Wordiezett So much average

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

calvinnme ... and George Brent as Clem Spender is that kind of guy. We don't see much of Clem himself except at the beginning, but the film is pretty much about the aftershocks of him being the love of the lives of the two main characters, cousins Delia (Miriam Hopkins) and Charlotte (Bette Davis).The time is the beginning of the Civil War, in the north, far enough away from the battlefields to the extent that if this war will ever touch the lives of the characters it will be through death on those battlefields. Clem has apparently gone off to make his fortune so he can marry Delia, whom he claims to love - heck I think he believes that himself. But Delia is practical. After waiting for two years she decides to marry "a Ralston" - Jim Ralston to be exact, good provider from a family of bankers, not hard on the eyes, and probably so predictable Delia will spend the rest of their mutual lives with her feet asleep.Clem comes back on the wedding day, and Charlotte, who we are told is several years younger than Delia, goes down to the station to try to get Clem to stay away from the wedding, that Delia says it is too late. When Delia and Clem meet, at her house before the wedding, you understand she did not want to see Clem because she still loves him, she will always love him, although she doesn't say that. When an allegedly broken hearted Clem exits the house, Charlotte, also secretly in love with Clem goes after him. Now remember this is the production code era and so you see NOTHING in the way of passion between them. But they did have sex because suddenly Charlotte is going out west for her health, and when she returns she is running a home for war orphans, with her own child by that one night with Clem, Tina, hidden among the bunch.Delia being told about the existence of the child, and that it was Clem's is the undoing of both cousins. Delia, in the jealousy that she cannot even admit to herself, sabotages Charlotte's wedding by telling a lie to the groom, gets Tina and Charlotte to move into her house after her husband dies, gets Charlotte to let her adopt Tina, and in the end the once vivacious beautiful young Charlotte turns into an "old maid", somebody that even her own daughter has no use for other than to pity her. The person she ultimately calls "mummy" is Delia.Now Davis' acting here is raw, everything is out there. She IS that vivacious young woman at the beginning of the film, she IS that bitter spinster in the end - partly because she knows what Delia has taken from her and that Delia refuses to admit her own motivations. Hopkins plays her part more subdued, as though Delia cannot admit to herself that all of this has been about Clem, that it was he she has always loved, whose child she wanted and has managed to maneuver herself into a position where she gets her.Now being an "old maid" was considered a horrible fate for a woman until about 1970, but these two women are living on the fumes of a memory, of the adventurous handsome but broke Clem as a young man. His death as a soldier in the Civil War freezes him in time in that state. They neither ever seem to get that had either of them got their wishes they would have ended up married to an emotionally ambiguous man, a man who just can't seem to succeed, and prolonged poverty never made anybody happy.This is a great film even if it is full of overdoing the punishment of sin production code style for everybody involved. Case in point, Bette Davis' Charlotte ages to the point that she looks ten years older than the actual age of her character for the sin of one night of out of wedlock passion with somebody she tragically loved, while Miriam Hopkins' Delia has hardly aged a day over the film's course, even though all the while she's been taking a wrecking ball to her cousin's life.

sdave7596 Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins shine in this Warner Bros. melodrama, "The Old Maid" released in 1939, a banner year for Davis at the studio. This was one of four very fine films she did that year, making her the reigning queen of the studio. In this one, Davis and Hopkins are cousins in the 1800's. Hopkins rejects her beau (George Brent) to marry into a wealthy family, the Ralstons. Davis has the hots for Brent (one of her frequent co-stars during this period) and gets pregnant with his baby. However, he goes off to fight the Civil War and is killed. At a time when being an unwed mother was not an option, Davis agrees to move in with Hopkins, now a widow with two children of her own. The child, Tina (Jane Bryan) grows up knowing she is a foundling, but always calls Hopkins "mummy." Davis does not let on she is Tina's mother, but rather an aunt; this fills her with resentment, and into a bitter old maid, hence the title of the picture.The movie is pure soap opera, for sure, but the interplay between Davis and Hopkins is fascinating to watch. Davis has the showier part, but Hopkins more than holds her own. Off screen, Davis had an affair with Hopkin's husband, director Anatole Litvak, and now the two had to star together in a film! One can only imagine what went on between them on the set of this, but both give fine performances. Even Davis herself, much later in life, stated Hopkins was a superb actress and she always had to be on her toes as her co-star. There are some fine supporting performances, notably from Jane Bryan as Tina and the always under-rated Donald Crisp as a friend of the family and doctor. But this is Hopkins and Davis' show, and they do not disappoint.

