Dark Victory

Rating:
Summary: Dark Victory: Bette Sees With Blinding Eyes
Review: Bette Davis's career was built on two types of roles: the 'serious' actress of films like THE PETRIFIED FOREST, where she tends to radiate emotion within a tightly focused circumference and that of the widely popular but less traditional melodramatic sort where she skips back and forth between schitzophrenic outbursts of emotion, often tossing her memorable lines out at breakneck speed. Bette Davis, as the doomed Judy Traherne of DARK VICTORY, is exactly the sort of heroine that Warner Brothers and America came to view as the quintessential groundbreaker of the pre-Second World War era. In films of this latter type, for her to be effective, she did not need nor want a strong male lead. A woman capable of lighting up a room merely with the fire of her eyes or the puff of a cigarette cannot share center stage with an equally formidable male presence. In DARK VICTORY, George Brent plays doctor Frederick Steele with the total blandness that has come to characterize his screen persona. When Miss Davis is first seen, she is the typical party girl, loud but in an engaging way. She is self-confident, affluent, and possessed of many suitors, two of whom include a pair of sadly miscast swains, Humphrey Bogart, with a lamentably phony Irish brogue, and a callow Ronald Reagan, who irritates with his own bland inebriety. As soon as she complains of a headache, the Warner Brothers curse sets in: all headache victims are soon to die of a wasting disease. Enter George Brent as her physician. In a strange sense, he seems the perfect choice as the concerned doctor; he is serious, competent, and confident. However, his acting is useful only insofar as it allows Davis to show an amazing range of mood swings by using him as an emotionally padded echo chamber that rather than reflecting her own feelings, merely absorbs them, leaving her with no one with whom to battle. Her scenes with Brent are touching, perhaps because she knows that her looming death can be spent with a man who asks no more of her than she can give. Geraldine Fitzgerald as her friend Anne grows in stature through the film, finally being seen as the emotional prop that Davis needs but fears to ask for from her husband-physician. A good melodrama is not afraid to tug at the heart strings and few films do this as well as the final scene of the closing wall of darkness, first in Davis's garden, then in her bedroom. The victory that Bette Davis achieves is seen not as darkness triumphant but as darkness subservient to the iron will of a woman who yet can control her life, even to its ending.

Rating:
Summary: One of her most lovely
Review: Bette looks gorgeous and will make you cry and smile. This film is great. I had no idea what all the fuss about her was til I saw this film. She is in the height of her beauty in this picture. I loved her in All About Eve and if you liked that film, you will like this one. It is different but will attract the same audience. I do not like what is today's Chick Flick, older films tried harder to appeal to men too. And this should.

Rating:
Summary: Davis tour de force performance
Review: Dark Victory is a star vehicle and the main reason for anyone watching it today is to see how a bone fide star -in this case Bette Davis -can transform routine material into something worth watching .
She plays a headstrong and impulsive socialite who is stricken by a brain tumour .An operation seems initially to have solved the problem but in the event provides only temporary respite .After first rebelling aginst her fate she comes to terms with the condition ,marries her doctor ,played by George Brent and resolves to meet the end with courage and dignity and grace .
In her early ,pre-diagnosis scenes Davis is edgy ,displaying bravura ;as illness comes on she develops an inner serenity and in the scene where her illness becomes fatal she is moving and dignified .This is the star system and star playing at its best ,transforming essentially soap-operish material into something powerful and life affirming
The rest of the cast are overshadowed ;Brent is wooden and Humphrey Bogart miscast as an Irish racehorse trainer complete with unconvincing accent .Ronald Reagan appears as a socialite friend and comes and goes without leaving any real impression but there is a touching performance from Geraldine Fitzgibbon in the usually thankless role of heroine's best friend .

Unobtrusive but skilled direction from Edmund Goulding helps as much as a cloying score from the normally reliable Max Steiner hinders but Davis is unstoppable and she makes the movie worth your time spent watching it

Rating:
Summary: A Big Helping of Prognosis Negative
Review: Dark Victory is classic Bette Davis. I can't believe this tendency to call everything dated. That's like saying "David Copperfield" is dated. A great film or any other work of art is a treasure forever. They couldn't get this right today; it's 24-karat fun. Melodramatic schmaltz is transformed into grand -- and moving-- entertainment by the divine Davis, frenetic mannerisms (note the clenching hands), flashing eyes and halting speech patterns notwithstanding. Every minute Davis is onscreen, our eyes are kept riveted to her, resulting in, as Pauline Kael aptly put it, shameless entertainment. Class, nobility and movie stars of the caliber of Davis are sadly missing from films today.

