psycic sewer for her and she gives him nothing for his troubles but frustration and heartbreak. He stupidly loves her and she sees it all to clearly. She sees it as a weakness and despises him for it.

The clubfoot plays an interesting psychological role in this film. There is suggestion that Philip suffers from a clubfoot of the mind--something that has emotionally crippled him and turned him into a pathetic ladies blouse who is quite unmanly in his inability to cast women aside when they no longer serve any purpose.

Overall, it is difficult to recognize love in this film. There is very little affection on screen. Sex is, of course, only implied.

There is a marvellous musical sequence that comes just after one of Mildred's many betrayals. The music fits perfectly with Philip's wan dejection. His depression is expressed with expert clarity, and it is a stunning moment in an thoroughly enjoyable film.

The story is not the problem. Davis and Howard are not the problem. That is not why I gave it 4 stars. The problem is that the film is badly in need of proper restoration. Poor sound and picture quality gives it 1 star in that category. Hasn't someone produced a better restored version yet after all these years and how many DVD reproductions later!!??