The Best of Bette Davis

the fable of little foxes craving for the sweet vines then wrecking the town is adequate for the story. bette davis plays another power-thirsty strong female who solicits what she wants at any cost. davis's role is an eager opportunist who is desperate to hold everything right upon her palm. davis looks mostly glamourous in the southern belle constume shined with matron glitter if her character is not so gluttonishly greedy, audience might take further heed of. and our dear bette's wardrobe is endorsed again by orry-kelly who also attributes bette's glamour in "marked woman."

"there're people who do bad things and also people who just stand there and let them do it" demonstrates the spirit of this play. regina and her philistine siblings are the little foxes who ruin the country with their conscienceless exploitations on the common folks. the entire story centers on the mergence of one valuably built business which would realize every ambition and dream regina has had. but her husband is a great hindrance becuz of his reluctance to make a fortune by squeezing out workers' labour. so she holds grudges against him by confiding her long-harbored contempts on him for being a gullible soft fool since the beginning of their marriage that serves a catalyptic shock to deteriorate his heart issue. steal-hearted regina refuses to aid him with his medicine becuz he would spoil her scheme to blackmail her siblings as long as he's alive. so regina obtains everything but her daughter's affinity. eventually regina observes her daughter's departure with a ghastly frown gaze, left alone lost in the room her husband just demises at.

davis' regina is not really a great evil menace but more of egoist who yearns for things but bound by her gender and limited resources. she awaits long with this angst which turns her incorrigible. one scene regina glimpses the picture of her youth with scowl and sighs hidden tight beneath her solid surface. she has no intention to manipulate her daughter, and actually she practices things with basic decency as long as no one poses as obstacle to block her access, she would be in good humbor to perform duties, even without a bit of genuine compassion or tenderness.

as regina's daughter, teresa wright is always a good casting choice to play the innocent ingeuine, and wright has a natural virtuous grace upon her without contrivance that is competent for good-girl roles like this, such as another her good performance in hitchcock "shadow of a doubt".

this flick is great parable of capitalist breaching the world little by little with their sly wits to drill thru the loothole of laws. but pathetically others are just bystanders to connive their sins.

"in this our life" is bette davis' cooperation with director john huston, backsetted in the old south reputed for its insolent southern belle while racial bigotry still exists then. olivia de havilland's casted as davis' virtuous sister with the capacity and benevolence to make the best of everything, even the men disposed by davis. it might be a reminder of de havilland's miss goody goody image in "gone with the wind" but this time her counterpart devoids the glamourous polish and de havilland herself begins to show some hardened edge rather than her sweet pie lad image alongside errol flynn in swashbuckler pieces.

davis is the wildly arbitrary sister of the reputed timberlake family with an uncle who has a drolling incestuous crush on her. with the uncle's financial backup,davis struts around, stealing her sister's beau then destroys him willfully, eventually her irresponsiblity deteriorates into framing a diligent black janitor after she accidentally runs over a woman. davis plays that kind of malicious bitch who could only be gratified by someone else's unhappiness, and once she obtains and devours something, she tramps it and tosses aside, absolutely guiltless and unwilling to take the blame with a pretentious victimized facade.

unevitably "in this our life" is melodramatic with the archetypes of selfless gentle woman like de havilland and bitch-perfect bette davis, but at least it has enough relish to make a watchable picture, and john huston's noirish strokes add gritty seasoning to it.

like "jezebel" and "little foxes", davis gets into the skin of another abrasive southern stereotype, malevolent egoist who is vain enough to disregard the welfare of others. "gone with the wind" glamour star vivien leigh also thrives in such southern belle role, such as her scarlet o'hara and "streetcar named desire", but the main difference between leigh's and davis' interpretations would be the relentless brass and spunk. leigh's performing style is more feminine and laid-back in the niche of shakespian thespian while miss davis shamelessly smirks and growls. maybe that's what defines davis' feminist poise, watching a woman who doesn't hesitate to galope full throttle being a bitch even she appears in a light of coquettish wardrobe by orry-kelly.

well-acted society melodrama upon the marginalized women who make a degraded living dealing with mobster under the risk of extortions and deforming threats. bette davis plays clip joint hostess marie dwight with quick wits and gutsy slyness who leades her fellow companions striving for the tough money in night club. once marie gets herself into the jam by helping one of her clients avoiding the mob assasination then she has to collaborate again with the mobster to beat off his murder accusation. subsequently marie's publicity in news paper exposes her true profession to her pure as lily college sister who envies marie's seemingly camelot-alike career of merrymaking nightlife that induces the family fued, then his sister gets herself disposed of by the mobster leader. repentant marie seeks justified revenge on the mobster even at the cost of a mark on her precious facecheek.

