Juarez (1939)

 

 

The 1939 film Juarez depicts the debacle of the French attempt to establish hegemony in Mexico under the auspices of Maximilian von Habsburg. The unlikely combination of characters involved in the fiasco shows that once again truth is stranger than fiction. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, styling himself as Emperor of the French, was the master manipulator of the affair which sent the Austrian Archduke Maximilian to his doom. Maximilian's consort was the intelligent and mercurial Charlotte (Carlota) of Belgium, a granddaughter of Louis-Philippe, the Citizen-King. Although Juarez is a simplification of an extremely complicated series of events, it brings to life the historical reality of such fascinating personalities coming together.

I personally think that the film was misnamed; it should have been called Carlota, since Bette Davis turned her supporting role as the Empress of Mexico into the heart and soul of the drama. In typical Bette fashion, she upstages everyone else, including the great Paul Muni as Benito Juarez. Brian Aherne is perfection as the noble, charming and romantic Maximilian, the most hapless of Habsburgs, and one of the most liberal, too. The film does not show his marital infidelities, but it does play up the irony that Maximilian's reforms were similar to those proposed by Juarez. This did not endear the Emperor to the wealthy landowners and he lost their support. The real struggles of Maximilian and Carlota with their childlessness is poignantly portrayed, as is their genuine horror when they realize that they have been duped by Napoleon III. Maximilian perceives that the imperial Mexico of his dreams is nothing but a cruel charade, and that the original plebiscite that brought him there had been rigged. Nevertheless, he and Carlota have fallen in love with their new country and have come to identify so deeply with Mexico's agonies that there is no turning back.

The gradual disintegration of Carlota's sanity is perhaps one of Bette's greatest achievements as an actress. Carlota's breakdown at the Tuileries is a heartrending scene, with Bette authentically capturing the mannerisms of a person descending into mental illness. In actuality, Carlota's complete psychological collapse occurred not at the Tuileries but in Rome, where Pope Pius IX sighed: “Nothing is spared me in this life, now a woman has to go mad in the Vatican." The Empress never saw her husband again; he was shot by order of Juarez, while Carlota spent the next sixty years secluded in a Belgian castle. As for Mexico, in years to come the Church would be persecuted there; many of the faithful would be martyred.

The scene of the most stunning beauty is one earlier in Juarez where Carlota in black is praying at the foot of the statue of Our Lady. The prostrate Empress begs to have a child, and for the success of the Mexican enterprise, surrounded by the votive candles, with darkness hovering beyond the small sphere of light. Her faith in the face of insurmountable difficulties is all the more radiant if the viewer knows that her prayers will not be answered according to her heart's desires. Her posture of supplication communicates a total oblation of self to the will of God. Once again it is demonstrated that sometimes God chooses not to save a people or a nation through political means. Rather, He intends to sanctify in the crucible of sacrifice.

 

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All This and Heaven, Too (1940)

Most books are better than their film renditions, with a few exceptions. I personally enjoy the movie based upon Rachel Field's All This and Heaven, Too more than I ever liked the original novel. Not that the book is dull; it is based upon a true event. Rachel's great uncle married the infamous Henriette Deluzy-Desportes. Mademoiselle Deluzy was accused of complicity in a murder which rocked France and ignited the Revolution of 1848. After her release from the Conciergerie she fled to America where she married the Protestant minister Mr. Field.

The film, however, brings all the characters and their vying passions to life far better than does the novel. Charles Boyer wavers on the brink of insanity as the honorable but tormented Duc de Choiseul-Praslin. Scion of an ancient but impoverished family, the Duc has married the nouvelle-riche Fanny Sebastiani, daughter of one of Napoleon's generals. Barbara O'Neill, who played Scarlett O'Hara's saintly and refined mother, demonstrates her range as the hysterical, paranoid, oversexed Fanny, dripping with venom and religiosity. She would have stolen the show from any other female actress but Bette Davis. Bette is the restrained Huguenot governess Mademoiselle Deluzy, who brings order and dignity into the chaotic household, winning the hearts of the Duc and his children, thus earning for herself the Fanny's hatred. Davis simmers along as Mademoiselle Deluzy, who must face the stigma of sins she did not commit for, as so often happens, people are more incensed by the platonic friendship between the Duc and the governess than they would have been by a full blown love affair. Perhaps it is because such romantic but chaste relationships are sometimes more intense and longer lasting than sexual flings.