Davis plays Judith Traherne, a wealthy, fast-living Long Island socialite, and here she is young and rather attractive with chic clothes and a hairstyle that would be popular in the 1940's. When she tells best friend Ann (Geraldine Fitzgerald) that she is having headaches and vision problems, Ann whisks her away to a specialist Frederick Steel (George Brent) where it is discovered that she has a brain disorder requiring surgery. Brent is as wooden as my favorite B actor, Lon Chaney, Jr., but it doesn't matter. The movie belongs to powerhouse Davis. Witness her so full of life! so gay! so young! as she believes her operation has been a success, while best friend, doctor and the entire audience know she "doesn't stand a chance." When Davis finds out the truth and confronts Ann and Steel (now her boyfriend) in a restaurant with their duplicity by ordering a "big helping of prognosis negative," sparks fly. It's all pure, delicious fun and yes, kitsch. But grand entertainment of the first order!

Humphrey Bogart appears as an Irish stable hand with a terrible accent and Ronald Reagan has a minor role as one of Judith's "chums" or as she puts it, "the kids." Davis is in a class by herself in film history. Highly recommended!


Rating:
Summary: davis sparkles over a dull listless cast
Review: dark victory is regarded as davis better movies, indeed as her performance is excellent, but as a movie it proves as somewhat dull and disappointing. Davis stars along with george brent, who is undoubtedly the worst performance ever, with a habgover look on his face and irritatingly annoying constantly, rather than being in love with davis, his dead pan face just stares at her, giving very unconvincing lines out. Davis is at her bitchiest best with humphrey bogart, who plays a mere stablehand who secretly is in love with davis. For davis fans alone this movie is terrific, as a watch it only passes as good.

Rating:
Summary: BETTE'S PERSONAL FAVOURITE.
Review: Davis performances don't get any better than her classic portrayal of Judy Traherne, the lively, irresponsible 23 year-old Long Island heiress who finds inner peace before her untimely death via a brain tumour. Because this classic film is quite possibly the most famous of all vintage tear-jerkers, it is best to leave out plot details so as not to ruin the experience for first-time viewers. Just know that this was Davis's favourite film because it contained the performance she was the most satisfied with. Granted, to modern day viewers, Bette's highly charged, kinetic energy - particularly in the early scenes - may appear eccentric, almost laughable, because it's the likes of which actors don't display nowadays......But keep watching.....Bette's metamorphasis into a fully contented, married woman with an inner glow about her is astounding to observe and you may later understand the underlying cleverness of Davis's contrasting moods. It's a vivid, multi-faceted performance which contains many elements of genuine human emotions: selfishness, hedonism, love, vulnerability, anger, self-pity, compassion & maturity thru inner peace. Very beneficial to the film is the character of Ann King, Judy's best friend and secretary. Not in the original play, director Edmund Goulding created her as a kind of Greek Chorus, so that Judith wouldn't have to complain about the inevitable. Geraldine Fitzgerald gives superb support: Davis always praised her Irish-born co-star (in her American debut) commenting in her memoirs that Ann was "so beautifully played by Fitsie". If ever a movie held the honour of selling more Kleenex than any other, it would have to take notes from this 1939 Bette Davis vehicle, because it's a 24K gold-plated Cadillac with few peers. The famed hyacinth planting scene - during which one feels an almost spiritual jolt - the pleading, sincere inquiry to her doctor husband George Brent - whom she sends away to a convention - "Have I been a good wife?", and the final fade-out - complete with a heavenly choir of Angels singing - still leaves viewers in helpless tears. Now, THAT'S acting!!

Rating:
Summary: Sad but true to Life
Review: I could not express in words what this movie did to reach deep in my soul. However, it provoked thought to wonder how grand life could be, if all of our friends could care so much in who we are and what we dream.

Rating:
Summary: Davis at her best
Review: I have seen many wonderful films in my life, but none so rich as this one. Titanic doesn't even begin to compare to this wonderful movie. If you haven't seen it, don't bother to rent it, just buy it. It will be one of your better purchases

Rating:
Summary: The Original, But Not Quite The Best Version!
Review: I love this movie!!! What a story!! Bette Davis is wonderful in this original. However, even Bette Davis' top notch performance does not outshine the Anthony Hopkins and Elizabeth Montgomery version from the 1970s. Where can I find THAT one?

Rating:
Summary: Classic Betty Davis,is all one has to say about Dark Victory
Review: If you want to experience a truely classic love story,this is the one to start with. It has all the elements that have long been lost in movies. Betty Davis is a strong woman lost amist an empty life of too much,encountering a challange she is not prepared to meet,enter the gentle man who captures her heart and makes her realize she can face her challange and be happy with the love they share for all too short a time. Grab the box of kleenex for this one!