From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Girl With The Bette Davis Eyes-Part Three- “Marked Woman”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1930s social drama Marked Woman.

DVD Review

Marked Woman, starring Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Warner Brothers, 1937

You know sometimes the distance between a femme fatale and just an ordinary working woman down on her uppers is very slight, very slight indeed. So, say Frank never showed up at that ocean front diner out in California to watch Cora come through that back of the house door to the dining area in The Postman Always Rings Twice and seal his fate (and hers) as they dashed through every kind of murderous impulse and savage passion. Femme Cora would probably still be serving them off the arm, still be listening to Nick’s grousing, and maybe growing old gracelessly down by the seashore, Or, say, Robert Mitchum had actually done what he was paid to do in Out Of The Past and turned the errant femme Jane Greer over to Kirk Douglas for retribution instead of dashing through every kind of murderous impulse and savage passion with her. Dear Jane might still be sunning herself and drinking high-shelf drinks in some cabana and rattling around some big old hacienda. Or, finally, what if Irish Blackie had just turned the other corner and not been almost knocked over by that horse-driven carriage carrying on Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shang-hai instead of dashing through every kind of, what, oh yes, every kind of murderous impulse and savage passion with her. Maybe, just maybe, Rita would have grown old weaving baskets or watching sub-titled films while passing the time at some high-end opium den. See for the femmes it is always a close thing, a very close thing.

So imagine how close that margin is when just an average girl, an average working class girl down on her uppers but loathe to spend her life in seven to three six day shift factories , just trying to do, well, do the best she can. That bit of social reality, that 1930s bit of social reality, is the theme behind the film under review, Warner Brothers’ Marked Woman (from the period when that studio was well-known for producing such socially significant drama). See, if you were (are) a sugar daddy “kept” woman then you have your well-honed femme charms to see you through. But say you are some Mary (yes, Mary will do as a name just fine for this point), not bad for looks, but just a little too world-wise, a little too jaded, just a little too smart, and just a little too un-femme to have the Mayfair swells lined up at your door. Then you either serve them off the arm, swab a mop, or tend some ungodly machine, unless of course you decide, as our film Mary did (played by Bette Davis, the girl with the, uh, Bette Davis eyes) to become a “hostess” at one of Johnny Vanning’s hot spot New York night clubs and “clip” the customers for drinks and dimes. And that was our Mary’s choice; she decided that she would see that career path through to “easy street” come hell or high water.

Of course this hostess dodge is just a polite way to say working girl (non-factory),whore or prostitute so let’s not fall into dreamland about what was expected, expected when master gangster Johnny Vanning took over the New York clubs and was determined to create more huge profit centers to add to his enterprises. Not if you wanted to stay above water, literally. But as the story unfolds the difference between that water and living to tell the tale was a near thing. See Mary had things figured out, or thought she did, her and her four other hostess roommates who were sharing a place to cut down on expenses in high-priced New York. Of course she didn’t count on two things to mess up her easy street plans -one that a “mark” she had set up for Johnny ‘s gambling tables was not able to pay his gambling debts, not even close, and therefore wound up rather dead for his mistake. Mary, as an accomplice of Johnny’s on this caper, threw the hammer-headed crusading District Attorney (played against type a bit by Humphrey Bogart then known mainly for the Duke Mantee gangster on the lam role in the also Betty Davis- starring Petrified Forest) a fast ball and Johnny walked, walked free as a bird and Mary thumbed her smart nose at old John Law.

The second thing was more serious, involving her visiting kid sister who got caught up in the dragnet around Johnny’s trial, and around knowledge of her sister’s real livelihood (a livelihood keeping sis in pencils and books at old something U) and decided she could not go back to college. On a fling she attended one of Johnny’s parties and wound up very dead for her troubles after she caught on that she was not really the hostess type and ran afoul of Johnny’s wrath. Mary, finally catching on that she was in a no win situation working in gangland, although only finally catching on after she took a merciless beating from Johnny’s boys, decided to play ball with the law for real this time. Naturally Johnny had to go down on that sister rap and he and his boys were convicted on the testimony of Mary and her other hostess friends. DA Humphrey got his glory and big headlines but what did Mary and the other women get? No question, being a working girl, working those mean streets and hard on the shoe leather clip joints then wasn’t exactly the road to easy street, no way. The streets were not for dreaming then. Now either come think of it.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Girl With The Bette Davis Eyes, Part Two- “Deception”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the melodramatic noir Deception.

