Bette Davis: A Basically Benevolent Volcano

I must admit before my critique that I have a bias. It's because of Bette Davis that I fell in love with film. The movie was "Dark Victory," and I only saw Part 1 on television, but it was enough. When I went to college, I was able to see many of her greatest films with my friends, and those movies stand side by side with some wonderful memories.

Before her debilitating stroke, Bette Davis gave a highly entertaining interview which is incorporated into this British documentary. The portions in which she discusses her life and career are the best parts. The film clips are so grainy as to be distracting. Besides Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Anne Baxter, Olivia de Havilland, and Joseph Mankiewicz are interviewed. The funniest section is Davis' description of making the dreadful Beyond the Forest, about an unhappy woman who wants to get away from the husband and the town in which she lives. "My husband," she says, "should have been Eugene Palette, a big fat character actor. Instead it was Joseph Cotten. Now, who could leave Joseph Cotten?" Davis states she was too old for the character, but doesn't add some other problems (besides the script): the character's name was Rosa Moline, so she had to wear a black wig. She also had to walk on hills and rocks wearing high heels. Age was the least of her problems.