Reviews

Accidentally bumped into this when it came on after "United States of Al". I'd not heard of it (or the UK version everyone seems so gung-ho on) so I had no preconceived notions about the show. The first episode moved slowly, mainly due to the large cast and their introductions. I've been a fan of Rebecca Wisocki since her Devious Maid days, so it was worth the second look, if only for her role of haughty Hetty, a previous owner of the manor and ancestor of the new owner, Sam.

I appreciate slightly naughty double entendres and I really love sight gags and this show is full of them. The hubby a little inept, but that hole he made in the wall was a set up to a perfect sight gag, and his improvisation of "fixing it" made me laugh out loud.

The premise is that Sam inherits a gorgeous manor, and she and hubby go check it out with intentions of selling it. She falls in love with the place and wants to turn it into a B&B, but is unaware that it is very haunted. She then has a near-death experience, which she survives, but this has made her able to see and hear ghosts. She's got quite a crew of creepy-looking spirits in the cellar (they really wish someone would just leave the basement light on!), but the large group that haunts the rest of the place is quite the motley crew.

There's the Viking, Thorfin, who is fascinated by TV; an American Revolution soldier, Isaac, who is very upset over how popular Alexander Hamilton is in the 21st century; Sasappis, a native American; Alberta, a torch singer from the Roaring 20s; the aforementioned Hetty who loves her old home and wants no changes; Flower, the Woodstock era hippie; the eternally sunny Pete, a Boy Scout troop leader who obviously died from an arrow going through his neck; Crash, a leather-clad biker who keeps losing his head--literally--and Trevor, a wolf of Wall Street. We do not yet know how he died but in the afterlife he has no pants on so there's got to be an interesting story there.... All spirits have a special talent, based on who they were or how they died. Isaac died of dysentary, so he is able to create dreadful smells. Alberta has a gorgeous, huge voice and when she sings, some of the living can hear it. Trevor can sometimes move things but he's not really good at it.

We do not yet know all of the ghost's stories or what their special talents are but I am sure the reveals will be quite funny. CBS finally has a great line-up of sitcoms on Thursday, with Young Sheldon, United States of Al, B Positive and now Ghosts. It's worth a watch!

Sir Alec Guiness plays two roles in this movie--teacher John Barratt and French nobleman, Jacques De Gue. John lives a solitary life, no spouse, no children. Jacques, on the other hand has a wife who no longer loves him, a high and haughty mother, a strange daughter and a spinster sister who lives with them. Oh, and a mistress. He also owns a beleaguered glassworks that he dare not close down or it will harm several longtime employees. Jacques is tired of all this. He does not want to remain in his bitter marriage but must, as his wife's money is how they keep the big estate afloat. So he hatches a convoluted but genius way to get what he wants...

Poor John keeps getting mistaken for someone else and is confused, until he meets that someone else face to face. Jacques gets him drunk, then takes him to the inn he is staying at to let John sleep it off.

John is awakened the next morning by Jacques' man, Gaston, who thinks his master is trying to pull a fast one when he claims he is not who Gaston thinks he is. Before John can pull himself together, he is bustled off to the estate, where his pleas fall on deaf ears. Even those closest to him think it is Jacques.

John attempts to leave, but is sucked into the family drama. His mother is wonderfully played by Bette Davis. She only has a few scenes but she has the attitude to pull off both a snooty countess and a raging morphine junkie. Yep, mommy is addicted and cannot live without her hits. Thankfully, Jacques did not forget her and included a large supply of the stuff to calm her down.

Jacques also had three other gifts sent along. His daughter, the artistic Marie Noel, is given paints. Francoise, his wife, is almost shamed when she opens a lovely music box that plays "their" song. You can visibly seeing her soften toward him. Then Marie-Noel looks at the third gift, which simply has the initial "B" on it. She assumes it is for her dour aunt, Blanche, but the card message is confusing. It's a bottle of expensive perfume with the note about using it on the horses if she doesn't like it. The two older women know it is not for Blanche, but for Jacques' mistress, Bela. Any good feeling the music box might have evoked disappears in an instant.

