User Reviews

This is a superior and under-rated "woman's picture" that really has all the elements of the classic weeper: star-crossed lovers, twists of fate, and self-sacrifice. It also has a sterling performance from Bette Davis which gives a strong indication of why she would soon be a superstar and regarded as the screen's best actress: Her belief in a character could suffuse it with passion and poignancy and transcend the shallowness of the accompanying story. She's supported by an excellent cast - Henry Fonda (in a basically thankless role), the ever-reliable Donald Crisp (her showdown scene with him oddly foreshadows similar scenes with Gladys Cooper in NOW, VOYAGER), Mary Phillips (in a role that in a later version would obviously have gone to Thelma Ritter), who was, at the time, Mrs. Humphrey Bogart (in the same year's MARKED WOMAN Davis would appear with Mayo Methot, the next Mrs. B., and Ian Hunter. Edmund Goulding, who excelled at this kind of thing, wrote and directed it - he would later direct Davis in two other notable soapers, DARK VICTORY (one of her most celebrated performances, as Judith Traherne), and THE GREAT LIE (for which Mary Astor won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar). It's all served up in the best Warner Bros. tradition, but doesn't seem to be as well-remembered as other such films of the era, such as MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, STELLA DALLAS, or MY FOOLISH HEART.

Bette Davis is "That Certain Woman" in this 1937 remake of "The Trespasser." Davis is the widow of a mobster killed in the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Now she works for a businessman Lloyd Rogers (Ian Hunter) and uses the name Mary Donnell. She has two men in love with her: her boss Lloyd and a man from a wealthy family, Jack Merrick (Henry Fonda). Knowing who she is thanks to a news story, Merrick's dad (Donald Crisp) is violently opposed to the marriage, but she and Jack marry. They break up right after the honeymoon, thanks to the dad, but during the honeymoon, Mary conceived Jack Jr. Jack goes off to Paris and marries Flip (Anita Louise), not knowing anything about the baby. Meanwhile, the unhappily married Lloyd is hanging around Mary.

Very melodramatic and dated film in the Stella Davis sacrifice vein, with both Davis and Fonda giving excellent performances. Fonda in those days was Jane Fonda with a man's haircut - the resemblance is there for all to see. He's adorable. Also as an actor, he was more energetic and earnest; later, he became more internalized, and in my opinion, less interesting. Davis sports an ugly hair-do (except when she's either just waking up or going to bed).

Very likable stars, and the story will keep you interested, even if it is dated.

I actually liked this picture. The story loosely parallels that of Madame Butterfly...and if you see it in that light, it doesn't seem all that over the top. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the writer had the idea of updating Madame Butterfly...I visually these guys in wrinkled shirtsleeves bending over their old Royal typewriters chomping on cigars..."Yeah...Madame Butterfly...that's the ticket...only she's not a prostitute, that won't work....but a fallen woman...but a noble one....she's a bootlegger's widow...yeah! that's the ticket...she marries a playboy, he dumps her, marries someone else...she waits for him....keep the faithful maid in the plot...has a kid....the husband comes back...remarried....she sends the kid off to live with her ex and then offs herself....yeah! It'll be a hit! Not a dry in the house."

I actually realized the similarity only in the last 15 minutes of the film when I got that awful yet familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach which always anticipates a mother's pending self-sacrifice. When Butterfly sees the American wife for the first time standing outside her little house on hill in Japan and realizes who she is and why she's there...it's really heartbreaking.

Anyway, despite the melodrama, the performances That Certain Woman are really very good, especially Davis's. She was a very intelligent actress, and understood what the camera would catch.

So, maybe you don't need to OWN this video, but I wouldn't disregard it entirely. Then go out and rent Frédéric Mitterrand's beautiful 1995 film of the opera. Heart-wrenching...