At any rate, Henriette pays a high price for the Duc's admiration and devotion. It is a most bitter tragedy, made all the more so by the reality of the actual story. The family of the Duc de Praslin-Choiseul was destroyed by Fanny's violent murder. Henriette found peace in a faraway land, where she passed on the story which became an American novel and classic film. Share

Now, Voyager (1942)

 From The Easton Gazette:

The untold want by life and land ne'er granted, 

Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.

~"The Untold Want" from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

It is perhaps one of Bette Davis' best films, one in which she reputedly became quite caught up in the role, playing an active part in the production decisions. Perhaps that is why the sets, costumes, and screenplay, as well as the flawless acting, raise Now, Voyager above the soap operatic level to a serious drama exploring the psychological implications of certain moral decisions. Although Bette could be convincing as a Southern Belle, playing New England spinster Charlotte Vale, a Daughter of the Pilgrims, suited her mannerisms and natural accent impeccably. However, it is Bette's ability to depict Charlotte's transformation from a weepy neurotic into a vibrant and enthusiastic life participant that makes the film so engaging.

Now, Voyager, based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, shows the fascination with psychiatry that would come to consume America, beginning in the 1920's, so that in some circles it became a pseudo-religion. When used in the proper context, as a tool for healing, not as a substitute for Divine grace, psychiatry can certainly help people with emotional and mental problems. Charlotte Vale, the heroine of Now, Voyager, is certainly put back on course by the compassionate Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), whose firmness, wisdom and tough love counteract the emotional abuse leveled upon her by her mother. The film is, overall, a study in bad parenting and good parenting. Charlotte's healing is completed not by psychotherapy but by nurturing a disturbed child. (Read more.)

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The Lonely Life of an Icon

Bette in Jezebel

I just finished reading Bette Davis' autobiography The Lonely Life and it was both fascinating and sad. Her first husband insisted she abort her first child and, when her mother backed him up, Bette complied. Here is an interview with Bette's personal assistant Kathryn Sermak:

She was the first person to receive 10 Academy Award nominations and she twice won for Best Actress. The first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, and the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Bette Davis is engraved in history as one of the most accomplished female actresses of classic Hollywood history. Known for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, when she died from breast cancer in 1989, the world lost one of the last of the greats. Entering the living room of Kathryn Sermak, Bette Davis' personal assistant of 10 years, you are immediately transported back to old Hollywood. Dominating the room is the actress' striped chaise longue, like a long throne and draped in a fur wrap, as if Bette has only just left the room for a few minutes to light one of her 100-a-day cigarettes. The dresser holds her collection of crockery: winter serving dishes featuring animals; summer dishes, a welcoming house in blue. There are Thanksgiving dining plates on which a large turkey dominates, and a gravy boat big enough to serve a squadron.

The exquisite ruby water glasses are as big as vases and as heavy as small gym weights; the wine goblets are elegant creations of a bygone age. Bette's pride in the appearance of her dining table is not what one might expect from a woman who played an ageing former actress, holding her paraplegic sister captive in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Kathryn Sermak's new book, Miss D & Me, reveals even more, with its anecdotes and insights into Bette Davis' life on the other side of the camera. It is also a tribute to the woman she acknowledges taught her everything when she started out as a naive Catholic 22-year-old working for one of the world's greatest movie stars. When we sit down to talk at Bette's dining table and sip rosé from the classic glasses, it's impossible not to feel a sense of her presence. (Read more.)

Bette with fourth husband Gary Merrill

 

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Cosmetics of the Past

Bette Davis as Elizabeth I

From MiceTimes of Asia:

In Ancient Greece, pale face was considered beautiful and women, to achieve this effect, have covered their faces in white lead. Ceruse ate into the skin, but women have used them again and again to hide the resulting stains. White lead can also cause infertility and insanity. The ancient Romans eventually took over this cosmetic custom, but added to the composition of white red lead, to get the effect of pink glitter.