John could easily hitch a ride back to town as he is not being held against his will. Far from it, as he takes his daughter to a lesson and goes to visit Jacques's mistress. She also cannot tell John is a reluctant imposter.

John quickly settles into Jacques's life, and it looks as if he is integrating himself into the household with plans to stay. He is an improvement over Jacques, obviously, and it seems as if John is content with stepping into his shoes. Jacques, however, did not set up this thing without an ulterior motive. He comes back to reclaim the life he left behind, but to do so he needs to murder a few people. Francoise, so he can inherit all her money and live the way he wants and John, of course, who knows too much. Poor Francoise meets an untimely demise, but John and Jacques face off with one another. We hear a gunshot and...which one survives?

I tried to be lenient when watching this but it really was a hot mess. Bette was about 62 when it was made, not quite the "elderly woman" mentioned in the TV listings. There were several plot holes and hammy acting to suffer through, making it a bit aggravating to watch. However, my goal in life is to see every movie BD appeared in. Bunny O'Hare is not an easy movie to come by. It's not available anywhere so the only way to catch it is the off-chance it's ran on TV.

The premise is that a widow named Bunny O'Hare has fallen behind on her mortgage, so the bank is repo'ing her home. Which is a standard enough plot design, but for reasons never explained, they start tearing the house down while she's still in it. I'm pretty sure, even back then, the bank would just keep the house and resell it. Why go to the trouble and expense of levelling it? And while this is going on, salvagers like Bill Green (Ernest Borgnine) are making off with the toilet and bathroom sink to "sell in Mexico".

She tried to reach her kids for help, but both calls end up with her kids asking her for money. I do not know who played her daughter Lulu but her son was played by John Astin and boy was he annoying. So Bill takes pity on Bunny and offers her a ride. When they go to get gas he tries to ditch her, but she's hard to shake. He drives a crappy old truck with a camper on the back. This camper is amazing...by the end of the movie it has become wide enough to hold two cots side-by-side with three feet of space between them! Oh, and the toilet and sink taken from Bunny's home are never seen or mentioned again. You think they'd be tripping over them, cracking their shins on them, etc. And at another point they also have Bill's motorcycle hidden back there. Ridiculous.

So she comes across a wanted poster Bill had tucked away from his days as a bank robber and she gets the wise idea to rob the bank that took her house, to get even with them. She asks him to teach her everything he knows. He protests a little, but of course eventually goes along with it. They notice a lot of hippies in the area, so they dress the part, which is how they are able to pull off so many heists. Everyone's looking for young mod kids in their 20s, not a couple of 60-somethings.

It was only supposed to be the one and done, but every time Bunny checks in with her kids they need more money. Her son is a gambler, and a lousy one at that, and her daughter is married to a butcher who has to have expensive therapy because he doesn't like meat. I know, I know, I rolled my eyes several times during this movie.

Jack Cassidy played the part of a bungling cop, Lt. Horace Greeley (yes, more eye rolling). Jack was quite the ham, not sure if it was satirical on purpose for the movie or if it's just the way he was. Either way, it was annoying. His antics would get him fired now, but back then it was okay to be sexist and give massages to his cute little cohort, J.D. Hart. He is about the dumbest cop ever, luckily she (played by Joan Delaney) is the brains of the outfit. If he would ever listen to her, they could have caught the bank robbers about half a dozen times...

This is not a BD movie, but it is one of the first she appeared in. Myra Deauville Mae Clare) is a chorus girl but when we first see her, the show she was in has come to an end. She has a wealthy suitor who buys her a fox stole.

We next see her in London, and she has fallen on hard times. In fact, she is a prostitute. She's out trolling when an air raid hits. She is stopped by an elderly woman who has dropped her basket on Waterloo Bridge. So while everyone else is running away, she stops to help the woman and they are joined by a tall blond handsome soldier. He tells them his name is Roy Cronin and it was his luck to start a 14 day leave just as this was happening.