there's nothing too unique about this flick but leastly it's not awfully made, mainly straitforwardly sketched scene from scene, except director bacon sympathesizes the female characters by depicting the draining side of their overlaborous life for survival. mostly you witness their oppressive exhaustion in the apartment and their inability to retrack back to norm. the ending emits the pathos arised by social criticism as the news paper glorifies bogart's attorney but neglect the gritty five female-martyrs.

topicality of social drama and good performance from its cast are the best asset of it. bette davis does another brillaint acting to incarnate into another strong-willed individualistic woman who has the defying courage to contend for her belief. humprey borat earns another breakthrough chance in the 30s to prove that he could do much more than playing sordid gangster villains with the role of decent district attorney. alongside with other four actresses as marie's best pals are showered with the right-nuanced glamourous wardrobe wich belongs restrictively to the 30s, sponsored by orry-kelly who also undertakes errol flynn's sea hawk.

bette davis often flatters herself in her elder years by claiming she could have played "gone with the wind" if she wants to, but she refuses it becuz it has too many similiarities with william wyler's "jezebel" and she's reluctant to play insolent southern belle all over again. and another reason would be she dislikes errol flynn so much that she doesn't wish him to be her "rhett butler"...could you imagine davis as scarlett instead of feline-eyed vivien leigh or flynn as rhett, not likable cad clark gable? i guess not.

davis plays julie who is engaged to henry fonda's pres. julie is an egoist who wanna have her way at any cost, and she waywardly revenges her fiance for not attending her sailor shop by wearing a notorious reddish dress in the olympus ball where unmarried women are supposed to settle in white. she even challenges his manhood by implying he's afraid to defend her. then naturally their relationship seems terminated after this serious friction. one year later, pres shows up at her door with a yankee wife while she kneels on the floor in a chastely white dress to beg for his forgiveness. driven by bitter jealousy, julie makes provocative insinuation of her guests to insult pres but it ends up two men having a pistol duel, and one death. julie becomes the wretched witch who brings others misfortune. then her beloved pres gets infected with yellow fever, so she beseeches his wife to offer her the previledge to take care of him in the plague camp to purge her sins.

wyler's perspective to tackle into the old south is thru the insistance of black slavery which its protagonists have furious disputes over so intensely that they would resort to fatal pistol-dueling. exclusive from black slavery, there's nothing else wyler tries to depict about old south, and the conversations are all centered upon their irreconciled gap of differences. then the flick ends abruptly with the plague strike, so the old south crambles....then what? perhaps "gone with the wind" is more concrete with the war sequence and the revival of its characters in their postwar state.

the character of pres would be the intellectual youth who struggles between his attachment to the old south where he gets nourished and the innovative land of yankees who've been more civilized and polished by industrialization. pres escapes the snobbish south and julie who stands for the south he used to cling to by marrying a simple-minded yankee woman with every obedient sense of puritanical virtues, who is much less difficult to deal with. at the scene julie attempts to seduce him back in the garden, she suggests the enchantment of south while the moon shnes brighteningly, crickets sings cozily and the smell of swamp, she utters "how could you desert all these things in your blood to go for your yankee woman? don't you love me?" dignified pres certainly resists julie's temptation but undeniably he's still conflicted with fascinations which he dislikes to confront. after all, life is simpler with a yankee woman to pres. he rebuffs her with a deadpan face "i love my wife" as if it's a fixed line a gentleman should have said in his manly honor whehter he means it or not.

it seems to be grandeur deed for julie to volunteer to be with pres in the plague camp, but does she do it for her own redemption of honor or she truly cares for pres? at the last scene, she sits on the wagon beside him, and her sight heads forward her surroundins emotionlessly. what is she thinking then? is she trying to summon up all the courage to face the perilous future? or she just feels lofty to restore her pride anf her reputation in the town by taking care of pres? it could be both. whether she chooses to do altruistic deed for her ego or not, it is still an admirable sacrifice just like man could go to the battlefield to get killed simply for his honor and his ego, why couldn't woman be egoistically contributive? after all, she's the jezebel who intends to pay the price for her misdemeanors.

whether julie is a bitch or not, the judgement leaves to each single audience. should she be responsible for the dueling simply becuz she's malicious bitch? or she's just the catalyst which stimulates the long-existed feud between old south and yankee? even she seems ruthlessly calm by fiddling her flowers while the men are gonna have a pistol fight, but she only expects one of them to be injured instead of getting killed, she might just try to disguise her clamored inner self by acting with composure. there's no pure bitch but a flawed human being with moral ambiguities(or bankrupcy?). is "jezebell" about malice or repetence?