Rating: 
Summary: Davis at Her Best
Review: This film contains an excellent performance by Bette Davis. It may be her best. She did not fall back on her own characteristics as Bette Davis the person. We see Bette Davis the actor. A fine film all around.
Rating:
Summary: Prognosis . . positive.
Review: This film is one of Davis's best, and she definitely would've taken home the Oscar the year this film was made (1939) if not for Vivien Leigh coming along and spoiling things with "Gone With the Wind." Bette plays Judith Traherne (another role which originated on the stage with Tallulah Bankhead . . unfortunately there, unlike here, it was a flop), one of her strongest protagonists outside of Margo Channing in "All About Eve": a spoiled, carefree girl whose life is endangered by a brain tumor. George Brent plays the doctor who operates on her and eventually becomes her husband; he's adequate, but Davis's performance makes up for Brent's rather cardboard portrayal of the doctor (she talks at about twice the speed he does). There's also a couple early performances by Ronald Reagan (as a rich friend of Davis's) and Humphrey Bogart (as her stablehand . . he also has a tiny crush on our heroine). One of the nicest surprises about this movie is the terrific performance by Geraldine Fitzgerald, as Davis's best friend Ann . . their final scene together is just tremendous. Bigtime Davis fans (like me) may chuckle just a bit at Davis's Judith as she progresses through the "bitterness" stage of her grief (one scene in particular is when she's ordering in the restaurant: "I'd like a healthy dose of . . PROGNOSIS NEGATIVE!") An outstanding film from an actress who could do worlds better with a bad script than most actors could do with good ones.
Rating:
Summary: Prognosis . . positive.
Review: This film is one of Davis's best, and she definitely would've taken home the Oscar the year this film was made (1939) if not for Vivien Leigh coming along and spoiling things with "Gone With the Wind." Bette plays Judith Traherne (another role which originated on the stage with Tallulah Bankhead . . unfortunately there, unlike here, it was a flop), one of her strongest protagonists outside of Margo Channing in "All About Eve": a spoiled, carefree girl whose life is endangered by a brain tumor. George Brent plays the doctor who operates on her and eventually becomes her husband; he's adequate, but Davis's performance makes up for Brent's rather cardboard portrayal of the doctor (she talks at about twice the speed he does). There's also a couple early performances by Ronald Reagan (as a rich friend of Davis's) and Humphrey Bogart (as her stablehand . . he also has a tiny crush on our heroine). One of the nicest surprises about this movie is the terrific performance by Geraldine Fitzgerald, as Davis's best friend Ann . . their final scene together is just tremendous. Bigtime Davis fans (like me) may chuckle just a bit at Davis's Judith as she progresses through the "bitterness" stage of her grief (one scene in particular is when she's ordering in the restaurant: "I'd like a healthy dose of . . PROGNOSIS NEGATIVE!") An outstanding film from an actress who could do worlds better with a bad script than most actors could do with good ones.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilariously bad
Review: This is one movie that plays like a Carol Burnett sketch from start to finish. The climax, where Davis tries to hide her blindness from her husband, had me cramping up from laughing so hard. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Lesbian humanism
Review: This, one of Bette's best films, was probably known in its day as a "woman's" picture...what is now known as a chick flick.However, it is structured in such a way as to show that Bette's Judith Traherne's moral growth is one that starts as a negotiable, but real, demand to be treated as an adult by her horrible mother, and to be allowed to get personal gratification. Of course, at the time it was made (a time to which US culture seems to be regressing) many families forced women, and some men, to forget about their own satisfaction using a moral code in which to do so was to be "selfish." But the movie goes on to show that Judith Traherne is unavoidably compassionate towards others and makes her later altruism flow out of her struggle for personal satisfaction. This is astonishingly intelligent for it is a dialectic. The "thesis" is the demand by Judith's mother that Bette sacrifice herself. The antithesis is the way that Bette says, up yours, Mom. The synthesis is that Bette is able to return to a new, and higher form of caring for others in the way she "adopts" a repressed and frightened girl. Of course, crude interpretations of identity politics aren't dialectical. They consist of non-negotiable, zero-sum and winner-take-all demands for "rights" in which the losers are expected to act like losers, and not fight back...as in the case of the Born to Lose "angry white male." In particular, lesbianism becomes in the social sense a kind of Bantustan, in which the privilege to walk down the street hand-in-hand is continually under threat, because it is assumed to deny heterosexuals a right not to be offended. The lesbianism in the film is of course quiet in its time and consists in Judith's denial that she "needs" a man (which was quite daring in its time.) Lesbian humanism is the denial that a person, usually a woman, should not have to implement power in the small and it points to the destruction it results. The film is almost enough to make me a lesbian. Unfortunately, and as Garrison Keillor has pointed out, to be a male lesbian is nearly an oxymoron. But, in view of the hatred for women that is on-tap in our society, perhaps Keillor is wrong, and their are very few male lesbians. "Humanism" is no longer a singular term because, of course, the immediately preceding generation confused sets of actual humans with all of humanity. Nonetheless it exists as an abstraction which is, I think, instantiated in any narrative of a struggle that is genuinely human, and made so by a dialectical refusal to stay only in personal gratification or self-sacrifice.