Myra and Roy take a liking to each other. It soon becomes obvious he is from a very wealthy family. He's only 19 and woefully naive and it gets right past him that she is a hooker. She thinks that he wants to hire her, but he just goes to a restaurant and gets take out to share with her. Her landlady shows up in the midst of all this and we learn Myra is way behind on her rent. Roy offers her some money which she timidly accepts then gives back to him.

The next day he shows up with flowers and a dress she mentioned seeing. Her friend across the way almost lets her secret out, but Myra arrives home in time. He asks her to join him at his family's estate but she declines. Later they take a drive and he suggests walk. They leave the driver and car (and never go back for them!) and are walking through a nice garden when they bump into his mom, sister (Bette Davis) and his deaf as a stump, pompous stepfather.

Myra is welcomed but his mother figures things out. Still, she is rather kind to Myra but she does make her realize Roy is way out of her realm. Back from the country, Myra tries to stay away from him and goes back to her old life. She quickly finds a john but at the last minute declines him. When Roy comes over she tries to tell him her secret but instead has a bit of a nervous breakdown. He calms her own and asks her to marry him. She agrees.

The next day he goes to surprise her but he bumps into the landlady who tells him exactly who Myra is. He doesn't care, he loves her. He pays off her rent, but then the landlady discovers a note that says she can't marry him. He leaves with tears in his eyes. He goes to catch the train and she is there to see him off. He makes her promise she will marry him when he returns and she agrees...again. He leaves, she's walking on Waterloo Bridge, looks up and sees a zeppelin overhead. A scream, an explosion and she is gone, the only thing left is her much worse for the wear fox stole.

The title "The Rich Are Always With Us" is long and well, stupid, as the only correlation to the movie is that the protagonist, Caroline, is crazy rich. Maybe it was a snide allusion to the fact that the movie was filmed during the Great Depression but the rich are carrying on as usual.

This movie is just 71 minutes long, but manages to tell a story. Back then, directors used headlines or calendars or something along those lines to illustrate the passage of time. This one starts by showing "1900" and two women gossiping about a new baby named Caroline, the richest child in America. Then "1920" and two women are gossiping about Caroline getting married. And then "1930" and the movie opens. If it was filmed today, those few moments would be drawn out to create a 2 or 3 hour movie, in order to tell the story before they get to the actual story. If nothing else, I appreciate how movies back then were not bogged down with so much info and pre-story the way they are now.

It does, however, put you at a slight disadvantage when the film actually begins, as all you know is there's a rich 30 year old woman named Caroline and ACTION! Basically it is about the lives of five people--Caroline Grannard, of course, and her husband Greg, who are on the verge of a divorce. There's also Malbro (played by an impossibly young and beautiful Bette Davis) who I believe is Caroline's best friend, but there is a phone call between the two where Malbro asks "How's Mother doing?" so maybe they are sisters? George Brent plays handsome author Julian Tierney. Malbro likes him, but she is quite aware that he is in love with Caroline so she's more chummy than romantic with him. There's also the whiny and annoying Allison Adair who appears to be a hangers-on, of sorts. She has her eyes set on Greg. The Ven diagram needed to sort this out would be ridiculous... Caroline is likable, but you also want to yell at her. She has a perfectly fine husband, all the money and fabulousness a person could ever want for, yet she is in love with Julian. She admits this, but she also is having a hard time letting Greg go, especially when she realizes Allison is attempting to get her hooks into him. When she sees the two kissing, she decides it is time for the divorce so she goes to France to take care of it. Julian has asked Caroline again and again to marry him and she keeps putting him off. He has to go to Europe on business so they briefly meet up and it appears that Caroline finally realizes that she stands to lose him as well, if she doesn't make a decision soon. Back in the states, though, she finds it hard to cover her jealousy when she first hears that Greg and Allison have married, and then later hears they are expecting a baby. Despite her indecisiveness it finally looks as if she and Julian are making a go of it. And then she gets word that Greg and Allison were in a dreadful accident. Allsion was killed and Greg might not make it. So of course Caroline rushes to his side and Julian feels as if he will always be second best. He decides to go to Europe and never return. However, Caroline surprises us all when she realizes there's a judge recuperating in the hospital as well. She has the judge officiate at an impromptu wedding for her and. . . Julian. A twist ending, I love it! Movies in the 30s and 40s almost always had the woman 'doing the right thing' instead of following their heart. Despite the stupid movie name, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

George Brent and Bette Davis appeared in 11 movies together and while they didn't exactly have the smoldering chemistry of Bogie and Bacall, they worked very well as a team. Sort of old and comfortable, like an old married couple who are still very fond of each other.

