In
1938 Bette Davis had starred in Jezebel
as a Southern belle whose unconventional behavior brought her misery and
loneliness. In 1939, Davis and a number of her Jezebel cohorts returned for another Civil War love story in The Old Maid, in which Davis plays a
Northern debutante whose unconventional behavior brings her misery and
loneliness. Oddly enough, Charlotte Lovell in The Old Maid actually trespasses more seriously against convention
than Jezebel Julie Marsden, even
though Charlotte is presented as the more sympathetic and tragic of the pair.
Directed by Edmund Goulding, The Old Maid
is an emotional, star-studded melodrama, one that showcases Davis' talents for
transformation and for making brittle, damaged heroines wring the hearts of
their audiences.
The
picture begins with Davis' Charlotte playing second fiddle to her cousin, Delia
(Miriam Hopkins), who is about to be married to a wealthy young man who has
everything Delia could want, except her heart. Delia's jilted lover, Clem
Spender (George Brent), turns up just in time for the wedding, but Delia
marries the other fellow anyway, leaving Charlotte to comfort Clem. Apparently,
she comforts him all too effectively, since she later "goes out West"
for a while and comes back with a baby whom she claims is a foundling. Clem
never finds out because he dies on the battlefield, but Delia discovers the
truth and prevents Charlotte from marrying into her husband's socially
prominent family. Eventually, Delia incorporates Charlotte's daughter, Tina,
into her own family, and the child does not know that bitter, strict
"Aunt" Charlotte, the unloved old maid, is really her own mother.
Several
of the Jezebel crew reunite for this
outing. In addition to Davis, we have George Brent as the rakish lover, dying
again, but this time in a Union uniform. Donald Crisp, who had played the
kindly paternal doctor in the first film, appears as the kindly paternal doctor
in this one, as well. Max Steiner, who was a very busy man throughout the
classic era, returns as the composer. The parallels make The Old Maid almost a mirror image of Jezebel, with Rebels turned Yankee and the accents changed. Both
films give Davis plenty of dramatic fuel, although she has more fun with her appearance
in the later production, as Charlotte ages over the years and becomes somewhat
like Davis' heroine in Now, Voyager
(1942), only in reverse.
Like
Jezebel, The Old Maid is very much a movie about clothing, with the wedding
dresses of the two cousins and their daughters forming important focal pieces
at different critical moments. We also see the changing fashions of the times
as the years pass, encouraging us to contrast the freedoms of the younger
generation, Tina (Jane Bryan) and Dee (Janet Shaw), with their mothers' more
repressed youth. Charlotte, however, seems even more confined and restricted in
her later wardrobe, sartorial evidence of her trapped life and the secret she
keeps locked away.
Certainly
the most interesting aspect of the film is the relationship between the two
cousins. Do they really mean to hurt and torment one another so relentlessly?
They take turns being antagonist and victim, driving sharp daggers into one
another's backs and then wishing they could pull them out again. They really
take the idea of the "frenemy" to a whole different level. Part of
the chemistry between them stems from the fact that Davis and Hopkins hated
each other. It explains why the cousins' cruelties seem so much more believable
than their kindnesses. Davis was very good at this kind of toxic feminine
codependence; it would serve her well in later movies like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), where the relationships
bubble over into Gothic horrors.
An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.
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