Bette Davis is trouble looking for a target. A Richmond girl bored with her declining family, running off with her sister's husband is only the beginning as she leaves a generally destructive trail behind her, though it's more recklessness than malice.
As with The Little Foxes, the film links immorality and economics. Davis is aligned more with her shrewd businessman uncle - and a pretty lewd relationship that is - than with her own father, whose escutcheon, at the beginning, we see knocked off their former home. Davis may overdo it a tad with the wide-eyed hysteria but she's given the dramatic leeway - everyone else is rigid - and she's pure entertainment. Good sister Olivia de Havilland has a relatively dull part but makes something quite beautiful out of it.
It's obscure to everyone why the two women have man's names (Stanley and Roy) and it certainly creates an odd effect. Huston's directing is immaculate, craftsmanlike, crisp and disciplined. The music is a also feature. If Davis isn't sashaying to the jukebox and the Victrola, she's being smothered by Max Steiner's symphonic score that has a fateful down-stepping motif like a staircase to hell.
In the best Warners style it takes you by the lapels, slaps you about a bit, and pushes you back into a chair.
As with The Little Foxes, the film links immorality and economics. Davis is aligned more with her shrewd businessman uncle - and a pretty lewd relationship that is - than with her own father, whose escutcheon, at the beginning, we see knocked off their former home. Davis may overdo it a tad with the wide-eyed hysteria but she's given the dramatic leeway - everyone else is rigid - and she's pure entertainment. Good sister Olivia de Havilland has a relatively dull part but makes something quite beautiful out of it.
It's obscure to everyone why the two women have man's names (Stanley and Roy) and it certainly creates an odd effect. Huston's directing is immaculate, craftsmanlike, crisp and disciplined. The music is a also feature. If Davis isn't sashaying to the jukebox and the Victrola, she's being smothered by Max Steiner's symphonic score that has a fateful down-stepping motif like a staircase to hell.
In the best Warners style it takes you by the lapels, slaps you about a bit, and pushes you back into a chair.