DARK VICTORY

US, 1939, 105 minutes, Black and white.
Bette Davis, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers.
Directed by Edmund Goulding.

Dark Victory is a classic women’s soap opera with Bette Davis at her most moving and humane supported by an attractive George Brent and a very attractive Geraldine Fitzgerald as her best friend. Humphrey Bogart appears, rather strangely, as an Irish stableman. The story is a conventional one for a women's picture - the heroine who discovers she has a fatal illness and has to change her reckless way of life to preparing for death. She falls in love with her doctor and has the happy few last months of life.

Bette Davis in the year in which she made Juarez and The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex is very attractive in the role of the spoilt socialite who must face death. The scene where she prepares for death from the time she is working in the garden to farewell her husband to going up to die is certainly tear-jerking but moving. The film is directed by Edmund Goulding who directed Bette Davis in such films as The Great Lie and The Old Maid.

There was a telemovie remake in the 70s with Elizabeth Montgomery.

1. The overall appeal of this film, a love story, a death story? The significance of the title? A reference to blindness and achievement?

2. The film as a Bette Davis vehicle? The quality of her performance and her vitality, the changing of moods, presentation of the intricacies of character?

3. The Warner Bros.' style of the late thirties: black and white photography, sets and locations, musical score?

4. The impact of the momentum of the plot, the changes of character?

5. How attractive and interesting a character was Judy Traherne? The presentation of her as wilful, rich, an heiress? Her involvement with horses, society life, people? The quality of her vitality? Her self-centredness? The build-up of her character before the revelation of the tumour? The effect of the truth of the illness on her? Doctors' consultations and the effect? The operation? How convincing a character?

6. The impact of the illness on her? Her unease, acknowledgement of the truth and gradually facing it fully? The effect on her character and attitude to life? Her love for the doctor? Some meaning for her life, preparation for her death? Audience response to this kind of fatal illness?

7. The effect of death coming on her? Her description of what it was going to be like? The preparation for her actual death, work in the garden, leaving her friend. the death scene? The impact of the reality of death?

8. The film as a love story? The doctor and his character, work, devotion to duty? The quality of love? The truth? His being sent away as she prepared to die?

9. How attractive a character was Anne? Her help for Judy? The pathos of the ending?

10. The character of the stableman? Humphrey Bogart in the role? As a character, observation on Judy's character, his advice to her?

11. The quality of the presentation of character, presentation of moods?

12. The values of this kind of romantic soap opera? The values portrayed. the quality of the story?