 Makeup of white lead gained new popularity in the 16th century. Queen Elizabeth I was famous for his “Mask of youth” is unusually white complexion. Some women even applied egg white on the skin, to give your skin the desired paleness. White skin was a symbol of the upper class because people from the lower strata of society work under the open sky, the complexion was more swarthy. (Read more.)

Geri Walton reports on ideals of female beauty in the 17 and 1800's. To quote:

Beauty was important to women, but, perhaps, it was even more important to men, because it was a man who noted in the late 1700s that a woman’s “first merit is that of beauty.” People seemed to have particular ideas of what beauty entailed and wrote about it. André Félibien, a French chronicler of the arts and the official court historian to Louis XIV of France in the 1600s, provided the following classical description of beauty often using Venus as the ideal image:

• The Head should be well rounded; and look rather inclining to small than large.
• The Forehead white, smooth, and open (not with the Hair growing down too deep upon it;) neither flat nor prominent, but like the Head well rounded; and rather small in Proportion than large.
• The Hair either bright, black or brown; not thin, but full and waving, and if it falls in moderate Curls the better.
• The Eyes, black, chestnut, or blue; clear, bright, and lively, and rather large in Proportion than small.
• The Eyebrows, well divided, rather full than thin; semicircular, and broader in the Middle than at the Ends.
• The Cheeks should not be wide; should have a Degree of Plumpness, with the Red and White finely blended together; and should look firm and soft.
• The Ear should be rather small than large; well folded,…with an agreeable Tinge of Red.
• The Nose should be placed so as to divide the Face into two equal Parts; should be of a moderate Size, strait, and well-squared; though sometimes a little Rising in the Nose,…may give a very graceful look to it.
• The Mouth should be small; and the Lips not of equal Thickness: They should be well-turned, small rather than gross; soft, even to the Eye; and with a living Red in them. A truly pretty Mouth is like a Rose-bud that is beginning to blow.
• The Teeth should be middle-sized, white, well-ranged, and even.
• The Chin, of a moderate Size; white soft, and agreeably rounded.
• The Neck should be white, strait, and of a soft, easy, and flexible Make, rather long than short; less above, and encreasing [sic] gently toward the Shoulders: The Whiteness and Delicacy of its Skin should be continued, or rather go on improving, to the Bosom.
• The Skin in general should be white, properly tingled with Red; with an apparent Softness, and a Look of thriving Health in it.
• The Shoulders should be white, gently spread, and with a much softer Appearance of Strength, than in those of Men.
• The Arm should be white, round, firm, and soft; and more particularly so from the Elbow to the Hands.
• The Hand should unite insensibly with the Arm;…They should be long and delicate, and even the Joints and nervous Parts of them should be without either any hardness or dryness.
• The Fingers should be fine, long, round and soft; small, and lessening towards the Tips of them: And the Nails long, rounded at the Ends, and pellucid.
• The Bosom should be white and charming; and the Breasts equal in Roundness, Whiteness, and Firmness; neither too much elevated, nor too much depressed; rising gently, and very distinctly separated.
• The Sides should be long, and the Hips wider than the Shoulders…and go down rounding, and lessening gradually to the Knee.
• The Knee should be even, and well-rounded: the Legs strait, but varied by a proper Rounding of the more fleshy Part of them; and the Feet finely turned, white, and little.

(Read more.)

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The Hollywood Canteen

From Lapham's Quarterly:

When America went to war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hollywood went to war as well. Quite literally: between 1941 and 1944, over 6000 Hollywood workers joined the service, including 1500 actors. Clark Gable manned machine guns; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. won a silver star; Jimmy Stewart flew dozens of bombing runs over Germany, rising from private to colonel. It was the equivalent of Will Smith going to Afghanistan and Brad Pitt on the ground in Iraq. The government understand the risk of putting prominent faces in battle, but also understood the stars’ potential as recruitment tools: a recruitment film starring Stewart supposedly prompted 100,000 men to enlist in the air force.