Secretary Bette Davis has her dishonorable past unearthed after a reporter breaks the story that she's the widow of a notorious gangster once involved in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre; this leads to the quick dissolution of Davis' even quicker marriage to Henry Fonda, but not before Bette can conceive a child! A few dry, amusing wisecracks in this remake of the silent drama "The Trespasser"--and some unintended laughs and head-scratching details as well. Davis keeps refusing offers of cigarettes (!), she types a letter to Fonda we never get to read, she packs her kid off without his toys and then blows forlornly on his whistle. The kid is a solemn tyke who seems to have a fixation on being a sailor, even while Fonda's new wife pays Davis a visit (in a wheelchair!) and trades confessions with her in front of a roaring fire which never seems to die down. Busy programmer would not be of much interest were it not for Bette's terrific performance; she's serious and focused--and sensitive when she should be--and she grounds this story in a bit of reality. Henry Fonda and the supporting players are also very good, especially Mary Phillips as Amy. The film opens confusingly and takes a while to get its bearings, yet the sequence where Bette meets her father-in-law for the first time is a superbly controlled dramatic moment in which everyone excels. Not a particularly witty or gripping picture, but certainly not bad, either. **1/2 from ****

Yes, it's a ridiculous, confusing plot. Yes, the characterizations are clichéd archetypes. The portrayal of her son shows a child yanked around with what we would see today as neglect, or even cruelty. But David fully commits, and elevates the entire enterprise. She is showcased, and provides a subtlety and range of emotion far beyond the script, e.g., she makes her interaction with the child actor believable. Fonda hangs in there, but his character doesn't give him much to work with. And some scenes rise to her level -- especially the conversation with Anita Louise in her wheelchair. We see the characters reacting to one another in an unlikely and awkward plot contrivance, and simultaneously see two skilled actresses working together to make all this believable and even moving. Plus, the wheelchair action is ... remarkable. Davis looks great, beautifully photographed, well-lit, with the famous eyes showcased repeatedly, to great effect. The finale has to be seen to be believed. What the involved viewer expected - and dreaded - is suddenly revealed to have taken place, and the effect is -- hilarious relief. Certainly not a great film, but essential for those who appreciate and admire Davis.

Here, Davis plays a secretary, Mary Donnell, with a past: she was once married to a mobster when she was very young. He is now dead but the press will not let her forget her past and move forward. Jack Merrick , Jr. (Henry Fonda) is in love with Mary. He marries her—promising to stand on his own feet rather than living off of his wealthy father, (Donald Crisp). But Jack's father first forbids the marriage then, after they get married, he has it annulled, and sweeps Jack off to Europe.

However, Mary has Jack's baby and names him Jackie. She is emotionally supported by her maid, Amy (Mary Philips)-who here plays a role something like Thelma Ritter would play in later movies. Mary is also supported by her understanding boss, Lloyd Rogers (Ian Hunter), who has an unhappy marriage and is not-so-secretly in love with Mary. But, his love is unrequited.

As the years pass and little Jackie grows, Mary remains in love with Jack: she can't get him out of her mind. Jack marries in Europe and he and his wife, 'Flip' (Anita Louise), are in a bad car accident that leaves her in a wheelchair for life. When Jack and Amy return to America, they both re-enter Mary's life: Jack is introduced to, and falls in love with, his 4-year-old son. 'Flip' makes a point of visiting Mary to ask her to marry Jack so that he can have a 'full life' with Mary and little Jackie.

This is one of those Bette Davis melodramas in which she is asked to make personal sacrifice(s), but the movie has too MANY of these moments. In fact until the end, we are left wondering who she will have to sacrifice: Jack?—Jackie?—both?-neither? The only 'villains' of this movie are Jack's father, who continually foils the love between Mary and Jack, and the tabloid newspaper reporters who won't leave Mary alone.

Surprisingly, the other women, of the movie (Mrs. Rogers, Flip, and even Amy)--who should resent Mary--are always way TOO understanding towards her. Not only does the movie suffer from an excess of these moments but the ending is WAY contrived too.

It's too bad, because the movie seemed to show some promise at the beginning. All this aside, Bette Davis' acting is still the great stuff that we have learned to expect from her.

Mary Donnell (Bette Davis) has a checkered past as a gangster's young widow. Now, she's lawyer Lloyd Rogers' secretary. She falls for wealthy playboy client Jack Merrick (Henry Fonda) and they get a quickie marriage. His father disapproves of her.

It's a melodrama with star Bette Davis and future star Henry Fonda. Bette is able to keep the story moving with her superior acting. Fonda is a little miscast although this is very early in his career. He hasn't settled into his everyman genuineness. He's still a good romantic lead. He isn't able to bring out the flaws in his character. In the end, this is mostly about Bette and she makes this work.