George's character is a newspaper reporter, Bill Bradford. His girlfriend, cute little Julie Gardner (Bette) is a bookkeeper for notorious gangster Alexander Carston (Ricardo Cortez). She certainly doesn't seem like a hardened moll but she explains this anomaly away by stating she was young and naive and in need of a job when Carston offered her the position. She had no idea what it would entail, but the main thing is keeping his books in a private code, thereby assisting him with tax evasion, amongst several other crimes.

It's not like she is actively helping Carston get away with things, but her quick knowledge of his affairs makes her very valuable to him...and to the Feds. One thing neither she nor her boss is aware of is that Bill, the nondescript newspaper reporter, is actually a special agent. He is trying to take down Carston, and is determined to do so, even though the racketeer has been brought up on charges 50 times yet still seems to slither out of his accuser's grasps, time and again . Eventually Bill lets Julie know who he really is, and she agrees to help him get the goods on her boss. If Carston finds out, it is certain death for her, as he has a habit of dispatching those who are not faithful to him. She allows one of the feds in to 'photostat' the doctored books and gives them the code to decipher. Carston, though fond of Julie, sort of figures out what she's done. He's not certain, but she is a dangling loose end so he sends two of his thugs to pick her up at the courthouse, pretending to be lawmen.

There is, of course, a shoot-em-up, which is actually a little funny. The windows and walls and a few bodies are peppered with bullets...yet nothing seems to happen other than a few bullet holes and men dropping over, completely intact. Also, the rat-a-tat of the gun goes on for several seconds after the shooting, making it feel like we're in a dubbed movie and the timing is off...

My only complaint is the too-loud rinkety-tinkety background music that was SO annoying I eventually turned the sound off and the closed- captioning on. Bless the people who are involved in the closed caption process on these old movies. Sometimes, between the background music and the actor's rapid-fire delivery, I would certainly miss a lot if not for the time and trouble taken to help those of us who are hearing-impared

Johnny Ramirez is a poor mechanic who attends law school in the evening. He finally gets his degree, and his mother is filled with pride, trading in her wedding ring to buy him a 'shingle'. Trouble is, he's poor and his office is in a poor part of town which means his customers are all poor. He finally gets a practically open and shut case that he loses due to being unprepared. He ends up taking a swing at the opposing lawyer who gets him disbarred (on his first case!). The woman who caused the accident is the very wealthy Dale Elwell (Margaret Lindsay), who feels sorry for Johnny and gives his client money to fix his truck. Feeling he isn't cut out to be a lawyer, Johnny decides to leave, taking to the road to find his fortune. A year later, he is working at a popular nightclub as the manager. The owner is a dumpy middle aged guy named Charlie. Bette is his very young wife Marie (she would have been about 27 here) She makes a move toward Johnny when Charlie is out of town, but is politely rebuffed. One night Charlie drinks way too much. Johnny offers to take him home but she says she'll be fine. Although she is not fine, he is too large for her to get into the house. She figures she will just leave him in the car to sleep it off, but as she goes to turn the car off an evil light bulb goes off. She leaves it running and closes the garage door. Not surprisingly, she takes his death very well... She tries to give Johnny a key to her house but again he politely says no thanks. She is well taken care of in the will and she gives Johnny money to create a huge, gorgeous casino. On opening night it is packed and a table of six shows. Johnny is surprised to see the lawyer who had him disbarred and Dale Ellwell. He seems to like her, so much so that he forgot he was to pick up Marie and was two hours late. She was not happy. She is even unhappier when she realizes that Johnny likes Dale so she insinuates she is his partner 'in every way'. Johnny yanks her inside and tells her off, and in a fit of pique Marie blurts out that she killed Charlie so she could be with him. He tells her to never darken his door again. Marie runs to the police and tells them Johnny coerced her into killing Charlie. Apparently there was no due process then because they run right out with a warrant for his arrest. So he is tossed in jail, and with haste never seen in today's day and age, it goes to trial. Marie gets up on the stand and lies her feet off and then completely goes bonkers. With just as much speed, Johnny's lawyer moves to have the case dismissed due to Marie's insanity and apparently this works because in the next scene he is going to Dale's house. He asks her to marry him and she puts him down, telling him they run in different circles and there's no way she would marry him. She runs off and gets hit by a car. He sells the casino and goes back home. Totally unsatisfying ending...