Rating:
Summary: Great Classic, Sorry DVD!
Review: When you see grade z movies being issued with beautiful transfers and 1 to 2 extra discs of extras, you would think one of the great screen classics would receive similar respect. No way. I was appalled by the dismal, speckled, grainy pictute you receive on this lousy DVD. "Dark Victory" was among the five pictures in l939 nominated by the Academy Award as The Best. Not only was it nominated for best musical score by the great Max Steiner, but its luscious black and white photography was also up for Best of the Year. My VHS tape of this classic shows a beautiful black and white beauty. Whoever was responsible for approving this truly dismal disc of one of Hollywood's greatest classics should be fired. And oh yeah, as for great extras, you do actually get one tiny little preview. This shows you what type of respect the creators of this DVD had for this masterpiece, starring America's greatest movie actress!
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable!
Review: Whenever I listen to Max Steiner's haunting and powerful score to "Dark Victory" (captured on the CD "The Films of Bette Davis"), scenes from this unforgettable classic vividly flow into mind. Especially the staircase scene toward the end when Davis asks George Brent "Have I been a good wife?" I've always thought the magical year for movies--l939--should have had a split best actress award: Vivien Leigh definitely deserved her Oscar for Gone With the Wind but Bette Davis equalled her every inch of the way. Dark Victory was up for two Oscars that amazing year: for Davis as Best Actress and Max Steiner for his musical score, just as he was also up for the classic scoring for GWTW. In fact, Steiner was incredibly busy that year, not only scoring "The Old Maid" for Davis, receiving no credit for the extraordinary score for another Selznick classic, Intermezzo, and God knows how many others. Dark Victory is amazingly up to date in terms of the Orry-Kelly fashions, the make-up and hair-styles for the women. How I wish I could have an art-deco apartment like Ronald Reagan when Davis comes to visit in search of "her doctor." And Davis' wondrous farmhouse in Maine. Dig that cozy den and bedroom. Bravo to all those grand old movie-makers who knew how to make classics back them: Davis, Fitzgerald, Director Edmund Goulding (who had a passionate crush on hunky George Brent)Orry-Kelly and of course, Jack Warner, who green-lighted this project despite his fears that "nobody's gonna wanna see a movie about a girl dying." In hindsight, Jack Warner was responsible for finding Davis her greatest roles, despite her relentless complaints that he was an idiot. Even when he brought her the property of "Beyond the Forest" it's now being re-evaluated as the amazing classic many of us have known all along. You'll never see a more ravishing death scene than this one with heroine Judith Traherne dying to the accompaniment of Max Steiner's symphony orchestra and heavenly choir. A must have classic for anyone who wants to savor Hollywood when it really was golden and knew how to turn out great movies for everyone---and not just for the brat pack.
Rating:
Summary: Bette Davis wonderful is classic weepie
Review: With the release of such classics as "The Wizard of Oz," "Gone with the Wind," and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Dark Victory" certainly backs up the argument that 1939 was the greatest year in motion pictures. 1939 also proved to be the greatest year in the career of America's greatest screen actress, Miss Bette Davis. "Dark Victory" is certainly the highlight of the four films released starring Davis. If you think about it, the story is very simple. It is no more than a tale of a well-to-do socialite who contracts a disease and dies. Nothing special, and you would think it sounds rather uninteresting. However with both great direction and a superb cast, "Dark Victory" ranks as one of the greatest tear-jerkers ever put on screen. A must see!
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