The Bette Davis
Collection, Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.)
Picture: C+
Sound: C/C+ (Documentary)
Extras: Film:
Marked Woman (1937) C B-
Jezebel (1938) B
B-
The Man Who Came to Dinner
(1942) C+
B
Old Acquaintance (1943) B-
C+
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
(1962) B+ B
Stardust – The Bette Davis Story
(2005) D B
How big and important was Bette Davis as a star? So big that a second big volume of her films
on DVD could be as rich and terrific as the first, which is exactly the case
with Warner Home Video’s Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2, collecting more
gems and key films in another nicely illustrated box. The films are all great choices and unlike the giant classics, of
the first set, these are gems that deserve more recognition and their release
can only help the cause.
Marked Woman is a remarkable combination of
two specialties of Warner’s: the Gangster film and Woman’s picture, with a head
gangster (Eduardo Ciannelli) making a young girl pay for crossing him. Davis plays her sister, willing to risk her
life to find out what happened to her sister, even if it is the face of a
murderous criminal and his henchman.
She has a detective to turn to, played by no less than Humphrey Bogart,
but he will only be able to help her so much.
Taking place in The Depression, it is a gritty pre-Noir work.
Jezebel has always been referred to as
Davis’ concession film for not getting Gone With The Wind, but William
Wyler’s film (shot in black and white) did not have the NAACP protesting it to
curtail the racism and negative portrayal of African Americans in a film with
heavy doses of slavery. Ironically,
that dates this film much more than Wind and helped make Wind
more of a classic than the NAACP would have wished. If they had known, they might have changed their protest
strategy. Davis is the title character,
who keeps driving her fiancée (Henry Fonda) crazy to control, manipulate and
keep him, but it drives him away instead, which drives her over the top. Needless to say, she won the Best Actress
Oscar.
The Man Who Came to Dinner is the
hidden winner here; a Screwball Comedy classic that is long overdue for a
revival. Endlessly imitated in TV
situation comedies later, few of which got it right, Monty Wooley is the title
character, who has an injury and has to stay as the unwanted pest guest at the
house he has his fall until he is well again.
George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart wrote the stage play, adapted here in
an ace screenplay by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein with some of the most
consistently witty dialogue in a classical Hollywood film. Now screwball comedies are supposed to be
wacky, subversive and even challenge gender roles. This does, but best of all, it still does the other things these
films do, challenge socio-economic class, societal roles outside of gender and
throws propriety out the window.
Davis, Ann Sheridan, Jimmy Durante, Mary Wickes and Wizard
Of Oz “good witch“ Billie Burke as a lady who is not all there are among
the great cast as injured radio commentator Wooley constantly adds insults to
his demanding demeanor as hew makes a cold winter season more miserable. The film is amazing and the only thing it
lacks is someone who is Wooley’s equal in the smart remarks department. Otherwise, it is as strong as any feature
here and highly recommended.
Old Acquaintance has a fine Davis performance
trapped in a formula woman’s film that like Woman Of The Year the year
before, with its ending that (spoiler…) is out to put the female audience “in
its place” and the battles with Miriam Hopkins are powered by their major
conflict behind the scenes for reasons too long to go into here. The two play writers, one acclaimed (Davis)
and the other stuck writing trashy fiction (Hopkins) are friends with major
dysfunctional issues. Gig Young also
stars in this amusing piece. Though the
film has not aged well, the performances have.
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? is now
reissued as a double DVD set and is one of the most imitated thrillers of the
period and Robert Aldrich’s surprise huge hit capitalized on Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho (1960) quicker than any other picture in the genre. In conflict since Davis was the queen of
gritty Warner Bros. and Crawford was the queen for a while at #1 lush, rich,
wealthy, glossy MGM, Crawford eventually found herself at Warner when Davis was
still there and this film was their shocking return to the studio, sort of.
Jack Warner was still calling the shots and thought the
project would never fly and even made a statement about their supposed “has
been” status saying something about not rubbing two nickels together for the
two of them. The ladies, who had the
great Robert Aldrich directing and what they thought was a winning project,
still managed to talk Warner into distributing the film for a small fee. When it was a huge comeback hit for its stars,
Warner lost millions.
The story is about two former child stars together in
their old family home. It is not in
prime condition, though they do have a maid.