Bette plays twin sisters in this movie--down to earth bar owner Edith and her wealthy sister Margaret DeLorca. It opens at Frank DeLorca's funeral. Edith seems upset. Margaret seems to be there only for the photo op. Dressed head to toe in black, complete with a black hat and heavy veil, she cuts an imposing yet grim character. The sisters had a falling out and haven't seen each other for 20 years. We find out that Edith once dated Frank but Margaret stole him away and then claimed she was pregnant to keep him. However, on the ride home, the driver tells Edith that he has worked for the family forever, and Margaret and Frank never had a child. Finding this out flips a switch in Edith. She's got a good decent boyfriend, (a cop played by Karl Malden) but lives in a tiny walk-up apartment over her jazz bar...and she's 3 months past due on the rent and about to be kicked out. You can tell she feels that Margaret stole the life she was supposed to have. She asks her sister to come over, and she questions her about the pregnancy. Margaret finally confesses it was a ruse and in a bizarre plot twist, Edith kills her sister. There's a tiny little bullet hole in Margaret's forehead and no blood, and Edith manhandles her pretty roughly getting her out of her nice clothes. Still, not a drop of blood shed... Edith then takes over her life. At first she is a little clumsy, and the butler seems to be eyeing her closely. Frank's Great Dane, Duke, takes a liking to Edith, which is surprising to many who know Margaret hates the dog. Edith is a chain smoker, but Margaret quit years ago. Edith has her take it back up again. There's a scene where the maid is going to put some jewelry in the safe and needs "Margaret" to open it. Edith distracts the young girl and later finds out the combination from M's diary. I think it would have been a nice bittersweet moment if the combo was their birthday, since they were twins. The cops have pretty much done all their questioning and decide "Edith" did commit suicide.So she's got everyone fooled...until we (and Edith!) find out M was having an affair with a handsome but an unscrupulous character, Tony. He straightforward blackmails her and she gives him expensive jewelry to pawn. The pawn shop owner calls the cops and they search Tony's home, where they find arsenic. (The head cop is played by Philip Carey, who spent years as patriarch Asa Buchanan on One Life To Live) They exhume Frank and discover he died of arsenic poisoning, not the heart attack that was assumed. The look on Edith's face when she realizes that Margaret and Tony killed Frank is priceless. Tony comes over to harangue Edith some more but Duke gets upset at his tone and attacks and kills him. So Edith ends up going to prison over Frank's death (which she did not do) but gets away with Margaret's death (which she did do)

