Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, May 26, 2008




More Bette Davis













No actress has emerged since to challenge Bette Davis’ status as First Lady Of The Screen. Market realities no longer allow for such opportunity. If we’re to recognize women who achieved legend status in movies, it will now and forever be necessary to turn clocks back to a studio era when career longevity was put first and careful handling assured popularity over (hopefully) more than just a handful of vehicles. Davis did have rivals at her peak. Their legacies have faded beside hers, but Greer Garson at Metro and Betty Grable at Fox were bigger earners during that wartime peak for female stars. Davis began slow as a money name above the title. Jezebel actually lost $78,000, while forthcomers The Sisters (profit $120,000) and Dark Victory ($580,000 in black ink) pale beside enormous monies the Greer Garson series earned once she caught on at MGM. A Now, Voyager clicked by Warner standards with $4.1 million in worldwide rentals, but Garson in Random Harvest got $8.1 from its worldwide total, and Mrs. Miniver took an astounding $8.8 million worldwide. No Davis film approached such figures. Her biggest for Warners would be A Stolen Life, and the $4.7 million that took worldwide probably has more to do with its all-time boom release year (1946) than any intrinsic value the picture had. Betty Grable musicals at Fox were enormous wartime attractions. Their value then as now seem linked to their necessary function boosting morale and rousing service camp audiences. Few think of Grable or her films offering as much when great musicals are considered, but no one’s did better while the conflict was on. Most wartime Grables realized at least four million worldwide, and two vaulted past five (Coney Island and The Dolly Sisters). Such numerical realities count for nothing toward diminishing Davis’ standing. The fact we’ve had numerous DVD box sets devoted to her and only one (said to have undersold) between Grable and Garson settled clearly the winner. That all three went into sharp decline once peace was declared is attributable partly to moviegoing veto power servicemen exercised once they returned home, plus conditions unrelated to the actresses’ appeal or sudden lack of it. People had other things to think about besides going to films, and many personalities who’d attracted during the war (especially women) saw careers headed for diminuendo.






Greer Garson may have been a commercial dominatrix on the home front, but Davis was the truer alpha female (here’s a rare charity event candid of them together). As to musical supremacy, I wonder if BD’s accompaniment didn’t have Grable beat as well. The latter sang and danced, but her music had not the narcotic effect Max Steiner conjured for the Davis pictures. His scores provided flow to link most BD melodramas and comforting familiarity that made them not unlike radio programs one might listen to from week to week. Themes from Now, Voyager spun off into pop vocals, and RCA as late as 1974 marketed an LP top-lining Steiner’s compositions. Much of the dynamism we associate with Davis might as easily be credited to Steiner. How many of BD’s big scenes play in our memories apart from musical support we remember as vividly? Take away Max and some of Davis’magic goes with him, though it might be as easy saying the same thing with regards all the features he scored. The war that sustained Davis and her brand name in women’s melodrama conferred power upon her no female artist at Warners came close to achieving before or since. She’d fight with weak directors, but resist strong ones as well. Finally it became a matter of assigning helmsmen based less on ability than endurance of her tirades. William Wyler said no more after quarrelling through much of The Little Foxes. From this point, outstanding films would come mostly of chance and Warner polish so expert as to disguise cliché and absurdity. Davis attributed much of  compromise to stringent Code enforcement. For drama trafficking in relationship issues, her output had little to do with sex. Dialogue assured innocent outcomes for clinches fading to black, Davis and romantic vis-à-vis confirming later they’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. It was a timid formula bound to catch up with BD once the war ended and audiences demanded content more suggestive of real life. Had the PCA surrendered (or at least relaxed vigilance), she might have hung on to the summit a little longer. As it was, the harder edge of noir sensibility and a reborn Joan Crawford to exploit it would dethrone Davis and finish her stay at the top.



























So many declines begin with costs going up and receipts coming down. Bette Davis was an expensive asset for Warners to maintain, even in the best of times. She was getting seven thousand a week and doing one picture a year by 1946. Each went do or die against overhead her salary generated plus generous budgets allotted the films. And now audiences were beginning to file out. Turnstiles ironically went the other direction for newly signed Joan Crawford, whose Mildred Pierce pointed the woman’s melodrama in more violent directions. Davis had killed before on screen, and would again in Deception, but that 1946 release shuddered beneath a $2.8 million negative cost, twice the amount it took to make Mildred Pierce (at $1.4 million). Deception would be the first BD vehicle to lose money ($190,000) since The Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex, and with so much expense dragging in her wake, a Davis picture would have to earn tall rentals to bring a profit, an outcome less likely for an aging star in an uncertain market. BD’s age was an issue now. She’d recall said spectre having come to call around the time of Winter Meeting, and that would be another Code-hobbled one with losses amounting to a horrific $1.1 million, Warner’s biggest flop since The Horn Blows at Midnight. The Crawfords were meantime doing better. Humoresque, Flamingo Road, and The Damned Don’t Cry all made profits, and it’s no coincidence that most of her vehicles saw JC brandishing iron and/or immersed in criminal and/or underworld activity. There was still a sex potential in Crawford’s screen exploits, and that plus mayhem supplied a formula for this actress more congenial to rougher postwar appetites. When Davis tried addressing Topic A in Beyond The Forest, results were ludicrous even by her own reckoning, but what self-destructive impulse caused her to make even more demands upon employers at said juncture? Had Warners been willing to open ledgers for talent, they might have shown her rivers of red ink on the final four she did for them. Was Davis aware she was negotiating from such a weak position? If so, she shouldn’t have been surprised when Jack Warner called her bluff (or was it?) and agreed to a termination of their contract during Beyond The Forest. Timing could hardly have been worse for any actress going jobless, let alone one past forty whose alcohol and nicotine habits left imprints of hard-living difficult now to conceal.
















































