Rating: - John Huston Unleashing Bette Davis' Tantrums
Director John Huston was known for having said that he let Bette Davis loose when he directed her performances. Here's a fine example. As Stanley Timberlake, a young Bette Davis is unleashed to royally throw tantrums of a very spoiled brat of a wealthy heir. Her sister, played by Olivia de Haviland usually takes the tormenting hits that Davis dishes out.
If a viewer believes Scarlet O'Hara (from "Gone with the Wind") was a spoiled Southern brat, Stanley Timberlake is the more modern day, more realistic version of that character. Davis' Stanley makes Leigh's Scarlet seem way less self ... Read More
Rating: - Good Melodrama
This film mainly belongs to the type of Woman's melodrama that was expertly made back in the 1940s (I feel that the genre reached its zenith during that decade) and that surely is not being filmed anymore.
Here we have the queen of melodrama, Bette Davis in one of her most over the top performances, with all her mannerisms at full display, especially those exaggeratedly open eyes and the nervous tics that go with it.
She plays Stanley Timberlake, a spoiled, manipulative, whimsical, fiery southern belle who's used to having her own way, especially due to the extreme pampering ... Read More
Rating: - Best of Bette
This is one of the Davis greats. Other favorites are: Dark Victory, Stolen Life, Watch on the Rhine, Little Foxes, Mr. Skeffington, and of course, Now, Voyager.
Rating: - Bette Davis: the trashier, the better
Bette Davis plays another scum-of-the-earth character who this time steals her sister's (Olivia de Haviland's) doctor husband (played by Dennis Morgan), drives him to commit suicide, then tries to steal de Haviland's new male companion (George Brent), who also happens to be an old flame of her own. Inbetween all this Davis carries on incestuously with her degraded uncle (Charles Coburn), and then runs over a young girl, killing her, and blaming it on a young black man (Ernest Anderson). Only Bette Davis could get away with this kind of stuff, and she pulls it off marvelously. The script is tight ... Read More
Rating: - Dysfunctional When Dysfunctional Wasn't Cool
This family is a mess,complete with lying,spouse-stealing, and incest, and Bette Davis' character Stanley is the worst of the lot. StanleyTimberlake has to be one of the most repulsive characters ever to make it to the screen. Bette Davis makes her believable, though. Olivia deHavilland is the good sister, refreshingly calm and sane amidst the turmoil. Her family consistently ignores deHavilland's character, Roy, as they obsess over spoiled rotten sister Stanley's "happiness." Through it all, Roy maintains a dignified composure, even when Stanley takes off with her husband. You wonder how she does ... Read More
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