THE GREAT LIE
US, 1941, 108 minutes, Black and white.
Bette Davis, George Brent, Mary Astor, Lucille Watson, Hattie Mc Daniel, Grant Mitchell, Jerome Cowan.
Directed by Edmund Goulding.
The Great Lie is ripe melodrama. It is probably an archetypal film – so many of the plots reminiscent of various aspects. The film focuses on Mary Astor and George Brent as they elope. However, Mary Astor is not yet divorced but she is pregnant. Then George Brent decides to marry his former fiancée, Bette Davis. He is then killed in a plane crash in South America. This gives the basis for all kinds of melodramatic interaction between the two actresses – and Mary Astor winning an Oscar as best supporting actress. The struggles are about the custody of the child with Bette Davis wanting to pay Mary Astor to have the child. Then, George Brent turns up again…
Bette Davis had appeared with George Brent in other films, including Dark Victory. Mary Astor appeared in numerous films, generally in tough roles (as with The Maltese Falcon in this same year). However, she could also do gentle as Marmie in the 1949 Little Women. Hattie Mc Daniel had won an Oscar two years earlier for Gone With the Wind.
The film was written by Lenore Coffee, a prolific writer of melodramas from the 1930s onwards. She also wrote the screenplay for the Bette Davis films, Old Acquaintance and Beyond the Forest as well as Joan Crawford’s Sudden Fear.
The film was directed by Edmund Goulding, an Englishman who had a long career in Hollywood from the 20s to the 50s and who was a writer as well as a director. He directed Bette Davis in Dark Victory and The Old Maid. His other films included the 1946 Of Human Bondage, the Oscar-winning The Razor’s Edge, Nightmare Alley. During the 1950s his films were much more lightweight including Down Among the Sheltering Palms, Teenage Rebel, Mardi Gras.
1. The film as a Bette Davis vehicle of the early forties, in her heyday of stardom? Audience hopes and expectations? What impact did she have in her films?
2. The film as soap opera, the American ingredients, romance, tears, emotions? How plausible was the plot? Did this matter?
3. Black and white photography, the Warner Bros. style of the thirties and forties, the musical score with the use of the classics? Mary Astor and her style and Oscar winning performance?
4. Audience response to the introduction to Pete and Sandra, their marriage, wealthy way of life and irresponsibility with the disordered apartment? Sandra and her wilfulness? Marriages and divorce? Her career? The reason for her marriage to Pete?
5. The irony of Pete having a second chance? His visit to Maggie and the contract of Maggie with Sandra? Background, reconciliation? The sophisticated New York pianist and the country estate woman?
6. The introduction to Maggie and Bette Davis' style in this film? As a type? The reason for Pete marrying her? Their potential for happiness and their life together?
7. How well did the film highlight the rivalry of the two women? Their discussion in the New York restaurant and the clash of personalities? The news of the pregnancy? How important was this in view of Pete's disappearance?
8. The build-up to Pete's trip, Maggie encouraging him, his disappearance and people's reaction? Maggie's pain? The Senator and his wife and the search?
9. How plausible was Maggie's bargaining with Sandra? The child for the money? What did each want, what drove Maggie to this? The humour and the irony of Maggie looking after Sandra during her pregnancy, the birth of the child?
10. The transition to Sandra and her career and her tours of Australia etc.? Her irresponsibility and lack of regard for the child?
11. The contrast with Maggie and her happiness, the black servants and her bond with them and the bringing up of the child?
12. Audience expectation about Pete's return? The build-up for the news, Maggie's aunt coming, the flight and the excitement?
13. The meeting with Sandra in New York and the double-edged dialogue, the references to children and the boy looking like his father? The build-up to Sandra’s arrival at the house? The tensions in conversation, the meal, the ambiguities?
14. Sandra's motivation in wanting the child again, and to hold Pete? Wanting to humiliate Maggie so that he would leave her? The bond between Pete and Maggie so that the show-down had an appropriate effect? Sandra and her turning to the piano and relinquishing the child?
15. The significance of the title? Human themes, family, men and women, love? Impact then, now?
