Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

kijii This is a much more than your typical Bette Davis melodrama. Here, Davis plays a NYC poetess (Susan Grieve), who runs around in high social circles. One of her society friends, Stacy Grant (John Hoyt), invites her to dine with him as he entertains a navel hero, Slick Novak (Jim Davis, Jock Ewing from TV's Dallas) who is staying briefly in town. Stacy's idea was to make Susan his date while pairing Novak up with his secretary, Peggy Markham (Janis Paige). However, the evening doesn't go as planned, since Novak falls for Susan rather than Peggy and invites himself into Susan's house after the evening's entertainment. In spite of Susan and Novak not hitting it off too well at first, they start to talk. They soon discover--after driving to Susan's family farm in CT--that they each have unresolved issues from their past. Susan's problem has to do with her dead father; how her mother had treated him which lead him to commit suicide. Susan never forgave her mother for her cheapness. However, Novak's insistence that Susan had not tried to see her mother's side of the issue leaves Susan to question her own beliefs. Novak's unresolved issue is spiritual in nature. Since he had been 16, he had always felt a strong need to enter the priesthood and had been discouraged from this by talking to a priest before entering the Navy. The two help each other to resolve these some of these issues. In the end, this is not so much of a romantic story between a man and a woman as it is a mutual guidance about leading each other to spiritual epiphanies (or sudden moments of soulful clarity) of how to proceed with their lives. P.S. This is one of those movies in which the two leading co-stars stare the last name: Davis & Davis.

emefay I agree with another commentator that this is not a good Bette Davis picture. Jim Davis was indeed a weird choice for his part. The ending was about as unsatisfactory as one can be.However, I found three elements fascinating: 1. John Hoyt was never better as the unctuous, insinuating friend to Bette's poetess. Whether or not he was supposed to be homosexual, as is implied by some critics, he was clearly also in a kind of overly-well-bred love with her. 2. Florence Bates, as always, was fine in an unusually subdued role for her (remember her over-the-top self in "Rebecca"!) 3. I just love the cat painting in Bette's apartment that Jim Davis refers to! Isn't it creepy and interesting??? If anyone out there knows who painted it or how to get a copy, I'd love to know.

Scoval71 1940's period piece about a woman who falls in love with a man who loves her back, but loves God more. It is hard to go into detail about this movie. Not horrible, not wonderful, nothing terribly exciting, nothing terribly dull. I thought Bette Davis gave a splendid and realistic performance. James (Jim) Davis has been blasted on this message board about his delivering a wooden performance. Well, maybe it was. But, for this particular role, his emotions needed to be hidden and wooden because of his inner conflict. The conflict is his secret ambition since he was a child to become a priest. The music somehow interferes with the plot as the music in these old time movies often did, but, all in all, it is a definite period piece. The title is not too imaginative---just like the movie.

bkoganbing One of the common criticisms of Bette Davis is always that without a strong directorial hand she'd start chewing the scenery. But that also has saved some mediocre films and made them entertaining. Davis's strong personality comes through in the clinch.Here though I wish she had chewed some scenery, if she had the film might have become a camp classic. Instead it is unbelievably dull.Bette Davis is a poetess, a 20th century Emily Dickinson, who meets and falls in love with a war hero played by Jim Davis. Yes, that's right, Jim Davis who later became Jock Ewing. He's a navy veteran, a war hero, who is considering the priesthood as a vocation.But first before the curtain of celibacy falls, he wants to have a fling or two, so Jim is on the make for Bette and for the young Janis Paige. Bette wins out so they go to her late father's place in New England where they talk and talk and talk about all of their problems and the world's problems.When you have engaging and likable characters even a plot less movie is entertaining. The best example I know is The Sundowners. But there is absolutely nothing in this film that makes you care an iota about the people here. A little Davis histrionics might have saved this film, but we'll never know.John Hoyt has an interesting part. It's as though he's trying to be a poor man's Clifton Webb. We should have had more of him as well.