Of Human Bondage

The movie concerns Philip (Leslie Howard ) , he's a serious but handicapped medicine student . He falls fatally in love with a heartless , predatory waitress named Mildred( Bette Davis ) . She leaves him , engaging other suitors (Alan Hale, Reginald Denny ). Meanwhile , he is romanced with other women (Kay Johnson, Frances Dee) but she goes after him in a mutually destructive affair.

Easily the best and first of the numerous versions on Somerset Maugham's novel . Bette Davis as the cockney cruel waitress winning yet another magnificent interpretation with an alluring and smoldering role , absolutely hypnotic in her account of the bondage , a sadomasochist relationship that occurs from start to finish . Bette Davis rose the stardom with her performance that put her on the map in Hollywood . Her role as sluttish and crude domineering woman will be repeated several times in his subsequent acting . Leslie Howard as the essentially good and decent student subtly destroyed , gives an excellent and melancholic performance. He was an awesome actor ( Gone with the wind ), besides producer and writer , though unfortunately died in plane crash during WWII . Both of them will play again in ¨ Petrified forest ¨(1936) . The atmosphere of the film is elaborately recreated in the RKO (Radio Picture Inc ) studio and entirely convincing . Remade in 1946 by Edmund Goulding , with Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid ; and in 1964 by Ken Hughes with Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey . The motion picture will appeal to classic cinema buffs . Rating : Very good but a little bit dated.

The clubfooted aspirant painter Philip Carey (Leslie Howard) is advised by an acquaintance to give-up his artistic ambition since he is a mediocre artist. He joins the medical school in London using his inheritance to pay the school and to have a comfortable life. When he meets the cold cockney waitress Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis) in a restaurant, the shy Philip has a crush on her but she rejects him. Philip stalks her and dates her; however the easy woman scorns him. When Philip proposes Mildred, she tells him that she is going to marry her lover Miller (Alan Hale), leaving the brokenhearted Philip obsessed for her. He tries to move on, dating the affectionate Norah (Kay Johnson) in an unrequited love. However, when Mildred returns alone and pregnant, Philip lodges them in his home. Sooner Mildred becomes lover of Philip's friend Reginald Denny (Harry Griffiths) and leaves Philip again. When Philip finds Mildred and her baby later abandoned on the street, he brings them home. Mildred unsuccessfully tries to seduce Philip but he loathes her; Mildred feels humiliated and wrecks his apartment and burns his savings, forcing Philip to quit the medical school. However his teacher offers to operate his feet first and Philip becomes a normal man. But he does not succeed to find a job and his life goes downhill fast until he meets a friend that helps him.

"Of Human Bondage" is an unpleasant romance about unrequited love, betrayal and sexual obsession. The restrictions of the moral code of the society in the 30's force the director and screenplay writer to be vague and open in many scenes, destroying the full understanding of the plot like, for example, the dialog between Sally and Philip in the last scene. I found a reasonable explanation in the IMDb Message Board from a user that read the novel. The good point is that there is no use of clichés and the story is not dated. I loved the performance of Bette Davis, but I am a great fan of this awesome actress therefore my opinion might be compromised. However, the nomination to the Oscar also corroborates with my comment. In Brazil, this movie was released on DVD by Continental Distributor. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Escravos do Desejo" ("Slaves of the Desire")

Today actresses happily gain weight, dye their hair, dress like slobs, and lose their glamor for a role, and Bette Davis was probably the actress who started the trend. Even as a pretty young woman who occasionally wore designer clothes and Constance Bennett-type makeup in films, Davis was willing to ravage herself in order to create a character on the outside as well as the inside.

Her determination is amply demonstrated here in her breakout film, "Of Human Bondage," in which she stars with Leslie Howard as Philip Carey. Davis plays Mildred, a slutty, manipulative, greedy low-life to Howard's masochistic, club-footed Philip. He first meets her when she's a waitress, and she allows him to take her out to dinner and theater while she frolics with a wealthy older man (Alan Hale Sr.). In truth, Mildred is repulsed by Philip's club foot. On his part, Philip seems to enjoy the abuse of her open flirtation and her coolness toward him. He allows Mildred to bleed him dry financially in between boyfriends who drop her when they tire of her, while he blows off a couple of truly lovely women (Kay Johnson and Frances Dee). When he gets the gumption to throw her out, Mildred trashes his apartment and robs him, forcing him to withdraw from medical school and lose his lodgings.

