Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Performances Make Up For Dated Film
Review: An extremely dated film in terms of script and style, "Of Human Bondage" sports exceptionally excellent performances with Bette Davis a standout in the role of a vicious-minded cockney waitress on the make. The dated quality of the film will no doubt turn most viewers off, but those who endure are in for a treat.
Rating:
Summary: Why on earth isn't Bette's picture on the cover?
Review: At the time that I'm writing this (January 2002), I see that the repro of the video box has Leslie Howard and some other woman. Are they crazy? ANYONE who looks at "Of Human Bondage", looks at it for Bette Davis!Here we have the best of the early Blond Bette, before she became the dark haired Bette most people remember her as. What a monster she is, the snippety teahouse waitress who uses and abuses lovesick Leslie Howard. He's a failed artist who takes up medical school only to be derailed by his obsession with this worthless young woman. Although Leslie is handsome and has impeccable manners, he's clubfooted and that really makes him strike out with Bette, who prefers brash salesman Alan Hale. But while she can never care for Leslie, Bette doesn't mind using him and treating him badly whenever time permits. Leslie lets many other opportunities pass him by while he wastes his time and affection on this guttersnipe. While I must admit that Bette Davis turns in quite a performance in "Of Human Bondage", I must confess that I don't like watching this movie. First, it's an oddly paced OLD movie, lookiing rather like they hadn't quite figured out how to make a satisfactory film yet. Second, I just hate to watch people get used, and this movie is all about that. But if you don't mind seeing a man trampled down, well, then I guess this one's for you!
Rating:
Summary: Why on earth isn't Bette's picture on the cover?
Review: At the time that I'm writing this (January 2002), I see that the repro of the video box has Leslie Howard and some other woman. Are they crazy? ANYONE who looks at "Of Human Bondage", looks at it for Bette Davis! Here we have the best of the early Blond Bette, before she became the dark haired Bette most people remember her as. What a monster she is, the snippety teahouse waitress who uses and abuses lovesick Leslie Howard. He's a failed artist who takes up medical school only to be derailed by his obsession with this worthless young woman. Although Leslie is handsome and has impeccable manners, he's clubfooted and that really makes him strike out with Bette, who prefers brash salesman Alan Hale. But while she can never care for Leslie, Bette doesn't mind using him and treating him badly whenever time permits. Leslie lets many other opportunities pass him by while he wastes his time and affection on this guttersnipe. While I must admit that Bette Davis turns in quite a performance in "Of Human Bondage", I must confess that I don't like watching this movie. First, it's an oddly paced OLD movie, lookiing rather like they hadn't quite figured out how to make a satisfactory film yet. Second, I just hate to watch people get used, and this movie is all about that. But if you don't mind seeing a man trampled down, well, then I guess this one's for you!
Rating:
Summary: Why on earth isn't Bette's picture on the cover?
Review: At the time that I'm writing this (January 2002), I see that the repro of the video box has Leslie Howard and some other woman. Are they crazy? ANYONE who looks at "Of Human Bondage", looks at it for Bette Davis! Here we have the best of the early Blond Bette, before she became the dark haired Bette most people remember her as. What a monster she is, the snippety teahouse waitress who uses and abuses lovesick Leslie Howard. He's a failed artist who takes up medical school only to be derailed by his obsession with this worthless young woman. Although Leslie is handsome and has impeccable manners, he's clubfooted and that really makes him strike out with Bette, who prefers brash salesman Alan Hale. But while she can never care for Leslie, Bette doesn't mind using him and treating him badly whenever time permits. Leslie lets many other opportunities pass him by while he wastes his time and affection on this guttersnipe. While I must admit that Bette Davis turns in quite a performance in "Of Human Bondage", I must confess that I don't like watching this movie. First, it's an oddly paced OLD movie, lookiing rather like they hadn't quite figured out how to make a satisfactory film yet. Second, I just hate to watch people get used, and this movie is all about that. But if you don't mind seeing a man trampled down, well, then I guess this one's for you!
Rating: 
Summary: Still raises goosebumps on my neck!
Review: Bette Davis became a star with her role in this first and best film adaptation of the Somerset Maughan novel of the same name (well worth a read). This was her first nomination for an Academy Award, for her portrayal of Mildred Rogers; a tawdry, sluttish, cockney waitress who bewitches hapless Philip Carey (Leslie Howard, best known for his role as Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With the Wind"). She lost the award, receiving it for her role the following year for "Dangerous", which is generally viewed as a consolation prize.
The supporting cast includes Reginald Denny, Alan Hale Sr. (father of Alan Hale Jr., who was the skipper on the TV series "Giligan's Isle"), and a breathtakingly beautiful Frances Dee.
The film starts out with Philip, a failed art student with a clubfoot of which he is highly sensitive, turning to the study of medicine after facing the fact that he has no artistic talent. Shortly thereafter he meets and quickly becomes obsessed with Mildred, despite her sneering and obvious disdain for him because of his deformity. Her standard response to his affectionate overtures is a chilly "I don't mind." In his dreams Mildred is sweet and kind to him; during real time she uses him, well aware of his affection for her, leaving him for other men and returning when she is down on her luck, ruining his chance for having a career or a normal life with another woman; he seems to continually finds himself inexorably drawn to her, even after his love for her has waned, until the day she finally pushes him too far, and he says, "You disgust me."