Michael_Elliott Old Maid, The (1939)*** (out of 4)Exceptional version of the Pultzer Prize winning play has Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins making for more high-class Warner drama. In the film, Davis gets pregnant by her cousin's (Hopkins) old flame (George Brent) so instead of facing public scorn, she opens a home for children where she raises the daughter as a stranger. A few years later after the death of Hopkins' husband, she tells the girl that she's her mother while her real mother takes a place in the background and grows to be an old maid while watching her child grow up not knowing who she is. I really wasn't sure what to expect out of this film, which seems to have been partially forgotten but perhaps this is due to it being released in 1939, a year with countless great films and not to mention Davis being in three other highly popular films in DARK VICTORY, JUAREZ and THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX. This film perfectly blends the drama and makes for a very entertaining film even though some of the subject matter might hit new viewers as being old-fashioned but one much remember when this film takes place. What I enjoyed most about the movie is that many scripts would have fallen into a good guy/bad guy range. It would have been very easy to make Davis the sad, good girl while painting the Hopkins character as evil but the film isn't that easy. While you can't help but feel sorry for Davis you also can understand why Hopkins wants to protect the kid in her own way. The level of dirtiness that Hopkins sinks to will certainly make people hate her but you can also put some of that to the side when you really think about what's best for the kid. Both Davis and Hopkins turn in excellent performances as both really sink their teeth into the roles. The aging make up effects really don't work but I'm curious if this was because neither actress wanted to be buried under all the make up. George Brent is impressive in his small role as is Donald Crisp as the caring doctor. Considering what all 1939 had going for it, it's easy to see why this film has been overlooked but it's certainly worth checking out and deserve a new group of fans.

nycritic Edith Wharton never found a story with a non-ending she didn't like, and her short novel "The Old Maid," made into an excellent period drama starring Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, and Jane Bryan is no exception to the rule.The story of two sisters living in rivalry as one of them -- the crueler one -- flourishes, while the second one -- the good one -- languishes in a destroyed life, couldn't have been better suited to the two actresses who couldn't have disliked each other more.Bette Davis up until then had not shared considerable screen time with an actress of mettle until Miriam Hopkins took the role of Delia Lovell Ralston. She'd always had her share of leading men, whether she liked them or not, and in SO BIG! she had no scenes with Barbara Stanwyck. Being on screen with a female who could either out-act her or steal her scenes was something Davis reacted to with a brittle sense of aggression -- that is, unless they were on friendly terms, as when she and Mary Astor shared screen time together in THE GREAT LIE or when she, later in life, allowed pal Olivia de Havilland to mentally abuse her in HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE. Even when acting aside Anne Baxter -- also part of Davis' circle of friends -- neither sought to obliterate the other, and in that film, Baxter played a supreme bitch to Bette's exaggerated but vulnerable Margo Channing in ALL ABOUT EVE.However, one only had to see how she acted and reacted to women who somehow, she viewed as professional rivals, she thought little of, or felt that their glamor somehow would eclipse her presence. Of them all, it's widely agreed to that with (Joan) Crawford she was on the least friendly of terms, and crew members expected an explosion to take place at any given moment on the set of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? However, Davis is also reputed to have stated that despite their "rivalry", despite that Crawford and she had never been "simpatico", there was no feud... although if filming had been extended to three months instead of three weeks, well -- that was another story. The end result, however, while not the best of films -- in fact it has exploitation moments -- was a fascinating study of Hollywood sisters living in hatred of each other, joined in a battle of wills to survive.There was a lot feeding the flames of animosity between Davis and Hopkins. While filming THE SISTERS, Davis was reported to have sustained a romantic affair with her director (and Hopkins' husband at the time), Anatole Litvak, even when he gave co-star Errol Flynn most of the close-ups. Hopkins had starred in the theatre production of JEZEBEL, a role she felt entitled to, so she felt that Davis had also stole that character away from her (and quite possibly her chances of winning an Oscar). Davis states that Hopkins tried to make her very ill at ease, even walking at one point onto the set dressed as Julie Marsden. Even so, Davis refused to give in to Hopkins' antics, instead of focusing on her own performance. Because of the animosity between the sisters, it was probably best for them that neither actress have good feelings towards each other. Because both women have a great many scenes together (and even hold hands in that emotional, closing scene), their relationship together seems and feels real.Nowadays actors can only put out one movie a year. Bette Davis was able to produce four of them, all top material, major productions, in 1939 alone. THE OLD MAID could have given her an acting nomination the same way DARK VICTORY did -- as Charlotte Lovell she is restrained, resigned, selfless, and internally strong. She ages well, too. Miriam Hopkins is also pretty sharp in conveying icy manipulation and there is a moment where a moment of catharsis should take place, but in Wharton's novels of manners, that never happens. It does help to have the story stick to its pessimistic yet hopeful ending -- again, a trademark of Wharton's storytelling -- and made me think that Hollywood could do a movie without having to force a "satisfying" ending to the movie going public.