Blanche (Crawford) is in a wheelchair, while Jane (Davis) cannot stand
her and is not all there. Despite being
past her prime, Jane thinks she could make a comeback, blaming Blanche for
everything and never liking her. Jane
feels the accident that nearly killed Blanche killed their careers and that
Jane was the real money-earner, implying the world revolves around her, all her
problems are caused by Blanche despite Jane having run into her with the car
and that Jane is owed eternally for everything they have.
The resentment slowly comes to a boil, with a unique sense
of suspense furthered by all kinds of interesting events and developments. The most bizarre is Victor Buono leading the
delusional Jane on, telling her that he could help her with her comeback
project so Baby Jane could find a glorious comeback. Buono is a great actor in danger of being forgotten and you can
never have enough of his work out in any format. The supporting cast including Anna Lee is very good and the film
remains a genre classic.
William Castle decided to try and do them and Hitchcock
one better and came up with the very underrated Homicidal a year later,
though it is not as remembered as either film and is even more comically
bizarre than this film. Castle did not
stop there, however, hiring Crawford for Strait-Jacket in 1964. Both actresses found work for themselves and
other actresses of their generation in the genre for the next decade, as Davis
did The Nanny and (reviewed elsewhere on this site) The Anniversary,
while Crawford also did Trog, Berserk and the Steven Spielberg
middle segment of the original TV movie pilot for Night Gallery. Before al that, they were to reunite for Hush,
Hush Sweet Charlotte (also reviewed on this site) until Crawford dropped
out since she felt everyone was against her.
Maybe it had something to do with ruining Davis’ chances of getting an
Oscar® for this film, a role Anthony Hopkins has sited as an
inspiration for his interpretation of Hannibal Lecter.
Stardust – The Bette Davis Story is
hosted by Susan Sarandon, an actress like Debra Winger who is one of the few
who could handle the risk-taking of her roles today. It runs only 88 minutes and is concerned with Davis the woman as
much as the film star. Good and smart,
the production could and should have went on longer, because when it ends, it
seems a few things are missed that would be relevant. Otherwise, it is a fine program.
The films are all in black and white, while the
documentary is a mix of that and color.
The image is 1.33 X 1 on all the DVDs, except that Baby Jane is
(contrary to what the packaging says) is an anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1
image that does not have the detail and depth improvement expected. There are subtle artifacts that get in the
way. The monochrome on the older films
look good and the documentary is likely one of the last non-widescreen
productions of its kind Warner/Turner will ever produce. Jezebel is upgraded and The Man
Who Came to Dinner looks particularly good. Marked Woman holds up well for its age too.
The sound is Dolby Digital 1.0 on all the features films,
filmed shorts and animated cartoons, while the trailers are sometimes Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono, the audio commentaries are 2.0 mono and new documentary 2.0
Stereo with no surrounds. The 1.0 fares
well enough, though when it gets too compressed or limited, you will wish for
2.0 Mono. In fairness to Warner, some
of the films do have aged fidelity, but could use a little work here and
there. Otherwise, the sound is passable
to no bad depending on the film. Baby
Jane was previously issued and it, ironically, has the most problematic
sound.
Extras include smart featurettes and the original
theatrical trailer on all five films, two Warner animated cartoons on Marked
Woman (Porky’s Hero Agency in beautiful black and white; a
beautiful Technicolor print of She Was An Acrobat’s Daughter),
live action musical short, solid Jeannine Basinger audio commentary and Mice
Will Play Warner cartoon on Jezebel, live action comedy short So
You Think You Need Glasses and Warner cartoon Six Hits & A
Miss on Man Who Came to Dinner, audio commentary by director
Vincent Sherman & Davis bio author Boze Hadleigh, live action comedy short Horseback
and Warner cartoon Fin’n Catty on Old Acquaintance and on
the expanded double-DVD Baby Jane, the vintage promo featurette is
joined by one on Bette, one on Joan and one on the both of them, Davis singing
a “groovy” single based on the film (in color) on The Andy Williams Show
and an audio commentary track by Charles Busch and John Epperson on the film,
actresses and more.
All in all, despite some minor glitches, another excellent
set on a great actress by a studio that knows how to treat a star right.
- Nicholas Sheffo