"Of Human Bondage" looks rather stilted today in parts. Though Leslie Howard was a wonderful actor and attractive, his acting style is of a more formal old school, and as a result, he tends to date whatever he's in. He shines in material like his role opposite Davis in "It's Love I'm After" or "The Petrified Forest" which call for his kind of technique. His dated acting is even more obvious here because Davis was forging new ground with a gritty, edgy performance that would really make her name. If she seems at times over the top, she came from the stage, and the subtleties of film acting would emerge later for her. Contrast this performance with the restraint, warmth and gentleness of her Henriette in "All This, and Heaven Too" or the pathos she brought to "Dark Victory." She was a true actress and a true artist. Davis really allows herself to look like holy hell; Mildred's deterioration is absolutely pathetic as Philip seems to gain strength as her spirit fades.

An excellent film in which to see the burgeoning of one of film's greatest stars.

Bette Davis became a star with her role in this first and best film adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novel of the same name (well worth a read). This was her first nomination for an Academy Award, for her portrayal of Mildred Rogers; a tawdry, sluttish, cockney waitress who bewitches hapless Philip Carey (Leslie Howard, best known for his role as Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With the Wind"). She lost the award, receiving it for her role the following year for "Dangerous", which is generally viewed as a consolation prize.

The supporting cast includes Reginald Denny, Alan Hale Sr. (father of Alan Hale Jr., who was the skipper on the TV series "Gilligan's Isle"), and a breathtakingly beautiful Frances Dee.

The film starts out with Philip, a failed art student with a clubfoot of which he is highly sensitive, turning to the study of medicine after facing the fact that he has no artistic talent. Shortly thereafter he meets and quickly becomes obsessed with Mildred, despite her sneering and obvious disdain for him because of his deformity. Her standard response to his affectionate overtures is a chilly "I don't mind." In his dreams Mildred is sweet and kind to him; during real time she uses him, well aware of his affection for her, leaving him for other men and returning when she is down on her luck, ruining his chance for having a career or a normal life with another woman; he seems to continually finds himself inexorably drawn to her, even after his love for her has waned, until the day she finally pushes him too far.

At that point, the camera fully turns to Mildred as her facial expression shifts from supplication to shock to full-on bitch in a matter of seconds, and she reacts to Philip's statement with a barrage of blood-curdling insults. Bette Davis as Mildred never fails to raise the hair on the back of my neck and arms with her performance in this particular scene.

This is the role that made Davis a star. It's also one of my all-time favorite Davis films, along with such others as "The Little Foxes", "The Letter", and "All About Eve".

If Jack Warner had had his way, Bette Davis would have wound up playing all kinds of molls in various Warner Brothers gangster films. Of Human Bondage was a significant milestone in her career because she proved to everyone, including herself, that she was capable of so much more.

Like Frank Sinatra with Angelo in From Here to Eternity, Davis knew she was born to play the slatternly amoral Mildred from W. Somerset Maugham's classic novel. Though she rarely used false accents in her movie career after this, she got the Cockney speech pattern down perfect. Davis will keep you riveted to your seat with her performance her. And what a scandal it was that she wasn't nominated. I suspect some intrigue was at work there, possibly the brothers Warner who didn't want her to get a swelled head. Also she'd gotten this break through role at another studio so they weren't going to make a dime on it.

Two years later Leslie Howard and Bette Davis would team up again in The Petrified Forest. But what a contrast between the dreamy naive Gabby and Mildred. The same with the male leads. In The Petrified Forest, Leslie Howard is the world weary blasé Alan Squire. In Of Human Bondage, Howard's Philip Carey is a shy man with a deep inferiority complex because of his club foot. He clings to Mildred because even though she's degraded him, he feels he'll never find another attachment again.

For both the leads Of Human Bondage represented a considerable stretching of considerable talents. The two later screen versions are markedly inferior to this one.