Now, Voyager

Bette Davis plays Charlotte Vale, an unmarried and very unhappy plain-Jane who lives with, and is under the emotional control of, her wealthy, domineering, matriarchal mother (Gladys Cooper). Help for Charlotte arrives in the person of Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), who suggests a different living environment, and eventually a new direction in life. Charlotte thus sets out on a voyage of discovery, or quest, to find herself and her potential for happiness and love.

The film starts off Gothic, but gradually translates to a love story with lots of twists and turns. The underlying premise is sound, but the plot is overwrought, drawn out, and talky. Small sections of the film's middle section could have been expunged, to tighten the plot. And the dialogue could have been reduced in places, which would have rendered a film of even greater impact. Nevertheless, the film still tells a great story.

The B&W cinematography ranges from good to excellent. In one scene, special effects create an image wherein Charlotte's eyes overlap her mother's face. It is a visually stunning image, and it wonderfully captures the film's timeless theme, the painful process whereby a grown child must confront an overbearing parent, if that child is to grow and gain adult independence.

The film's costumes are interesting. And Max Steiner's original score adds emotional texture to the story. But it is the acting that really makes this film a classic. Except for her work in "All About Eve", Bette Davis gives as good a performance here as in any film of hers that I have seen. Claude Rains and Paul Henreid are good in support roles. And the never smiling Gladys Cooper is stunningly effective as the matron saint of outdated Victorian Puritanism.

Despite its cryptic title, taken from a poem by Walt Whitman, this film presents viewers with a story that most people can identify with, in one way or another. "Now, Voyager" transcends its hyperbolic working script, and compels attention through its cinematography, its music, and especially the acting of Gladys Cooper and Bette Davis.

From frumpy momma's unwanted adult child to liberated raving beauty, Davis is in her element in every scene. With Paul Henreid & Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper & a spot-on supporting cast, "Voyager..." is, hands down, best love story I believe I've ever seen.

Of course, taste in romances has everything to do with what a viewer finds great. I don't like phony, fantasy, goofy romantic shows at all. "Voyager..." has a gritty plot that reveals the kind of love between unrequited lovers that's worth sacrificing oneself for.

Davis' wardrobe is as fabulous in this movie as it is in "Deception," (also co-starring Claude Rains & Paul Henreid). Perhaps having both of them in both shows is what produced the mastery of all the elements in both movies. Though "Deception" is also a love story, Claude Rains coming seriously close to stealing the show from Davis.

In "Voyager..." the characters are much more egalitarian. The balance of love & despise is what makes the movies so intriguing. Davis should have taken an Oscar home for her leading role.

After seeing this great film, I realized that not every mother wants the best for her children.

Gladys Cooper gave a brilliant performance as the outrageously domineering mother. Her best supporting actress nomination was well deserved. It's a pity she lost the coveted award to Teresa Wright, the tragic daughter-in-law in "Mrs. Miniver." Obviously, Oscar voters could not bring themselves to vote for such a wicked mother that Cooper portrayed. (The following year Cooper gave another brilliant performance as the wretched nun in "Song of Bernadette." She lost the Oscar because who would vote for a vicious nun?)

No words are adequate to describe the outstanding Bette Davis performance in this film. Sorry, Greer Garson, Bette deserved this Oscar as she did so many. Her change from a hopelessly-drawn spinster to a ravishing beauty with all its torment can never be forgotten.

Thank you Claude Rains for your excellent portrayal of the psychiatrist.

At the height of WWII, Hollywood produced a lot of excellent melodramas. These were the vehicles the studios created for its stars of that era. It was either a Joan Crawford picture, or a Barbara Stanwyck, or a Bette Davis one, since their presence, bigger than life, was the only reason to bring these stories to the big screen.

Take this one, for instance, under the direction of Irving Rapper. It had all the right elements, yet it was chaste enough to pass the censor. Undoubtedly, this movie owes a lot to the fantastic score by the talented Max Steiner who was a genius. Mr. Steiner's music plays the haunting melodies with such flair, we feel we are listening to a great symphonic work.

The story, by today's standards wouldn't raise an eyebrow. At the time it came out, it was a different thing. After all, Jerry was a married man with a daughter and a situation that had no easy solution then. That makes Charlotte Vale suffer after she found her soul mate aboard the ship that served to free herself from a despotic mother.

Bette Davis plays Charlotte to perfection. Her scenes with Paul Hendried lighting the two cigarettes is something to cherish by film fans. The chemistry that Bette Davis shared with her leading men was no small accomplishment. She was an actress that knew how to pull the heart strings of the general public. She had such a charisma and power to lose herself in all those strong women she played through the years. The transformation of the plain Charlotte to the smart woman, who embarks on a tour to begin a new life, is something out of a fairy tale, but Ms. Davis pulls it with great panache.

The rest of the cast was excellent. Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville, Ilka Chase! They only come once in a lifetime. No one in present day Hollywood comes near to that. It was perfection.

In the 1942 screen adaptation of the 1941 bestseller by Olive Higgins-Prouty, Bette Davis and Paul Henreid provide excellent, subtle performances as Charlotte Vale (self-described Spinster Aunt) and J.D. (Jerry) Durrance, the married man she meets, befriends, and with whom she falls in love on a cruise following a transformative stay at the Vermont Sanatorium operated by Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains). Reviewers often speak of the themes of self-sacrifice and relate it to the war, which would have been an attractive reason to make the film, but the reality was that the novel was a popular best-seller, Higgins-Prouty's earlier novel, Stella Dallas, was also a popular film (and later a radio series), and the studio stood to do well financially if the movie turned out well. Hal Wallis' deft hand as producer is seen here, especially in his choice of Orry Kelly as costume designer for Bette Davis. He and the studio worked within the limits of censors' requirements, which indicated that there could be no intimation that the two main characters had sex (which was implicit in the novel but never explicitly stated, where the behavior between the two in the love scenes were generally glossed over most of the time), and that they could not share the same blanket in the scene where they are in a hut on a Brazilian mountain, stranded. They also had to change locales for the story, because the novel had the sea voyage set in and around Italy, Gibralter, etc. In spite of any restrictions placed on the filmmakers and actors, the film followed the novel very closely, especially with respect to dialogue. The big point of contention has always been: who invented the two-cigarette lighting gesture that Paul Henreid became famous for later? According to some, George Brent and Bette Davis did something similar earlier in another film, and according to Paul Henreid and Bette Davis, there was a cigarette exchange ritual in the script which was sort of awkward, so they improvised based on Paul Henreid's experience with his wife on car trips. The latter seems likely, as there was a cigarette-exchange ritual in the novel (Jerry would give Charlotte a cigarette, lighting hers and then his own on one match, and then they would exchange cigarettes with each other so that Charlotte smoked the one that had been in Jerry's mouth and vice versa), which would have been slightly awkward in practice.

All in all, this is a truly excellent film with great production values, true to the novel on which it was based, and a wonderful ensemble cast.