Selena Peake a young girl without a mother. Her father loves her very much but he is a bit childish, and a gambler. She is about ten when the movie opens, then is sent to boarding school. Ten years later, he is shot dead over a poker game. Selena is sent to High Prairie, outside Chicago, as a schoolteacher in a Dutch community. She lives with the Pool family, which consists of Klass and Marrtje, their son Roelf, two annoying daughters who do nothing but skulk about and giggle in a dreadful high-pitched tone, plus two other creepy guys that I take to be farm hands. Selena is relegated to the top floor attic but is treated fairly enough, even if everyone pokes fun at her expense. The entire community is rather plain and simple, but Roelf Pool is a very intelligent--if truculent-- young man. He has a crush on his new schoolteacher and enjoys reading books she lends to him. So the era is the 1890s and at that point everything ran around the doings of the church. Selena goes to a Sunday sermon and a big hulking man there, Pervus DeJonge, catches her eye. The wealthy and widowed Mrs. Paarlenberg has her sights set on Pervus but once he meets Selena, he is smitten. At a box lunch charity supper to buy a new organ for the church, he bids nothing on the widow's steamer-trunk sized lunch but bids a crazy amount ($10, which is about $300 in today's dollars!) on Selena's tiny one. He has a nice large farm but he's uneducated. Selena starts to tutor him and the next thing you know, they're married. They seem like such a mismatched couple. She's bright and witty and he's dull and stolid. Still, a single woman on the prairie would know she'd have to marry quickly and as good as she could, and Pervus is, if nothing else, a good hard worker. She'd once eaten asparagus with her father at a fancy hotel when she was a girl and she thinks that would be a fine crop, but Pervus disagrees. He's not much for changes. As quickly as they are wed, they have a child named Dirk. His nickname is "So Big" dating back to a game she played with him. Around this time, Mrs. Pool dies and Mr. Pool takes up with the Widow Paarlenberg. Roelf comes to see Selena, tells her is taking off for parts unknown. The widow doesn't like him and he feels there's more out there. Then Pervus dies and the care of the farm is left to Selena. At first it is hard going but once she starts growing newfangled asparagus, she becomes quite wealthy. Dirk grows up and after college he becomes an architect. He's having a dalliance with an older married woman who talks him into trying to sell bonds. He does and he is a natural at it, become very wealthy in a short time. Selena is upset by this, as she feels it is beneath him. He hires an illustrator to do an ad for him and in sashays Bette Davis, in that fabulous persona she had even back then before she became huge. He makes his interest known, she's stand-offish. They go out to visit his mother (the old age makeup on Barbara Stanwyck was almost ghoulish) and who should show up but Roelf Pool, back from Europe, where he is a famous and wealthy sculptor. I was a little confused by the ending, as it seemed as if old Roelf and Selena were eyeing each other rather romantically. Then again, there's probably only about six years age difference (he was 12 or so to her 18 or so when she came to High Prairie) He seemed to be still fostering the same crush on her as he did all those years ago. Another disconnect was that this was supposed to be High Prairie in Illinois, 'outside Chicago' but in the final outdoor scenes there are definitely mountains in the background. . .



I want you to realize that this whole thing called Life is just a grand adventure. The trick is to act in it and look out at the same time. And remember: no matter what happens - good or bad - it's just so much velvet.