But Hollywood also went to figurative war, partnering with the war office in dozens of ways, some more obvious than others. The “Hollywood Unit” made training films, recruitment films, and newsreels, while various genres and stars were given over to “war production,” meaning a film noir starring a curmudgeonly iconoclast like Humphrey Bogart suddenly became Casablanca, complete with self-sacrificing conversion to the allied cause. Under this wartime production paradigm, The Hurt Locker would have become a celebration of grace under pressure.

Hundreds of stars, however, couldn’t go to war: they were too female, too old, or unable to pass the draft physical. Many of these stars toured the famed USO Circuits; some performed on large theaters on base, while others traveled to the front on the Fox Hole Circuit, giving impromptu performances on makeshift stages just miles from the front. 53,000 appearances by 4100 performers over four years, a figure that boggles the mind. The USO Circuits still operate today (Louis CK famously profiled his visit in an episode of last season’s Louie) but with neither the vigor nor visibility of World War II (or, for that matter, Vietnam or Korea).

All of this information is, to some extent, common knowledge. What people forget about is the sexiest part of the war effort, operated entirely outside of the auspices of the war board: The Hollywood Canteen.

The Canteen was the brainchild of actor John Garfield, a “flag-waving socialist” unable to enlist because of a heart condition, and Bette Davis, the so-called “fourth Warner Brother” and reigning queen of the studio. They wanted a place for troops to have fun before embarking on tour—and for the stars to facilitate that fun. Garfield suggested the idea, but Davis ran with it, finding an abandoned nightclub a block off Sunset Boulevard and calling upon her agent, Jules Stein, to head the financial committee. (Read more.)

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All About Eve (1950)

Author Gareth Russell discusses one of the wittiest films of all time.

The story of All About Eve begins with what we'd probably call a stalker today. A young, obsessive fan of Margo's, called Eve Harrington (played by Anne Baxter), has been to the theatre every night for the last few weeks to watch Margo in her latest theatrical triumph as a feisty Southern belle. One of Margo's Society friends, Karen, has noticed this poor, bedraggled fan and brings her backstage to meet her idol. Eve tells a heartrending story about having lost her husband in the recent Second World War and how it is only the joy of theatre which allows her to escape her depression. Moved by her story and impressed by her apparent loyalty, Margo hires Eve to be her personal assistant. As the movie unfolds however, Margo begins to suspect that Eve may in fact be out to sabotage her. Eve's new friendship with Addison DeWitt and her cosy conversations with Margo's boyfriend and playwright-friends rile Margo's paranoia and insecurities. What follows is a wonderfully believable depiction of jealousy, cruelty, manipulation and, in one hilarious yet heartbreaking scene, drunkenness. (Read entire post.)

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Jezebel (1938)

   Aunt Belle: Child, you're out of your mind. You know you can't wear red to the Olympus Ball

    Julie: Can't I? I'm goin' to. This is 1852, dumplin,' 1852. Not the Dark Ages. Girls don't have to simp around in white just because they're not married. ~Jezebel (1938)

Jezebel, a tale of Old New Orleans, is a film that becomes richer and deeper with every viewing. Julie (Bette Davis) is not really evil, just headstrong, and determined not to be dominated by either her fiancé, Preston (Henry Fonda) or by Southern convention. Her flouting of tradition is a way of antagonizing her beloved, whom she obviously adores. My sense is that Preston and Julie have such a great yearning for each other, they don't know how to deal with it, except by driving each other crazy. One impulsive gesture leads to another, however, tearing the lovers apart, causing a series of tragic repercussions. After Julie's banishment from genteel society, the old family butler, Cato, says of her: "Well, I reckon princesses, they just naturally grows up to be queens, that's all." Cato reveals that one person at least understands that underneath Julie's selfish conniving is true nobility of character. During the epidemic, she rises to the occasion, and is willing to face death in order to save her lost love. In the final scene, she sits upright among the yellow fever victims, serene and peaceful, giving her life for Preston, as the nearby bonfire shows how her passion has at last found a means of expression. With a superb screenplay and score, and an array of sparkling crystal and mint juleps, Jezebel waltzes along; it's never a bore. Share

Party of Four

Book reviews of bios of classic film stars by David Thomson. I don't know if I agree with everything he says about Bette but it sounds like an intriguing series.
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Now, Voyager (1942)

The untold want by life and land ne'er granted, 

Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.

