The Old Maid

A soap opera from 1939 starring Bette Davis & Miriam Hopkins. In the lead up to the Civil War, one of a pair female cousins is about to marry when her old beau shows up. Davis, the loyal one (who also carries a torch for the jilted suitor), rushes to the train station to break the bad news to him. When the war breaks out, Davis feeling the now available man is fair game starts to see him & as he leaves to the war & tragically dies there, we find out she was pregnant by him & decides to mask the potentially scandalous offspring among a throng of war orphans which she is in charge of. Hopkins, the other cousin, discovers this & fearing her kin may become a social pariah decides to take her daughter as her own to raise along w/her brood (her husband has passed on since the end of the war) making her think Davis is an aunt rather than her own mother. Davis, ever the selfless one (I guess self crucifixion was considered taboo in those days), agrees to the ruse & has to bite her tongue as she has to see her child raised by her scheming cousin only letting out the occasion outburst when she finds any fault in her 'niece's' deportment. There's a lot of suffering for suffering's sake occurring when all Davis had to do was probably move away w/her child rather than endure such an unspeakable act of betrayal but she agreed to it & to a certain extent, we the audience have as well as we swallow this foulness whole all for the sake of shedding some precious tears.

One of Bette Davis' best films and a great weepie; an unashamed Victorian melodrama but made with great panache and played with all the stops out. When Miriam Hopkins jilts her financee George Brent, cousin Bette gives herself to him and gets pregnant. When Brent goes off and gets himself killed Davis disappears out West so she can have the baby, raise her as an orphan and save what vestige of honour she has left. Years later, when Hopkins discovers the truth, she takes the child to be raised as her own while Davis lurks on the sidelines as old maid Aunt Charlotte. (This is the movie in which Davis gets to utter the immortal lines on her daughter's wedding night, 'Tonight she belongs to me. Tonight I want her to call ME mother!'). The film has a good pedigree. The original play won the Pulitzer Prize and was based in turn on an Edith Wharton novel. Tosh it may well be, but it is irresistible.

With Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner himself in charge of the production, "The Old Maid" is a fine example of what that studio's "stock company" was able to produce in the late '30s and early '40s. Here is Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, assisted by George Brent and Donald Crisp acting up a storm a very soapy piece of melodrama, and making it all very engrossing. Based on Zoe Akins' Pulitzer Prize play and Edith Wharton's novel, this drama of sacrifice, deception, and raging emotions is given a superlative treatment by this impressive company. The film even has the services of Max Steiner's score, underlying every scene with original and adapted source material. Edmund Goulding's direction is sure-footed and he has managed to curb histrionic accesses of the two stars nicely; their acting is quite restrained, yet powerful. Whatever sparks flew between the two ladies off-screen may be justified by what on-screen legacy is left for all to appreciate. Further, the drama depicts the limited and restrictive social/class mores of the period, undoubtedly imported from strict European values.

Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins shine in this Warner Bros. melodrama, "The Old Maid" released in 1939, a banner year for Davis at the studio. This was one of four very fine films she did that year, making her the reigning queen of the studio. In this one, Davis and Hopkins are cousins in the 1800's. Hopkins rejects her beau (George Brent) to marry into a wealthy family, the Ralstons. Davis has the hots for Brent (one of her frequent co-stars during this period) and gets pregnant with his baby. However, he goes off to fight the Civil War and is killed. At a time when being an unwed mother was not an option, Davis agrees to move in with Hopkins, now a widow with two children of her own. The child, Tina (Jane Bryan) grows up knowing she is a foundling, but always calls Hopkins "mummy." Davis does not let on she is Tina's mother, but rather an aunt; this fills her with resentment, and into a bitter old maid, hence the title of the picture.

The movie is pure soap opera, for sure, but the interplay between Davis and Hopkins is fascinating to watch. Davis has the showier part, but Hopkins more than holds her own. Off screen, Davis had an affair with Hopkin's husband, director Anatole Litvak, and now the two had to star together in a film! One can only imagine what went on between them on the set of this, but both give fine performances. Even Davis herself, much later in life, stated Hopkins was a superb actress and she always had to be on her toes as her co-star. There are some fine supporting performances, notably from Jane Bryan as Tina and the always under-rated Donald Crisp as a friend of the family and doctor. But this is Hopkins and Davis' show, and they do not disappoint.

Bette Davis vies with Miriam Hopkins for the affection of George Brent in this film version of Edith Wharton's 'The Old Maid'. As hard as Hopkins tries, she can't steal the film from Bette -- nor Bette's daughter (Jane Bryan), the love child being brought up by Delia (Hopkins). Basically the story of Bette being unable to tell her daughter that she's her real mother.

There are some odd peculiarities about the film itself. George Brent makes a few brief appearances early in the film and then is suddenly killed off after going to fight in the Civil War. A montage shows the passage of time and suddenly we're given an abrupt change of scene and events before still another time transition. The continuity is choppy and leaves an unsatisfying impression of the film as a whole. It's as if events that should have been shown are compressed because of time constraints.

Bette Davis gives one of her more restrained portrayals, aging rather realistically, showing the loneliness of the embittered woman who is cheated out of marrying another man when her cousin Delia (Miriam Hopkins) discovers that she bore Brent's child.

The soap suds are pretty thick, all of them backed by a nice Max Steiner score and handsome sets and period costumes. Miriam Hopkins plays the selfish bitch with her customary skill and makes Davis seem even more sympathetic by comparison. I have seen this movie praised to the skies by some who consider it a work of art--but there are too many flaws, including a false and abrupt ending involving Bette Davis and daughter Jane Bryan, and time changes that seem more like a case of bad editing.

There are fine performances in supporting roles by Donald Crisp, James Stephenson, William Lundigan and Jerome Cowan under Edmund Goulding's tasteful direction.

A tear-jerker, 1930s style--but one that doesn't date too well.