You’d have thought All About Eve would be the triumph that would keep on giving, but prospects in its wake were sufficiently grim as to negate whatever benefits that 1950 Best Picture winner conferred. Was it the fact of an ensemble cast and hot director that distracted potential employers? We think of Davis as the big noise in that picture today, but it was, after all, George Sanders and Joseph L. Mankiewicz that won awards, while BD had to share Best Actress nominations with Anne Baxter from that show (and she’d not win). Warner flair was missed in Payment On Demand, an RKO release among few (if any) to turn a profit until Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? in 1962. The interim saw much of her on television. Davis would later admit this was sometimes the only work she could get. The First Lady Of The Screen was now like any character actress for whom theatrical leads came seldom. When she got them, returns were tepid. Another Man’s Poison was BD again mixing lethal dosage for the men-folk, but this independent released through UA was cramped, dark, and realized only $601,000 in domestic rentals. Her final lead prior to the Baby Jane inspired grotesques, Storm Center, was good for a measly $196,000 domestic. She was still a prestigious guest on television, and the vid avalanche of her old films beginning in 1956 made viewers that much more aware of who she was and what she’d accomplished. Flamboyant gestures laid end-to-end on late, late shows gave birth to a new generation of Davis impressionists. She could write her memoirs now and people would be interested. Good sport BD played along with jokesters like Jack Parr and gave talk show instruction on how best to mimic Bette Davis. Her sense of humor was as much impetus for the comeback as her remarkable performance in Baby Jane. My own generation thought of Davis in terms of horror movies. She (and they) sure delivered in the sixties. Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte was cranking up as we arrived at the Liberty one afternoon from school, just in time to see Davis (apparently) cleaving off Bruce Dern’s hand and head. That’s the sort of thing that earned BD her bonifides from me. I’d recently been shook up just watching the trailer for Dead Ringer, as Davis here sicced her dog on hapless and bleeding Peter Lawford. Was there any stopping this woman? Stations our way weren’t running pre-48 Warners, so I figured Davis for having been pretty much on a killing spree since the thirties. Things got so bad that a neighbor kid’s mother forbade us to go see The Nanny simply because she was in it, a decision reversed only after I assured her that BD’s title character was a benign one inspired by Mary Poppins. Such were the harmless fibs we told to gain entrance to pics with mature content.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the 2nd part of this tribute! So many wonderful new rare pics, even one with Gary Cooper. I didn't know they even met! Love your blog. Thank you.

4:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love you! Awesome post!

11:51 PM  
Blogger Erik Weems said...

I am guessing here, but does Davis' success in 1950s television as against her failures at the box office mean her audience was basically setting at home, and a different group altogether was ignoring her in the theatres?

Another great post from greenbriar.

3:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm new to Greenbriar - I love this article for being personal, non-judgemental, and very informative. It is not for skimming over, but more to be read twice. Thankyou

2:36 AM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Thank you for those very kind words.

5:22 AM  
Blogger Filmfanman said...

I'm not a Bette Davis fan.
But last night, I randomly pulled a previously-unseen and ignored DVD from an old box set, that I purchased years ago in order to obtain a different film in that set (this seemed to happen often to me during the golden age of DVD box sets); the film I watched was "The Bride Came C.O.D." - it was included in a Jimmy Cagney box set - and much to my surprise, Bette Davis was his co-star; in fact, she's pretty well the only female in the film. And she is both pretty, and pretty good, in this, playing an heiress - though not quite as 'madcap' an heiress as other heiresses depicted in films released around the time that this was released - in imminent danger of becoming married in a hurry. ( I've not often used nor seen the word "heiresses". Maybe it ought to be 'heirii', like 'cacti'.)
I knew nothing about the film going in, but I enjoyed this comedy a lot - it had everything I want to see in an old B&W film. A neglected gem, in fact, with many familiar faces in the supporting cast, lots of cool old airplanes to look at, and for me, all the more surprising because I'm no fan of Bette Davis's melodramas - those simply weren't made for me. I didn't know that she had made any comedies, and her name in the credits caused me to worry a bit about what was to come. But it turned out to be a fine film entertainment.
Anyhow, I recommend "The Bride Came C.O.D." for those like me who aren't big on Ms. Davis' melodramas; she's quite good being a part of a larger cast here, though still at the center of the action - but yet, she is only just a part of the cast which makes this movie click - maybe that's why she herself put it down later in her life (after watching any film I like, I read about it online): this is not quite entirely centered on her or her character, as a number of other cast members are equally memorable in this, even if they were merely playing variants of the character roles they had always played.
Of course some of that diminishment of attention to Ms. Davis is attributable to Cagney, an actor who seems to dominate the screen whenever he appears; and as good as she is in this, the film remains more suitable for inclusion in a Cagney collection than a Davis collection.

Oh, a housekeeping heads'-up for GPS: Radiotelefonia's web links in the comment posted above are now dead, leading only to a "rent this domain" page.

9:11 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024