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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Edith Wharton (novel)
Zoe Akins (play)
more
Release Date:
2 September 1939 (USA) more
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... more | add synopsis
NewsDesk:
(2 articles)
Best Films - 1939
(From Alternative Film Guide. 10 May 2009, 1:26 AM, PDT)
Jane Bryan
(From Alternative Film Guide. 11 April 2009, 7:12 PM, PDT)
User Comments:
Breathless histrionics... more (26 total)
Cast
(Complete credited 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) |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
95 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
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:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
To get the effects of aging, Bette Davis didn't wear any eye makeup or lipstick, and makeup artist Perc Westmore used a pale, ashen base on her face. more
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.
[...]
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006) (TV) more
Soundtrack:
The Wedding March more
FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (26 total)
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Civil War-era cousins Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins seem to have a close relationship while living with their wealthy grandmother in Philadelphia, but Davis is hiding a secret: she conceived a child out of wedlock with Hopkins' ex-fiancé and went West to have the baby. Upon her return, Davis opens a school for war orphans--her own daughter included!--which now infringes upon her wedding to the brother of Miriam's husband. Edith Wharton's book became a Pulitzer-Prize winning play by Zoe Akins before Warner Bros. got hold of it and turned the whole enterprise into a glossy stew for the ladies. It moves along at a fast clip, yet doesn't quite give Davis a strong enough showcase (she was never very good interacting with children, and the character of Charlotte is a bit of a puzzle). Hopkins, the unofficial queen of knuckle-biting, knows nothing of subtlety, though her fluttery dramatics goose the narrative and give the picture some camp appeal. The men are stiff and colorless, however the production is handsome and director Edmund Goulding sorts out the overly-involved plotting for us in a satisfactory manner. **1/2 from ****