This movie is only at 70 minutes long, which was the norm in the 1930s. However, to make a movie fit into that narrow slot, a lot of storytelling has to be sacrificed. We're now used to grand, sweeping three hour sagas, where we do not have to read between the lines or guess at any missing chunks of plot. In this one, there's a lot of filling in the blanks. For instance, the movie starts with a large crowd gathering outside a church in NYC. Some big society do, and the bystanders are waiting for the bride and groom to emerge. The missing part of the story is that the bride is a woman named Valentine French and she is marrying the very wealthy John Marland. She has recently jilted Geoffrey Sherwood in favor of John, seemingly because --although Geoffrey is a lawyer, and from the moneyed set-- he is not as rich as John. So one of the people waiting in front of the church is a cute, perky blond Miriam Brady, a working girl out on her lunch break. While she's standing there, a man staggers up the sidewalk, steps all over her toes and then stands next to her, swaying from drunkeness as he ad-libs what is going on inside. Some bystanders laugh at his narration, but Miriam firmly takes him by the hand and around the corner to a little cafe to sober him up. He does not want food, he wants more to drink. As it turns out, he is Geoffrey Sherwood, the man that Valentine recently split from, and he is brokenhearted. Two ushers from the wedding track him down and are relieved to see Miriam has him under her care. They were worried he might try to crash the reception. One of them offers her $100 to get him home safe. A princely sum back in those days (About $1700-1800 in today's dollars!) made even grander by the fact that the company she works for sewing labels on new clothes has just announced they are laying off the better part of their staff. So, she may very well not have a job to return to after lunch... Geoffrey and Miriam end up drinking the afternoon away--or so we think--because in another huge lapse of story telling, it's the next morning and Geoffrey is horribly hung over and he and Miriam are married... This missing 'rest of the story' would have been fun to see...them overimbibing, someone suggesting marriage...rushing to the Justice of the Peace...waking up legally wed... In any case we learn that Miriam is ready and willing to annul, but Geoffrey talks her out of it. They make it casual, though, any time either wants out, the other is free to go, no fuss or muss. And so the two set up housekeeping, he starts his own business and they move into a nice little apartment with a wonderful landlady Mrs. Martin (Allison Skipworth) who lives downstairs and becomes great friends with Miriam. Allison and Bette worked in three movies together (Dangerous, Satan Met a Lady and this one) and they are always something to watch in their scenes together. Then Miriam discovers that Valentine has split with Marland, who corners Miriam and shows her an item clipped from the newspaper which--without naming names--makes it sound like Valentine and Geoffrey are dilly-dallying on the golf course. Well, this sure gets her ire up and with the help of Mrs. Martin she hatches a plot to crash a fancy party that Valentine is giving at the Waldorf. Miriam carries herself with dignity...until she doesn't... and pretty much tells Valentine to keep her meathooks off Geoffrey. Valentine responds by throwing a grapefruit at Miriam, and this little scenario of course ends up in the society pages. We also do not see dastardly Valentine rushing to see Geoffrey after this little set-to, but we do see him storming into the apartment he and Miriam share. He packs a bag and he invokes the 'we can call it quits anytime' clause he and Miriam put on their marriage at the beginning. They've been together a year now, and she is in love with him, but he cannot be stopped. He goes to the College Club to get his old room back while she runs downstairs and sobs on Mrs. Martin's shoulders. While checking in, Geoffrey bumps into none other than John Marland who is in his cups over his split with Valentine. He tells Geoffrey that they need to confront her together. So, off they go to the Marland home...but somewhere in the midst of all this, Geoffrey becomes aware he really doesn't care about Valentine...he wants Miriam. The next morning, Miriam opens her front door to get her paper and milk and finds her rumpled husband there too. Ring in hand, he slips it back onto her finger and all is right with the world.

A story of the two Timberlake sisters, Stanley and Roy (no mention ever given why two lovely girls have men's names) Roy is married to handsome Peter, a doctor. Stanley is engaged to Craig, a lawyer. Their father, Asa, is a quiet, milque-toasty man, and their mother, Lavinia, is a simpering sort of woman who believes Stanley can do no wrong. At one time the family had plenty of money, but Lavinia's brother, Bill, pulled a fast one and bought out Asa's tobacco factory when the Depression hit. Stanley is beautiful but she has a dark soul. Everything is all about her and she does not care who she hurts to get what she wants. We find this out at the very start of the movie when she runs off with Roy's husband, and her deeds become more dastardly as the movie progresses. Peter eventually commits suicde, rather than live another moment with the evil Stanley. (I'm not too sure about that suicide, Stanley seems diabolical enough to pull off a murder...) Meanwhile, Roy and Craig have found their way to each other and have fallen in love. Stanley cannot accept that he does not drop her sister like a hot potato at her beck and call. Rounding this story out is a wealthy, creepy, incestuous (or darn close to it!) Uncle Bill who is continuously bailing his niece out of jams. The one time he needs her consideration, it is still all about her. She kills someone while drunk driving and even goes so far as to pin it on Parry, their longtime housekeeper's son. It's said that Bette did not like this movie. She may have judged too harshly because it was a well played flick that kept my interest, and I would put it in my top 20 BD movies. Very progressive thoughts and ideas about racial conflict, considering it was made in 1942.