With those words, the camera fully turns to Mildred as her facial expression shifts from suppliance to surprise to full-on [...] in a matter of seconds, and she reacts to Philip's statement with a barrage of blood-curdling insults. Bette Davis as Mildred never fails to raise the hair on the back of my neck and arms with her performance in this particular scene. Below is a link to hear a very small clip from it; of course to get the full effect you really have to see and hear the film, and this scene especially, in its entirety. This is the role that made Davis a star. It's also one of my all-time favorite Davis films, along with such others as "The Little Foxes", "The Letter", and "All About Eve".
Rating: 
Summary: Best Of The Early Bette Films
Review: Bette Davis got her first chance to really prove herself as an actress in this role outside Warner Brothers. Her performance is at once riveting, haunting and sublime. You can understand Howard's masochistic bondage to her. She makes Mildred offensive yet alluring, pitiable yet contemptible. I agree with one critic that said Howard needed to be more romantically obsessed as Maughan wrote the part. If you eant to see an excellent 30's drama, obtain this film. If you like it, check out Joan Crawford in the 1932 "Rain" and Davis & Howard in "The Petrified Forest" for similar quality viewing.
Rating:
Summary: A real classic
Review: Bette Davis, in her most popular role aside from Margo Channing in ALL ABOUT EVE and Jane Hudson in WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, is electrifying in this film, the first and best of the three versions of W. Somerset Maugham's tale. She plays Mildred Rogers, a sluttish waitress, you frequents the term "I don't mind", and treats men like cattle. Philip Carey, a young man with a clubfoot, falls in love with the guttersnipe and tries to make her love him, and she takes him for all he has. Her ultimate price for her reckless lifestyle, which ends up to be a painful death from syphillis, is what eventually cuts Philip free and allows him to marry his girlfriend (Frances Dee). Davis was nominated for an Oscar for her superb portrayal, yet failed to win. The next year she won for her performance in DANGEROUS, which was taken as an award for her work here too.
Rating:
Summary: "Bondage":The Ultimate Bitchy Bette Movie
Review: Charged with electricity, intensity and style, it is no wonder that "Of Human Bondage" made Bette Davis the star we have all come to know and love (and love to hate) today. Mildred Rogers, a trampy waitress, uses and abuses a hapless man she meets, to get what she wants. You love to hate the character Davis portrays and though her cockney accent is at times noticeably put-on, she slides through the part with tremendous ease, taking charge of the screen, and Leslie Howard (the man she uses) and makes this movie all her own. She dared to do things no other actress would attempt to do and it is certainly clear why so many actresses turned down the role of Mildred when it was first suggested a film be made from W. Somerset Maugham's novel. She is not portrayed in the glamorous, beautiful sense that most actresses were portrayed in (regardless of character) back in the early 1930s and before. However, Bette Davis does capture your hearts, despite her portrayal and the scene in which she verbally bashes Leslie Howard is incredible.
Rating:
Summary: "Bondage":The Ultimate Bitchy Bette Movie
Review: Charged with electricity, intensity and style, it is no wonder that "Of Human Bondage" made Bette Davis the star we have all come to know and love (and love to hate) today. Mildred Rogers, a trampy waitress, uses and abuses a hapless man she meets, to get what she wants. You love to hate the character Davis portrays and though her cockney accent is at times noticeably put-on, she slides through the part with tremendous ease, taking charge of the screen, and Leslie Howard (the man she uses) and makes this movie all her own. She dared to do things no other actress would attempt to do and it is certainly clear why so many actresses turned down the role of Mildred when it was first suggested a film be made from W. Somerset Maugham's novel. She is not portrayed in the glamorous, beautiful sense that most actresses were portrayed in (regardless of character) back in the early 1930s and before. However, Bette Davis does capture your hearts, despite her portrayal and the scene in which she verbally bashes Leslie Howard is incredible.
Rating:
Summary: PRETTY POISON
Review: Davis actually hired a cockney maid to help her get Mildred's accent down pat. While not completely successful in coping with foreign sounds, Davis does a commendable job. That accent remains one of the most striking things in the movie. Mildred's whining, snarling, shrewish tones definitely linger in one's memory. That precise, nervous voice, the pale ash-blonde hair, the popping, neurotic eyes - they all add up to a kind of a corrupt and rather phosphorescent kind of prettiness which is at once fascinating and repulsive. When Davis made this movie (she was loaned to RKO) she figured it would either make her or break her. Davis doesn't let Mildred happen; she MAKES her happen, and, boy, you'd better watch! This film, however as a whole, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I find it at once fascinating and repulsive and in some respects, unbelievable. Davis, always fascinating to watch, gives a startling performance as Mildred. I can see why the critics and the public alike took notice of her; this was a very nasty role for an ingenue to take in 1934. She does very well in what could be called a histrionic performance; what makes the movie so hard to take is just HOW or WHY Phillip could take the constant abuse this guttersnipe dishes out to him! I find this rather unbelievable as Davis is such an OBNOXIOUS hussey and Phillip is obviously well-bred and gentle........Perhaps the book made more sense. Frances Dee was quite good as the decent girl. There is a scene where Davis almost flubs a line refering to her "gentleman friend" which could have been re-shot. I think the scene in which she first sees that Howard is club-footed is excellent; her heartless and laughing reaction was expertly delivered. In her big, histrionic scene, her voice gets grating and rather forced during the end when she stresses "cripple, cripple". Bette did her own horrific make-up and her final scenes are realistically pathetic; Mildred looks like a corpse warmed-over! This is a difficult review to write because Davis really was striking in her playing; it's just that Mildred is such a stinker! - you can't forgive Howard for taking her back ( or even helping her out for that matter!! ).
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