Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Sexylocher Masterful Movie

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

calvinnme ... and George Brent as Clem Spender is that kind of guy. We don't see much of Clem himself except at the beginning, but the film is pretty much about the aftershocks of him being the love of the lives of the two main characters, cousins Delia (Miriam Hopkins) and Charlotte (Bette Davis).The time is the beginning of the Civil War, in the north, far enough away from the battlefields to the extent that if this war will ever touch the lives of the characters it will be through death on those battlefields. Clem has apparently gone off to make his fortune so he can marry Delia, whom he claims to love - heck I think he believes that himself. But Delia is practical. After waiting for two years she decides to marry "a Ralston" - Jim Ralston to be exact, good provider from a family of bankers, not hard on the eyes, and probably so predictable Delia will spend the rest of their mutual lives with her feet asleep.Clem comes back on the wedding day, and Charlotte, who we are told is several years younger than Delia, goes down to the station to try to get Clem to stay away from the wedding, that Delia says it is too late. When Delia and Clem meet, at her house before the wedding, you understand she did not want to see Clem because she still loves him, she will always love him, although she doesn't say that. When an allegedly broken hearted Clem exits the house, Charlotte, also secretly in love with Clem goes after him. Now remember this is the production code era and so you see NOTHING in the way of passion between them. But they did have sex because suddenly Charlotte is going out west for her health, and when she returns she is running a home for war orphans, with her own child by that one night with Clem, Tina, hidden among the bunch.Delia being told about the existence of the child, and that it was Clem's is the undoing of both cousins. Delia, in the jealousy that she cannot even admit to herself, sabotages Charlotte's wedding by telling a lie to the groom, gets Tina and Charlotte to move into her house after her husband dies, gets Charlotte to let her adopt Tina, and in the end the once vivacious beautiful young Charlotte turns into an "old maid", somebody that even her own daughter has no use for other than to pity her. The person she ultimately calls "mummy" is Delia.Now Davis' acting here is raw, everything is out there. She IS that vivacious young woman at the beginning of the film, she IS that bitter spinster in the end - partly because she knows what Delia has taken from her and that Delia refuses to admit her own motivations. Hopkins plays her part more subdued, as though Delia cannot admit to herself that all of this has been about Clem, that it was he she has always loved, whose child she wanted and has managed to maneuver herself into a position where she gets her.Now being an "old maid" was considered a horrible fate for a woman until about 1970, but these two women are living on the fumes of a memory, of the adventurous handsome but broke Clem as a young man. His death as a soldier in the Civil War freezes him in time in that state. They neither ever seem to get that had either of them got their wishes they would have ended up married to an emotionally ambiguous man, a man who just can't seem to succeed, and prolonged poverty never made anybody happy.This is a great film even if it is full of overdoing the punishment of sin production code style for everybody involved. Case in point, Bette Davis' Charlotte ages to the point that she looks ten years older than the actual age of her character for the sin of one night of out of wedlock passion with somebody she tragically loved, while Miriam Hopkins' Delia has hardly aged a day over the film's course, even though all the while she's been taking a wrecking ball to her cousin's life.

writers_reign It's well documented that Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins were far from enamoured of each other off screen for a variety of reasons not least Davis' affair with Hopkins' husband, Anatole Litvak. Nonetheless they contrived to play opposite each other in both Old Acquaintance and this one, in which Davis takes on the eponymous role. Knocked up by George Brent who then thoughtfully gets himself killed in the War Between The States (the American Civil War if you're British) before the child is born, Davis contrives to open an orphanage in which she conceals her own illegitimate daughter, who grows up to be Jane Bryan, a prototype of Ann Blythe's Vida to Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce - anything Davis has Crawford must have too. By now cousin Miriam Hopkins has persuaded Davis to allow her, Hopkins, to adopt the child thus relegating Davis to 'old maid' status in which persona she is cruelly taunted by Bryan. As soaps go this produces a fine, luxurious lather with Davis, again playing opposite a strong actress, close to her best, which is saying something.

Tad Pole . . . when a young woman won't keep it zipped in America. How is this Nineteenth Century Fable relevant in the 21st Century, one might ask. OLD MAID will become an increasingly important picture for 2017 and beyond, because those "Good Old Days" of Hippie Sixties-Style "Free Love" are so 1900s now. OLD MAID begins with a newspaper headline noting the start of the War between the Gray States and the Red States in 1861, and History's Circle of Life has rolled back almost to that same very time, since we're mere months away now from the final triumph of Red States over Blue States. This is NOT a Dr. Seuss fairy tale. Planned Parenthood already has been shamed out of most Red States, and even the Blue States will lose all access to Birth Control by this time in 2017. (The Super Rich One Per Centers will be the only exception to this Back to the Future moral code, as they always have.) Now is the time to learn well Bette Davis' Handmaid's Tale here. When only the Wealthy Few have the means for child-rearing, they'll have the pick of the litter. This will be especially true for Moms who don't jump through the proper hoops in the appropriate order for this having-a-baby business. Warner Bros. bear a name that's always needed to be taken literally. Since America did not heed their OLD MAID warning these past 76 years, there's not much left to do today but to watch OLD MAID and weep for our children's inevitable future.

dbdumonteil This is melodrama in all its splendor.Melodrama at its best.Bette Davis was certainly one of the five best American actresses in history.At the time,(and now?) which actress would have accepted to make herself ugly,to be an old maid ? "The old maid" contains all that a melodrama buff loves: two women caught between deep affection and extreme hate , wasted youth, unwed mother's child,sufferings,love lost forever...Bette Davis runs the whole gamut,from a romantic southern belle to a devoted nurse who takes care of the orphans of the American Civil war (there's a similar story of a child "hidden" in an orphanage in a French movie of the forties : "Péchés de Jeunesse" )to a gray-haired spinster who sacrifices her life for the sake of an ungrateful daughter.In the last part,Davis' performance will leave you on the edge of your seat.She switches from hatred to tenderness ,from anger to tears with the same virtuosity.Although a bit overshadowed,Miriam Hopkins gives a restrained but moving performance .Shall I praise the wonderful use of music?The Wedding March comes back all along the movie,bringing joy and regrets, nostalgia and feelings of long ago, as do the invitation cards.When Davis comes to her daughter's room,on the eve of her wedding,the plaintive tone of "My darling Clementine" reminds us of what Charlotte forever lost.But,my darling Clementina ,you are not gone and lost forever,you are just a kiss away.Wonderful melodrama.