Bette plays Louise Elliot, one of the three lovely daughters of the local long-suffering druggist and his cantankerous wife. Louise is beautiful, calm, placid. Helen is pretty, but a flibbertygibbet and Grace is the youngest, very pragmatic but wanting more than Big Bow, Montana can offer. Louise is almost engaged to the town banker's son, Tom, a big, slow moving not too bright guy. "Almost engaged" because Tom seems to be taking his own sweet time. Then Louise locks eyes with handsome stranger Frank Medlin (played by Errol Flynn) at a ball celebrating Theodore Roosevelt's election. It is love at first sight for both and they elope. At first, Louise and Frank have a sweet little life, but it soon comes out that he is a drunk and ashamed over how poorly he is providing for her, which makes him drink even more. Finally, embarrassed over how he has botched things, Frank takes a position on a ship headed for China, by coincidence it is the same day the 1906 earthquake hits. Louise is certain Frank will return, so she steadfastly remains in their broken down building until she is forced out by authorities. Sick and confused, she remains in the area until her dad comes from Montana looking for her. Fearing Frank is dead in the earthquake, she returns to MT with her father. After the election of Taft, we discover that Frank is still alive, and Louise conveniently forgets everything he put her through when she takes him back with open arms.

This was a looong movie, at two and a half hours, but I really liked it. Rich and spoiled Fanny Trellis and her brother Trippy are living the good life. However, it's a charade, as most of the money is gone and all that's left is the family name. Still, she's got a line of suitors and most appear to be wealthy. If she ever makes up her mind and chooses to settle down with one of them, we know she'll be kept in the manner to which she is accustomed. However, her brother Trippy has been working at a brokerage and has made away with a significant amount of cash he's embezzled. The bank's owner, Mr. Skeffington, arrives at the Trellis home to let Trippy know he's going to the police but is going to give him a day to get his affairs in order. Fanny uses this down time to introduce herself to Skeffington, and before you know it, the two are married. He's a lot older than her, and is very staid and steady. She's had a line up of crazy beaus waiting for her to make up her mind, so when she weds Skeffington, everyone is shocked. He has a lot of money, though, which appears to be the main reason she weds him. That, and to get her brother out of trouble. Trippy knows it's to save his hide and perhaps for the first time in his life he is unable to bear the shame and ends up enlisting in the military. Skeffington clearly adores Fanny, but doesn't say very much. He caters to her every indulgence while she, still young and beautiful, plays it up her many ex-suitors, who cannot believe she married such an old stick when so many young men desired her. To her credit, she does not let on her real reasons for marrying Skeffington, and for awhile it seems like they might ease into a true marriage, but she is unwilling to completely let go of the life she gave up. To her, beauty and wealth are everything and she will do what she can to pursue it. They do have one daughter, also named Fanny, whom he adores and she appears to think of as an annoyance. The movie spans several decades, from WWi to WWII. Both Fanny and Skeffington make what they can of their separate but together lives, but eventually they split. He goes to Europe and, being Jewish, is captured and ends up in a concentration camp. Back in the states, Fanny contracts diptheria and almost dies from it. She is able to crawl her way up and past this horrible disease, but loses the one thing she valued the most--her beauty. The disease has left her ravished, a mere shell of the glamorous woman she once was. (The makeup artist did a spectacular job in making the 30-something Bette appear haggard and ugly!) The few remaining friends she has left really aren't friends at all. She discovers that Mr. Skeffington is back from Europe and would like to see her. She does not want him to see her, as she knows he only remembers her as the beauty she once was. The ending was wonderful. He's appreciative of being alive and near the love of his life, she's been taught a severe and serious lesson and the viewer is able to see the life The Skeffingtons could have had is now finally within their grasp. Bette and Claude Rains worked in a total of five films together--Deception, Now Voyager, Juarez and The Man Who Played God. I've always liked his calm portrayal as Dr. Jaquith in Now, Voyager, and in this film he plays the calm Mr. Skeffington. Yes, it's a Bette Davis movie, and a very good one at that, but without Claude Rains it wouldn't have been as meaty. They were both nominated for, but did not win, Academy Awards for their roles.