TCM is holding a 24-hour Bette Davis marathon tomorrow, Thursday, August 19, starting at 6am Eastern; 3am my time. (This schedule is for Central time; change at upper left if necessary.) I have stocked up on coffee and kleenex and unplugged the phone and the doorbell.
I have never seen a Bette Davis performance that I wouldn’t mind seeing again, so I’m gonna see if I can make it through the whole marathon. But I’m really looking forward to:
***Little Foxes, The (1941)***Possibly the greates BITCH performance of ALL TIME.
***Old Acquaintance (1943)***Cute chick flick; remade badly as Rich and Famous. Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis HATED each other on the set, so it’s fun to look for sparks beneath their portrayal of lifelong best buds. Great Lie, The (1941)
Haven’t seen. Mr. Skeffington (1944)
Haven’t seen; good reputation: Claude Rains. Deception (1946)
Haven’t seen; another with Claude Rains (they had great chemistry). All This, And Heaven Too (1940)
Haven’t seen; dir. by Anatole Litvak, so can’t be too bad. Jezebel (1938)
Davis’s performance as an independent-minded southern belle was so good that it put her out of the running for Scarlet O’Hara. Now, Voyager (1942)
The best ugly-duckling payback film ever, with the greatest actress ever. And Claude Rains. Stolen Life, A (1946)
Haven’t seen; says here she plays TWINS! Letter, The (1940)
Wonderful performance as a good woman who’s not, actually, all that good; spectacular scenes with Asian nemesis, who throws a wrench into Bette’s Somerset Maughm-penned scheme to get away with murder. Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The (1939)
Haven’t seen, LOVE the makeup.
Anyone else? (Can I get a round of applause for the coding of this damn post?)
The Aussie TCM blows, and we don’t have the marathon.
I dunno if I could watch it. I saw Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? three days ago, and I’ve been waking up screaming from Bette Davis nightmares (She’s got Bette Davis Nightmares!) ever since.
AAAAGGHHH!! MOMMY HELP ME! IT’S BETTE DAVIS WITH A HAMMER! AND A CHEESY SHOWTUNE!!!
I did consider calling in sick, but since I am actually needed at work today, I set the VCR to catch The Little Foxes, Old Acquaintance (I love it when she gives Miriam Hopkins a good shake), Mr. Skeffington, and Deception. I’ll be home after that.
Actually B.D. played twins twice. There’s also Dead Ringer which is a pretty tacky early-60s flick involving terrible, terrible wigs; still fun to watch.
I can’t believe no one informed me of this marathon – I’m stuck at work.
When her cousin notes her new batch suitors and asks what happened to the old batch:* “Some of them got married, some of them committed suicide, and some of them got fat.”*
Worried that pregnancy will make her ugly: “A woman is beautiful when she gets eight hours of sleep and goes to the beauty parlor every day. . . . Bone structure has a lot to do with it too.”
Wonderful performances by both Bette and Mary Astor, as lifelong rivals for the same man. Includes the return of a husband thought to be dead and a fight over a baby. Bette made a lot of Warring Women movies. Mary Astor’s performance makes this one of the best.
Actually, she was already out of the running for GWTW, which is believed to be at least one reason why she got the role of Julie Marsden in the first place.
Hm. I’d always heard that she saw ***Jezebel ***as her screen test for GWTW; that after that performance they’d HAVE to give her the role. But that it was too similar to Scarlet for the studio’s liking. Or something along those lines.
Anyway, just finished Mr. Skeffington. What a bizarre film: from vapid debutantes and bumbling suitors to crumbling crones and blinded concentration camp survivors. It was kind of like Kristin Lavrandatter as a Harlequin Romance. And that weird, flutey singsong Bette maintained throughout the interminable whole. An odd peroformance, but not not a halfhearted one. And probably the genesis of Baby Jane. (I read one review that said the makeup gets campy. Well duh!)
Deception (1946)
Haven’t seen; another with Claude Rains (they had great chemistry).
Long potboiler; not much to recommend it beyond the brilliant score and the great performances. Bette gets her Mildred Pierce moment.
Note to Archiveguy: Robert Osborne just said, in introducing Jezebel, that the story you’d heard was a myth; that ***Jezebel ***opened in theaters 8 months before Leigh was cast; and that there was seen to be too great a similarity between the two characters to cast Davis. Especially since ***Jezebel ***was such a success (Davis won an Oscar).
All This, And Heaven Too (1940)
Haven’t seen; dir. by Anatole Litvak, so can’t be too bad.HAD seen it; forgotten the title. Jane Eyre by Harlequin Romance. June Lockhart was a homely teen.
***Jezebel ***is still something of a masterpiece. The storyline is extremely (arguably actionably) similar to GWTW’s, but the cast is infinitely better. And it makes no attempt to be a blockbuster; it’s about the characters and the story. One of my fave Bette performances. She was proudest of her performance in Dark Victory, which is a great performance. But if I had to choose I’d pick Jezebel. THank god and Ted Turner I don’t have to. (Trivia link: Henry Fonda’s character had to be doubled a few times because his attention was divided between *Jezebel *and Jane; his daughter was born during the filming, and went on of course to marry Ted Turner.)
Hijack of epic proportions, I’ll admit, but have you (or anyone else on the board) seen the 1929 version of this film, the only surviving sound film of Jeanne Eagels?
On-topic: Can’t watch it, sadly. Too many obligations.