~"The Untold Want" from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"

It is perhaps one of Bette Davis' best films, one in which she reputedly became quite caught up in the role, playing an active part in the production decisions. Perhaps that is why the sets, costumes, and screenplay, as well as the flawless acting, raise Now, Voyager above the soap operatic level to a serious drama exploring the psychological implications of certain moral decisions. Although Bette could be convincing as a Southern Belle, playing New England spinster Charlotte Vale, a Daughter of the Pilgrims, suited her mannerisms and natural accent impeccably. However, it is Bette's ability to depict Charlotte's transformation from a weepy neurotic into a vibrant and enthusiastic life participant that makes the film so engaging.

Now, Voyager, based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, shows the fascination with psychiatry that would come to consume America, beginning in the 1920's, so that in some circles it became a pseudo-religion. When used in the proper context, as a tool for healing, not as a substitute for Divine grace, psychiatry can certainly help people with emotional and mental problems. Charlotte Vale, the heroine of Now, Voyager, is certainly put back on course by the compassionate Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), whose firmness, wisdom and tough love counteract the emotional abuse leveled upon her by her mother. The film is, overall, a study in bad parenting and good parenting. Charlotte's healing is completed not by psychotherapy but by nurturing a disturbed child.

That is not to ignore the powerful love story which forms the basis of Now, Voyager. While on a cruise to South America to recuperate from a nervous breakdown, Charlotte meets and falls in love with Jerry (Paul Henreid), an unhappily married man. They decide not to pursue the relationship so as not to break up Jerry's family and traumatize his children. Knowing that Jerry loves her from afar gives Charlotte courage, although the sorrow at not having him in her life intensifies, especially after her mother dies of a heart attack during a quarrel. Overwhelmed by guilt, Charlotte flees to Dr. Jaquith's sanatorium, where instead of having another breakdown, she finds Jerry's young daughter Tina, who is there for treatment. The mothering which Charlotte gives Tina is redemptive for both herself and the girl.

Later, when Charlotte and Jerry are reunited, she insists upon a platonic friendship, for the sake of Tina's fragile psyche. That is when Charlotte says the famous line: "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon... we have the stars." It is fascinating that in a film which was actually quite worldly for its time, and did not purport to be religious, the needs of children are placed before adult passions. The adults find fulfillment not in seeking their own happiness, but in doing what is right for the youngsters, in spite of the personal sacrifice required. How different from the contemporary pursuit of pleasure in which our society drowns.

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Bette the Great

Her one hundredth birthday is this week. She is among the greatest actresses of all time. Of Bette Davis' many films my personal favorites are Jezebel, Now Voyager, All This and Heaven Too, Juarez, and The Old Maid. It is always great fun to watch her as "Margo Channing," as one article describes so well (via LRC):

And in one of her most celebrated roles, as the panicky aging actress Margo Channing in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" (1950), Davis trots out every bad habit she'd developed over the years, every "Bette Davis" mannerism, and makes them all seem, strictly speaking, necessary: real aspects of an unmistakably real woman. It helps, obviously, that Margo happens to be an actress. (This was a specialty of Davis's. She played actresses in no fewer than five of her pictures, including "Dangerous," for which she won her first Academy Award in 1935. The other was for "Jezebel.") She can get away with gestures and intonations that might be considered somewhat over the top in, say, a real estate lawyer; theatricality is part of who she is, maybe the largest part.

But - and this is the beauty of the performance - it isn't all she is. It would have been easy for Davis to play Margo as a pathetic drama queen. What she does is much more interesting: the performance is dry-eyed and free of camp posturing, the portrait of a woman whose theatricality is natural, both as an expression of her self and as a tool of her peculiar trade. It's something she's learned to live with, and to make a living from. Bouts of insecurity and emotional neediness are occupational hazards, as is a certain inability to resist the dramatic moment - standing on a staircase at a party, for example, to announce, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night" - but on balance Margo, mannerisms and all, seems a surprisingly level-headed woman. In the end she's a trouper.

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