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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Comedy > Romance > Camp > WWII > The Bette Davis Collection - Volume Three (Warner Bros.)

The Bette Davis Collection - Volume Three (Warner Bros.)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C     Extras: B-     Films: B-

 

 

Continuing their classy rollout of films from their catalog featuring one of the greatest actresses of all time, The Bette Davis Collection - Volume Three offers six more major films with the icon at her peak.  This time, they are not films people always talk about as they still do with the films issued in the first two box sets, but they are still among her most interesting and underrated of all films.  You can read more about Volume Two at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3742/The+Bette+Davis+Collection+-+Vol

 

 

The new set includes:

 

 

The Old Maid (1939) is a great performance with Davis as a woman struggling to find happiness and set in The Civil War, was Warner’s continued attempt to capitalize on Davis missing Gone With The Wind (down to a Max Steiner score) after Jezebel.  She is opposite Miriam Hopkins and the battle is on, but this film (based on Edith Wharton’s work) has aged pretty well except for some of the war material.  George Brent also stars.

 

All This & Heaven Too (1940) has Davis working with underrated Director Anatole Litvak in one of the great melodramas as she becomes the destructive force in a deadly love triangle in Paris with a married couple (Charles Boyer, Barbara O’Neil) and this too holds up well.  The period piece part holds up better than expected and the production has its money on the screen.  George Coulouris also stars.

 

The Great Lie (1941) is another melodrama with edge as Davis and Mary Astor play two women with a secret about the son of one really being the son of the other, as both are in love with the father (George Brent) who is unaware of the secret arrangement.  Astor landed a Supporting Actress Academy Award and for good reason, but performances are good all around.

 

In This Our Life (1942) has Brent, bad “do-whatever-she-pleases” Bette, Olivia de Havilland, Dennis Morgan. Charles Coburn, Billy Burke and Walter Huston among its solid cast as the great John Huston pulls off one of his more underrated films.  Howard Koch wrote the screenplay and it is definitely worth seeing.

 

Watch On The Rhine (1943) is an anti-Axis thriller with Davis married to the head of the German Underground (Paul Lukas) based on the play by Lillian Hellman, adapted into a screenplay by no less than Dashiell Hammett.  Holding up for reasons unimagined when it was made, it is the kind of smart political film Warner could be counted on for.  Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lucille Watson, George Coulouris and Beulah Bondi also star.

 

Deception (1946) brings the stars and director of Now, Voyager together again for another dark tale as Davis is the woman in the middle of two men and WWII intrigue as she is wrapped up with a sick composer when her former cellist love shows up again.  Claude Rains, Paul Henreid and Director Irving Rapper pull off a reunion that works.

 

 

I hope this set revives interest in all involved and Warner continues this vital rollout.

 

 

The 1.33 X 1 black and white image on all six films are about the same, with some softness and good Video Black, plus obvious work done to fix all of them up.  They were made to look good and do, so for DVD, they are as good as they are going to get.  Unfortunately, they are all Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono and do not sound at their best, especially when these older films need all the help they can get.  Extras on all include two trailers a piece, live-action shorts, animated Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts, vintage newsreels and are under the Warner Night At The Movies banner.  Heaven adds Daniel Bubbeo audio commentary and an audio-only radio version of the film by the cast.  The wonderful Jeanine Basinger offers a commentary for Life, while Bernard F. Dick has a good one for Rhine.  Foster Hirsch adds one for Deception, making for a good set of extras all around.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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