The Old Maid (1939)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Edmund Goulding

Writers:

Edith Wharton (novel)
Zoe Akins (play)

Release Date:

2 September 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Vividly, unforgettably, a woman's love starved soul is revealed. All those strange secrets she locks in her heart ... moments of rapture and of heartbreak ... longings that no man can fathom. Of these has the year's finest picture been woven!

Plot:

Delia marries Jim, not Joe After Delia breaks her engagement to Clem and marries Jim, Clem promises to marry Delia's cousin Charlotte...

Plot Keywords:

Cousin | Battle | Brother | Wedding | Nursery

US TV Schedule:

Fri. July 24

4:15 AM

TCM

Cast

Bette Davis	...	Charlotte Lovell
Miriam Hopkins	...	Delia Lovell Ralston
George Brent	...	Lt. Clem Spender
Donald Crisp	...	Dr. Lanskell
Jane Bryan	...	Clementina
Louise Fazenda	...	Dora
James Stephenson	...	Jim Ralston
Jerome Cowan	...	Joseph Ralston
William Lundigan	...	Lanning Halsey
Cecilia Loftus	...	Grandmother Henrietta Lovell
Rand Brooks	...	Jim Ralston Jr.
Janet Shaw	...	Dee Ralston Ward
William Hopper	...	John Ward (as DeWolf Hopper)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor System)

Certification:

Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #5227) | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Humphrey Bogart was originally cast as the male lead, but dismissed after four days' filming.

Quotes:

Charlotte Lovell: She thinks I can't understand her. She considers me an old maid.
Delia Lovell Ralston: My dear.
Charlotte Lovell: A ridiculous, narrow-minded old maid. What else can she ever think of me?
Delia Lovell Ralston: Poor Charlotte.
Charlotte Lovell: Oh, but you needn't pity me. Because she's really mine. If she considers me an old maid, it's because I've deliberately made myself one in her eyes. I've done it from the beginning so she wouldn't have the least suspicion. I've practised everything I've ever had to say to her, if it was important, so that I'd sound like an old maid aunt talking. Not her mother.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

(I Wish I Was in) Dixie's Land

New Spin on an Old Maid

This film would be just another period melodrama: over-scored,sugar-coated, and glossy-slick (especially for a Warners' film) -- except for two things: Bette Davis and Bette Davis.

Bette is truly a revelation in this film, which required her to age twenty years in the flesh but many more than that in spirit - as she turned from a fresh, extremely sympathetic young girl to an "old maid" of forty or so, a bitter, intimidating woman.

Her ability to integrate completely disparate human traits into one cohesive character is amazing - a must see.