Audiences will groan at the character of Mary Donnell. Bette Davis is normally looking out for number one--and she's definitely her good old self in the first half of the movie. The widow of a gangster, Donnell has become a super-competent legal secretary for a respected attorney in a big firm. She fends off unwanted press attention and generally handles herself quite well as a tough single girl in the big city.

She becomes the mistress of her married boss at the law firm (although the Hays Office undoubtedly required the removal of any breath of sexual content here, it should be pretty obvious to all what is going on). In the second half of the movie, which focusses on Jack Merrick (Henry Fonda), whom Donnell has always loved, she achieves peaks of self-sacrifice that will send you staggering to the bathroom to throw up.

This is the sort of film that gives soap opera a bad name.

Was actually expecting quite a lot from 'That Certain Woman'. Yes it did sound very melodramatic, but there was a good deal of talent involved. Bette Davis gave many great performances, the best of which legendary status, as did Donald Crisp, who did a lot of big supporting roles in a varying filmography (but nearly always one of the better things about the not so good films). Henry Fonda was no stranger to good performances either and Edmund Goulding's other collaborations with Davis ranged from above average to great.

Not so sadly with 'That Certain Woman', which is perhaps their weakest collaboration. Through no fault of Davis, who is actually the best thing about it, there are other good things and it started off promisingly. All of that is unfortunately undermined by the film falling apart in the second half, where the amount of soap suds that lingers even after the film is over leaves a bitter aftertaste and the character writing certainly should have much more balanced and less simplistic.

Davis is as said the best thing about 'That Certain Woman' and is quite wonderful. A wide range of emotions very powerfully conveyed, even when the film falls apart. It is such a shock seeing Crisp play such an unpleasant character, he plays him very well and menacingly without overacting. The other female characters are sympathetically portrayed, especially Anita Louise.

'That Certain Woman' is lovingly made, with a real sense of mood in the photography and the production values overall have a lot of class. Max Steiner's score is sumptuous and swells and sweeps in distinctive fashion. Goulding directs tastefully in the first half, which is quite charming and affecting.

All that is undone in the second half, where the melodrama gets excessively heavy, the sentimentality makes for at two trips to the bathroom to try and wash out the soap suds welling up in the mouth and things do get silly to the point of ridiculousness. The amount of self-sacrifices Mary makes is so much that it becomes nauseating. The ending somehow rings false and is especially mawkish. The script gets increasingly stilted and soapy, and the momentum in the pace really goes.

Fonda looks uncomfortable in a role that really does not suit him, got the sense too that he himself knew that. Ian Hunter has too little to work with and doesn't have an awful lot of presence, at least he fares better than Fonda. Did have a problem with how the characters are written, especially the male ones, where too few of the characters have much dimension and are either written as too perfect or too cruel.

On the whole, watchable but with a lot that doesn't work. 5/10

In spite of it's impressive leads and the usually sure handed direction of Edmund Goulding That Certain Kind of Women is a lumbering, mawkish an implausible melodrama. Disjointed at times you get the feeling a reels missing.

Where do we begin. Ex-moll Mary Donnell is trying to go straight as an executive secretary for Lloyd Rogers who though married has a thing for Mary. Mary though falls for Jack Merrrick Jr. (Henry Fonda) much to the chagrin of Jack Sr. (Donald Crisp) who gets sonny's marriage annulled by playing hardball with her past. The two part he remarries and she has his kid. Years pass, Rogers dies and leaves her a ton of cash. Junior comes back finds out and vows to leave his crippled wife who pays a visit to Mary before they run off. Enough already.

Your drowning in suds in no time in this 30s chick flic that never finds a way to amp up the passion with characters that are tender sensitive and dull beyond belief. Davis stands around looking cow eyed most of the way while Fonda wimps about and Crisp remains stone like. Tina Louise rolls in on a wheelchair in the last act as wife "Flipp" and wrestles with Davis in another cloying moment of tear jerk to see who will make the greater sacrifice. No contest, the audience has.

First, I love Bette Davis. This movie is among the worst she ever made. Bette Davis wonderful at playing modern women, especially outspoken, bitchy or evil women. She showed little talent for playing mealy-mouthed, self-sacrificing women. I think most of her fans will be appalled by this film, especially by the ending, which will leave most modern audiences speechless. Thank God that the following year, Bette co-starred with Henry Fonda in a classic, "Jezebel," and got her career back on track.

