The Sigla Blog

Earlier this year, just a day after Julie Burchill wrote about portrayals of strong women in film, I watched All About Eve for the very first time.

It’s an masterpiece starring Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a talented, aging actress who knows she’s past her prime. She takes a starstruck fan (Eve - played by Anne Baxter) with a sob story background under her wing, only to discover that Eve is not as angelic or well-meaning as she appears. Before long she has forced her way into Margo’s life and is intent on appropriating not just her friends and lifestyle, but her career and her man. Ironically, the role was the first for Davis since parting company with Warner Brothers who let her go, deciding she was too old.

Davis was not the coquettish platinum blonde favoured by the studios. She had a wide-eyed understated face that was beautiful, if not commercially so, which often resulted in roles as nurses and governesses, like her sympathetic turn as the put-upon daughter in Now, Voyager. All About Eve won six Oscars, but sadly none for the four women nominated, including Davis and Baxter. She was always captivating as the feisty femme, all passion and arched eyebrows.

My favourite film of Davis’ has to be Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. Telling the story of two aging sisters, one a former movie star, who quarrel bitterly. It’s chilling, funny and macabre and just as famous for off screen animus between Davis and Joan Crawford who HATED each other. Davis famously said of Crawford that she had “slept with every male star at MGM, except Lassie.” Crawford, not to be outdone on the bitch-o-meter, retorted by attacking Davis’ acting credentials. “I don’t see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms, instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words and what have you got? She’s phoney, but I guess the public really likes that.” While filming Baby Jane, Davis twisted the knife further by insisting on having a Coke machine installed on the set, knowing full well that Crawford was the widow of a former Pepsi CEO.

To celebrate the centenary of Davis’ birth, the IFI are showing a retrospective of her work, starting today, June 1st. The full programme is below, including Jezebel (June 7th and 8th), Now Voyager (June 21st and 22nd), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (June 28th and 29th) and All About Eve (June 30th).

Link: IFI site (Blurbs below from the IFI)

June 1 - The Old Maid - Bette Davis at the very peak of her powers in a glorious melodrama based on an Edith Wharton novel and a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Charlotte (Davis) is an unwed mother whose true love is killed in the Civil War.

June 7th and 8th - Jezebel - Working with her favourite director William Wyler, Bette Davis won her second Best Actress Oscar for an electrifying performance as Julie, a spoilt southern belle who shocks polite society, flouts convention and will stop at nothing to win the heart of handsome beau Henry Fonda.

June 7th and 8th - Dark Victory - Davis is a wealthy hedonistic heiress stricken with a brain tumour that is destined to render her blind before her inevitable death. One of the most potent tearjerkers from Hollywood’s Golden Age, Dark Victory features a stunning Davis performance that transforms saccharine clichés into heartrending tragedy.

June 14th and 15th - The Letter - Accused of killing an old family friend, the Davis character claims that he tried to attack her and that she acted in self-defence. Husband Herbert Marshall remains loyal even as the whole unsavoury truth comes to light in a thrilling version of the sensational Somerset Maugham play.

June 14th and 15th June - The Little Foxes - A magnificent adaptation of the Lillian Hellman Broadway hit with an Oscar-nominated Bette Davis in her element as the scheming, heartless Regina Giddens. A powerful Southern matriarch, Regina will stop at nothing to get what she wants and if husband Robert (Herbert Marshall) wants to stand in her way then he must be prepared to suffer the consequences.

June 21st and 22nd - Now Voyager - This classic Cinderella story gave Bette Davis one of her most popular roles and has had audiences weeping in the aisles since it first appeared at the height of the war. A dowdy spinster, coaxed from her shell by kindly doctor Claude Rains, finds a love with Paul Henreid that they seal before a moonlit sky with a shared cigarette and a cautious agreement not to ask for the stars when they already have the moon.

June 21st - Mr. Skeffington - Davis is a rich society beauty. Obliged to marry a devoted but dull businessman, she treats him with ill-disguised contempt until diphtheria ravages her fine looks and destroys her arrogance. There are more twists to follow in a splendid romantic wallow confirming once again that nobody was as good as Bette when she was bad.

June 28th - Pocketful of Miracles - Director Frank Capra’s last film is a remake of his own Lady For A Day. Bette Davis plays Apple Annie, a brassy ageing apple-seller who passes herself off as a woman of wealth in order to impress her daughter (Ann-Margret) who has just returned from years in Spain and hopes to marry into a society family.

June 28th and 29th - Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - The divine feud between Davis and Joan Crawford reached its artistic height in this flamboyant slice of Grand Guignol which earned Davis her eleventh and final Best Actress Oscar nomination. A former child star, Baby Jane now plays caretaker to younger sister Blanche who is confined to a wheelchair. Years of resentment and sibling rivalry lead to a vicious campaign of recrimination as Jane decides it’s payback time.

June 29th - The Whales of August - Bette Davis gave her last great performance in this touching tale of the fragile bonds between two aged sisters. It is a fascinating chamber piece and a remarkable study in contrasts between the personalities and acting styles of Davis and silent cinema icon Lillian Gish.

June 30 - All About Eve - A spectacular comeback role with an Oscar-nominated performance as theatrical grande dame Margot Channing. Anne Baxter is the devoted admirer who becomes the fan from hell in a lethal cocktail of sparkling repartee and backstabbing malice that is impossible to resist. One of Hollywood’s wittiest gems with a once in a lifetime cast that also includes Marilyn Monroe.