Alicia I love this movie so much

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Old_Movie_Man Everything about this film is awesome, beginning with its cast and ending with a spectacular and appropriate ending! Bette Davis, Dennis Morgan, George Brent, Olivia De Havilland, Hattie McDaniel and Billie Burke are some of my favorite lead and character actors and actresses. I can understand the controversy over this picture when it was released simply because the depiction of Negro testimony v. white testimony was accurate for its time, and not far from the way the judicial system still works in certain areas of the United States. Ernest Parry should have received a supporting actor nomination, but that would have been an unrealistic expectation, since Hattie McDaniel had recently received a supporting actress Academy Award for her performance in "Gone With The Wind." I understand from some sources that there were complaints about B.D.'s hairstyles and clothing, but she wasn't playing someone that was filthy rich, as in many of her roles, but a instead a southern gold digger.

earlytalkie Bette Davis chews up the scenery along with most of her co-stars in this fabulously fun melodrama. As Stanley Timberlake, she plays a character with absolutely no redeeming value in this engrossing Warners film from 1942. Olivia de Havilland, playing good sister Roy Timberlake, gives a believable performance, though, if Bette were my sister, I would have done something about her years ago. The film is justly celebrated for it's depiction of racial prejudice as well as it's positive portrayal of African-Americans, something very rare in 1942. The DVD hosts a cornicopia of special features including the theatrical trailer, two Technicolor shorts, one patriotic, the other a beautiful Ballet Russe number, an incomprehensible news reel minus most of it's sound, and a pretty funny Porky Pig cartoon. The film transfer is excellent, with great picture and sound quality, and the quality highlight of the special features is the aforementioned ballet short, in the most gorgeous Technicolor, perfectly restored and presented here.

st-shot With a phalanx of enablers a wide eyed Bette Davis leaves a path of deception, death and destruction as she roars through this Warners melodrama directed by John Huston. Davis is a spoiled whirlwind (celebrated these days in shows like My Sweet 16 and Bridezilla) as she steals husbands, betrays family and exploits the incestuous hunger of a rich uncle with worse to come.On the eve of her marriage to activist lawyer Craig Fleming (George Brent) Stanley Timberlake (Davis) runs off with her sister Roy's (Olivia DeHavilland) husband. Tiring of this she destroys him and heads back home to a sympathetic family. Once forgiven and re-established it's back to old tricks for Stanley.Bow lipped Bette doesn't blink once as she let's nothing stand in her way to get what she wants. Rages, hissy fits (including a brief Kate Hepburn imitation) define Stanley from the outset and Davis as a twentieth century version of her Jezebel character hammers it home with brio. Over the top and outrageous from beginning to end it's vintage Bette and she dominates the screen. Brent, DeHavilland, Billie Burke, Frank Craven and Dennis Morgan support and suffer the whimsical monster nobly while Charles Coburn, in the most powerful and disturbing role of his career as the lascivious uncle matches her venality.Director Huston and writer Howard Koch infuse In This Our Life with more than the standard Warner weeper melodramatic twists adding dark undertones of perverse desire and destructive self denial that strikes at the underpinnings of the American family. In spite of a loving family Stanley is little more than a feral animal, coldly self absorbed. All the men are weak with the exception of Coburn, a bellowing degenerate exploiter. The Timberlake wives remain in the throes of nervous breakdowns while the daughters male names beg for analogy. Life in it's own way and time is as provocative and disturbing as Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye made a quarter of a century later in a more relaxed state of censorship. For his part Huston who usually deals with strong, independent males simply reverses the roles here while maintaining his sterling ability to reveal character through setting and angle. Southern based he renders without stridency or stereotype the second class citizenry of the Black American during the period, subtly and effectively injecting it into a crucial part of the plot. Not an easy feat to accomplish in the face of entitled hurricane Bette.

RanchoTuVu The family patriarch (Frank Craven), who has long since lost control of the business he himself started, and winds up only being an employee at, raises two distinctly different daughters. One (played by Bette Davis) is corrupted by her own personality defects and the attentions of her uncle (Charles Coburn), who has plenty of ability in business (it is revealed that he swooped in and took over the business that Craven started at an opportune time), but has a childless and cold marriage and presumably for that reason, showers money, gifts, and attention on his niece, foolishly believing he can buy her love and his happiness. This turns out to be probably Stanley's (Bette Davis) most formative relationship. Why De Havilland's Roy is so different we can only assume was because she came more under the influence of her father (Craven). That involved background story is actually more interesting than the story that is presented in the foreground, of Davis and sister Olivia De Havilland and their relationships with George Brent and Dennis Morgan. Nonetheless, Davis' relationship with Uncle William (Coburn) reaches a climactic point that ties in beautifully with the climax of the film.