DVD Review

Deception, starring Bette Davis, Claude Raines, Paul Henreid, Warner Brothers 1946

Hey, I like a soft touch egg head thriller as well as the next guy but this one, this “high brow” thing, Deception, left me cold, cold as old Claude Rains at the end. It was not that Bette Davis played, well, Bette Davis with those Bette Davis eyes (and other iconic moves) just a little too dramatically over the top as a head over heels in love budding pianist mooning over a lost love cellist in post-war Mayfair swells New York (World War II for those keeping score on the which war issue). It was not that Paul Henreid, last seen by this writer as the heroic resistance leader Victor Laszlo trying to get some damned letters of transit out of hole-in-the- wall Casablanca in the film of the same name in order to beat the Nazis in Europe, as that smitten cellist who had lost a step or two with his nerves all frayed after being cooped up in that aforementioned Nazi-occupied Europe. And it certainly was not Claude Rains, also last seen by this reviewer in that same film walking in some fogged-in hole- in- the- wall Casablanca airfield arm and arm with Humphrey Bogart after helping old Victor Laszlo break out to lead Europe back to civilization, as a world famous composer with a perchant for New Yorker magazine-induced high camp elite chatter, or what passed for it in those days. No, it was not the performances of these fines actors per se but the flow of the plot line that as it slowly and melodramatically unfolded made me hope, hope to high heaven, that someone, and that someone being Claude Rains, would end up as cold as I felt about half way through this one.

  Let me explain and see if you agree. Christine (played by Bette Davis), an aspiring pianist, who was being, well, let me put this gently, being “kept” by the eminent composer Hollenius (played by Rains) who lavished her with gifts and other expensive odds and ends for her favors. Nothing usual there and as we are all adults we know, or should know, this stuff happens all the time to Mayfair swells and mean street thugs. What upsets this nice arrangement is that an old beau, Karel (played by Henreid), a struggling but up and coming cellist in pre-war Europe whom was presumed by Christine to be dead shows up in New York right after the war trying to make a new start. Christine finds out, and wants to start up that old flame thing they had when they were young and struggling in that lost pre-war European night. All this though without telling him anything but lies about her sugar daddy Hollenius. Not a good idea.

The rest of the film centers on the tension between this trio as Karel runs to fits of confusion and jealousy over Christine’s relationship with Hollenius. Hollenius is furious, and profusely and verbally at wits end, over Christine’s tossing him, a great world renown composer, over for some two bit café musician. A subplot has Hollenius toying with the lovebirds by offering Karel a cello work compose by him that can either make or break him in the high brow music world. And Christine, well, Christine is trying to keep her past a secret from Karel at any price. That is the deception and it is played out until the merciful end when she off-handedly shot old Hollenius when he, very ungentlemanly-like, threatened, or maybe threatened, to expose the whole show. Of course this whole star-crossed lovers scene could have been averted if Christine had just come clean but no she had to play with fire, and play with it until the end. See what I mean though about not getting very weepy over this melodrama.

The Girl With The Bette Davis Eyes- Somerset Maugham’s “The Letter”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Bette Davis film The Letter.

DVD Review

The Letter, starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, directed by William Wyler, based on a play by Somerset Maugham, Warner Brothers, 1940

Not every black and white film is a noir and not every crime noir has a femme fatale although in both cases many are. Nor are all films based on the work of world literature figures like Somerset Maugham (although his reputation has been eclipsed somewhat since his 1920s-1930s heyday when he produced classics like The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage). But the film under review, The Letter, is all of them, kind of. Sure the black and white crime noir is present although with a more than usual amount of melodramatic moments, and as noted so is the world literature authorship.

The real question is the femme fatale aspect. Now Bette Davis was an extremely fine actress during her 1940s and 1950s heyday (and earlier as well in such beauties as The Petrified Forest) but she never struck me as a femme fatale like Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth. You know leaving the guys gasping for breath, and asking for more. No question in this role as the put-upon and isolated wife of a owner of a rubber plantation in pre-war (pre-World War II war to be precise) in colonial British Malaysia scorned by a wayward lover she matches any femme fatale with a quick, too quick, trigger finger when things don’t go her way. She certainly could use her wiles, feminine or otherwise, to get out from under the law, British colonial style. And she was just psycho enough to stand one’s hair on edge. But a lot of her actions (and frankly Davis’ performance) are just too mawkish to root for.

Maybe a little sketch of the plot will illustrate the point. As the film opens Ms. Davis is firing away with that old root-a-toot-toot like crazy at that scornful lover (Hammond by name) mentioned above. No question she is a classic murder one case, and let’s just wrap it up and ship her off to some English prison. Right. But she has a story; a fantastic story on its face about a known intruder making sexual advances to her while her husband is away. Moreover this is the 1930s colonial outback of the Empire and Bette is the proper wife of a stand-up rubber plantation owner (played by Herbert Marshall).

Needless to say, outback or not, murder is murder and the wheels of justice must grind along. A mere formality if her story holds up, a quick trial and she will be free. Except a certain letter, and hence the title of the piece, shows up in mid-plot from her to the intruder. Seems they were lovers, that she had been scorned, and that moreover he had picked up an inconvenient wife, a Eurasian wife to boot. Said letter was in possession of the wife who had her own ax to grind after Bette put six in her husband. A deal between Bette’s compromised lawyer and the wife suppressed this piece of key evidence that would convict Bette.

Bette thereafter was acquitted. Legally acquitted. But you know how those Eurasian women are. That was not to be the end of it. Naturally between a woman scorned and a woman bereft of her companion-lover something has to give. And instead of getting the hell out of town on the first boat, canoe or raft like any real femme fatale our Bette just steps into her fatal fate. See what I mean.