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8 of 8 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
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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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
How NICE for Eve. How NICE for EVERYBODY!!, July 25, 2005
This box-set really is a must-have for all Bette fans. Bar the titles already on DVD - and if you find that in buying this set that you will end up with some doubles, get it anyway, it's excellent value at under $40 - the rest of the movies are really some of Bette's best efforts, and are well-worth your hard-earned cash.
Rather than a lengthy mini-review of each title, let me just say that overall: The Star is possibly the weakest of the movies contained herein, and it is still a fantastically entertaining piece of film. It's funny, touching, and a fascinating look at a long-dead Hollywood system. Also, the rumours that the character and portrayal were based on Joan Crawford are completely proven here!! Dark Victory, in my opinion, is the strongest film - as an Actress, Ms. Davis' performance here is far better than merely Oscar-worthy - it's Oscar-defining. Never OTT or melodramatic, it's a strong testament to the power of this particular performance that it's every bit as emotionally relevant today as it was when it was made - some sixty-five years ago!!
The DVD quality, I have to say, blew me away. These remastered movies are sharp, smooth and absolutely gorgeous to look at. Dark black areas are truly black, contrast balance is never an issue, and the crystal-clear sharpness of the images remains intact, overall. Some parts of The Letter and Now, Voyager are maybe not as good as the other movies - but are still some of the best examples of digital resotration going. Sound is mono, but a decent sort of mono, and with decent TV speakers it's not such a big deal.
Each DVD has its own mini-extras, all come with some interesting comments from Historians, Biographers and Directors, and this makes for a great accompaniment of factoids to already-worthwhile movies.
A wonderful collection of some of Davis' best performances, remastered to within an inch of perfection, and for a relatively low price, this is a DVD Box Set that you can't and shouldn't miss. Highly recommended.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I don't get Warner Bros, June 13, 2005
What I don't understand is why Warner Bros. insists on holding out on all the unreleased Davis gems in order to release films that her DVD-buying fans likely already have. Obviously there is an audience, so what's the holdup. Every Davis fan definitely already owns "Dark Victory" and "Now, Voyager" and probably already has "The Letter" too. The two extras, "The Star" and "Mr. Skeffington" have their moments and some classic Davis lines, but all Davis films do. I wouldn't exactly call these two essential enough to compel me to buy this boxed set.
Why release this boxed set then? The only possible reason would be the Vincent Sherman Skeffington commentary, which is priceless. But is available also in the individual Skeffington DVD, so the If I feel the need to buy Skeffington or The Star in the future, I will do so individually.
A Davis boxed set worth buying would look like this:
1) Fog Over Frisco (1934). A short, unforgettable, and criminally underseen film, very reminiscent of the Hitchcock style. The movie looks great, shot by famous cinematographer Tony Guadio and costumes done by Orry-Kelly. Davis's role is supporting, but she steals the movie under direction from the great William Dieterle.
2) The Corn is Green (1945). Not as underseen as "Fog Over Frisco" but deserves a better reputation. From a dramatic standpoint, it is superb. Davis gives one of her most restrained and very best performances here, silencing her critics who denounce her a histrionic tantrum-throwing overactor. To settle the old Davis v. Hepburn debate over who is the best film actress, watch Hepburn's 1979 version. The approaches are, of course, completely different, but to my mind, Davis's simpler approach has much more power. Also, this was my grandmother's favorite Davis movie, so it has a special place for me!
3) Old Acquaintance (1943). A hoot. The subject matter is pure silliness, but the script itself is much too literate and intelligent for the premise. Add to that the chance to watch old rivals Davis and Miriam Hopkins go at it and the result is a very enjoyable flick. Again, Davis is completely restrained and she underplays the constantly tantruming Hopkins to hilarious effect. Both actresses are at the top of their powers here, and audiences at the time gleefully anticipated the still-potent final confrontation scene. Uneblievably, this never even got a video release!
4) In This Our Life (1942). If Davis and Hopkins were like oil and water, Davis and Olivia de Havilland were like two peas in pod, and their real-life chemistry translates well to the screen here, where Davis gets to chew scenery in one of her classic villainess roles. Add to that a great supporting cast (George Brent, Billie Burke, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Coburn, Walter Huston), a great director (John Huston), and interesting social commentary on 40s racism, and one has to ask why this is not out on DVD yet.
5) The Old Maid (1939). Just an excellent movie all around. Looks good, sounds good, touching. A little too soapy and feminine for my tastes, but the acting from Davis and Hopkins is so good here everything else is bearable. A worthy film.
Come on Warner Bros, give the people what they want!
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