THAT CERTAIN WOMAN (Warner Brothers, 1937), Written and Directed by Edmund Goulding, stars the youthful blonde Bette Davis in a melodramatic remake to Edmund Goulding's own directed edition to THE TRESPASSER (United Artists, 1929) starring Gloria Swanson and Robert Ames. With a few alterations about the character, now a gangster's widow, and the name change from Marion to Mary (plus opening and closing changes from the original), much of the plot remains the same. Though Davis would NOT be awarded an Academy Award nomination as did Swanson for her performance, it did pave the way for others, and better melodramatic productions for Davis' resume during her acclaimed peak years (1937-1946).

Mary Donnell (Bette Davis) is a gangster's widow who comes to the cemetery to visit the tomb of her deceased husband, Al Haines (1899- 1929), who was gunned down at the 1929 Valentine's Day massacre. Accompanied by her best friend, Amy (Mary Phillips), Mary is photographed by Virgil Whittaker (Hugh O'Connell), a reporter out to get a good story on her four years after the incident. Mary works for a law firm of Rogers, Alden and French, with Lloyd Rogers (Ian Hunter), as her employer. Although a married man, he secretly loves Mary, unaware that she's in a relationship with his good friend and millionaire playboy, Jack Merrick (Henry Fonda), whom she has known for three years, now back from Europe. After their wedding, Jack and Mary honeymoon at the Lake Hotel, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Jack's father (Donald Crisp) and a couple of detectives (Sidney Toler and Tim Henning) who have traced them there. As much as Merrick disapproves of the marriage and the girl's notorious background (like getting married at 16), Mary sees Jack doesn't have enough fight in him to stand up to his father, causing her to walk out on him and have Merrick annul their marriage. During the course of four years, Mary has become a mother to Jack's son (Dwane Day), while Jack has married his childhood sweetheart and debutante, Flip Carson (Anita Louise), whose honeymoon is met with a serious automobile accident that permanently cripples his young wife. As Amy becomes a full-time babysitter to little Jackie, Mary resumes her job working for Mr. Rogers. News spread about Mary's reputation when the seriously ill Rogers comes to and dies in Mary's apartment with his wife (Katharine Alexander) at present. Rogers' last will and testimony leaves Mary and her son $50,000, causing the media to question about Jackie, the "mystery" child. The mystery is cleared upon Jack's return to be told by Mary that the 4-year-old boy happens to be his son. Problems arise when Merrick Sr. returns to the scene to have Mary's son taken away for her being an unfit mother. Others featured in the cast are: Minor Watson (Clark Tilden); Ben Weldon (Harry Aqueilli); Norman Willis (Fred); Frank Faylen and Willard Parker (Newspaper Reporters), among others.

Very leisurely paced during its 94 minutes, THAT CERTAIN WOMAN would be the start of what could be categorized as formula Bette Davis material. Under Goulding's direction, Davis is honored with enough close-ups to indicate the movie very much belongs to her. Even with these close-ups, Davis shows how beautiful she can actually be, ranging from short hair-cut bob to long hair shoulder spread. Davis works very well with Henry Fonda (who was better cast here than Robert Ames was in THE TRESPASSER), and would work with Fonda once more the classic Civil War era story, JEZEBEL (1938), the film that would win Davis her second Academy Award as Best Actress. With Anita Louise's character discussed much in the story, and her name listed third in the casting credits, her character of Flip appears 72 minutes into the story, with no more than ten minutes on screen. She, too, gives a sympathetic performance as the crippled girl, while Donald Crisp gives a forceful performance as Fonda's strict father. The lighter moments belong to Hugh O'Connell as the photographer close friend of Mary who helps her through the rough spots. In spite of its slow-pacing that could bore first-time viewers, THAT CERTAIN WOMAN did have plenty of reruns through much of the 1970s and early 1980s on broadcast television late shows to become familiar Bette Davis material.

Formerly distributed to video cassette, THAT CERTAIN WOMAN, which commonly plays on Turner Classic Movies along with similar Davis movie titles as FRONT PAGE WOMAN (1935) and MARKED WOMAN (1937), would be more of interest to fans to that certain woman herself, Bette Davis (or Henry Fonda perhaps) more than the Edmund Goulding directorial effort itself. (**1/2)