BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

petrelet I learned a great deal about Ms. Davis from this movie. Certainly there was a lot to learn. This is a woman with a 50-year film career, with 2 Oscars and 9 other best actress Oscar nominations; with four marriages, three children, numerous affairs, and drama-packed relationships with nearly all her relatives and studio heads. There is enough material in this for several movies, or at least a serious mini-series. And here it is all jammed into 90 minutes! It's an ambitious project.I'm glad to have seen it, but I can't pretend there are no flaws in it. First, as suggested above, there are a lot of events to cover and it's hard to do them all justice in this short a time, or even to present them in a logical sequence that the viewer can actually follow. The movie's chief sources of informational footage are film of public appearances by Ms. Davis and her relatives and contemporaries during her lifetime, and more recent interviews with surviving relatives and acquaintances. But we are repeatedly told that these are not all reliable narrators. Indeed they can't be, as they often disagree with each other. As for public appearances by Ms. Davis, studio heads, and other film industry people, filmed from the 1930's into the 1960's, suffice it to say that they are necessarily full of diplomacy, promotional intent, and courtesies which might be completely sincere or completely the opposite. The movie opens with footage from a "This Is Your Life" episode honoring Bette's mother, Ruth Davis. You can imagine how much sincere exploration of their relationship came out on that occasion.At this point it would be good to have a sense of what Mr. Jones, the auteur of this work, really thinks. But his presence is hard to discern. His words of course are being delivered by Susan Sarandon. He also may have been affected by the obligations he incurred in gaining access to Ms. Davis's papers and convincing her children, widows of ex-husbands, and other connections to sit for interviews. Anyway, it's hard to make out how he selected what to show and what not to, or who he thought was reliable and who he didn't. I got the feeling he was just dumping out a box of information on the tabletop in front of us and letting us make sense of it if we can.Where he does provide words of interpretation, I'm not sure where they came from. As an example, he refers at one point to the warm support Ms. Davis's absent father gave to her movie successes. But all we have really seen of this is a few thrifty ten-word telegrams of congratulation, including his full name as three of the words.Now, someone could of course say: "What do you expect? The narrative is jumbled because Ms. Davis's public and private lives were jumbled and full of contradictions. The witnesses disagree because their experiences were different at the time and because their recollections now after forty are fifty years are different. There's no real way to determine the 'real truth' about all these things, so the pile of information on the tabletop is the only way to go." That may all be true, but I would like to have heard it explained by Mr. Jones. At the end of the day it's worth seeing, of course.

kindtxgal One of the best documentaries that I've seen in quite awhile. How can one miss? Such a fascinating biopic of one of the greatest actresses of hers and our time -- then and now! What I appreciate about this hard-nosed, difficult person as she unashamedly was -- was her quiet heart which is portrayed in the fact that she and fellow actor John Garfield created and entirely funded Hollywood Canteen during World War II. I'm glad this documentary touches on that! Also, I sense a kindness in her son Michael which had comes from his love and if anything, respect for his difficult mother -- who tried her best, I think, to be a good mother despite her nature and her career. I would much rather know about this than a back-lashing from a bitter daughter who shadowed her Mom as an assistant in a book akin to Mommy Dearest. Thank you TCM for creating this wonderful documentary on a truly outstanding, wildly talented, amazing movie star to whom nobody other than perhaps Katharine Hepburn can hold a candle to....certainly not any modern actresses that come to mind. Hepburn and Davis fought in the trenches of Hollywood so that actresses today have the voice and power they do. It takes a tough nut to stand up in that world of Hollywood then , AND entertain and awe fans throughout time.

Michael_Elliott Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Extremely entertaining documentary on the life and career of legend Bette Davis features countless interviews with the actress from various shows including 60 Minutes and the Steve Allen Show. The documentary runs 90-minutes and I feel an extra half hour would have helped things because the movie quite often jumps around from her film life to her sexual life. We hear about all five husbands but also how many other actresses, including Joan Crawford, ended up hating her because she would sleep with their husbands or boyfriends. I'm really not sure all of the dirt was needed but it's here. Also on hand is discussing about how difficult she was to work with and how Jack Warner eventually had to sue her to get her to work. We get interviews with James Woods, Jane Fonda, Ellen Burstyn, Gena Rowlands and Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.. Vincent Sherman is also interviewed where he discusses how difficult she made shooting their first film together and when he asked to be let go, according to him, Davis took him back to her house for a sexual night. In the end we pretty much learn that Davis had a very rough life style and it probably ended with her being very lonely. After a series of strokes and the heartbreak of her daughter writing a not-so-friendly book, she eventually went on a tour to great acclaim. No matter how tough her life is, there's no doubt she left us with some great films, which is the documentaries main point to get across.

phd12166 For me, it's difficult to pick who was the greatest actor of the 20th century: Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck? Each had to work harder than men actors to get roles portraying strong women characters; each played so many diverse lead characters they they couldn't be stereotyped into a typical role; each had sensational acting ability; each couldn't be cast as simpleton sexual objects for men to exploit; each was utterly devoted to her acting career for their entire lifetime; each didn't receive nearly enough official recognition by being awarded for outstanding leading and supporting characters; each stoled the shows from great leading actors in nearly every scene they played; each was not what would be called a 'raving beauty', and yet, on film, their spirits brought the beauty forth from within themselves in such a fashion to become gorgeous; each allowed themselves to be cast in highly controversial roles well before the social issues were talked of in their time. Having said all of that, I cast my vote for Bette Davis as the greatest actor of the 20th century.This biographical documentary of Bette Davis' work and life is revealed quite expertly well through a well balanced mixture of actual film clips from some of Davis' great silver screen performances, television talk-shows when she reveals key intimate details about her life, values, beliefs, and sensibility.The film biographers of "Stardust..." do a remarkably fine job of selecting clips of Davis' peer commentators who were knew Davis as their friend, mother, acting mentor, neighbor, and a kids-turned-actors who grew up either on stage with Davis or in her home.This is one of the most well balanced film biographies of an actor that I have viewed (repeatedly). There are historic clips not available (at this time) to the public, included in "Stardust...." This, for a Davis collector, it is a must own, especially in DVD format.