BD For TG

Davis On The Downhill --- Winter Meeting (1948)

Frost had set upon Bette Davis at Warners. Her last, Deception, lost money. Then came year off for another marriage and resultant child. Interim saw WB trimming costs to combat a slump gripping theatres since record year 1946. Part of reason Deception bled red was sum spent on it, $2.8 million the neg cost. That seemed long-ago, what with belts now tightened. Winter Meeting was done for $1.9 million, still too much for the hit it wound up taking (over a million). And so Davis' cookie began crumbling, the start of her finish at Warners. Winter Meeting, despite some good ideas, performances, and drama done well in part, lacked hard edge even woman pics needed after the war. No one dies in it, let alone kills anybody else. Pistols in the purse had become standard, in fact, necessary equipment for hothouse actresses. Joan Crawford was naked without hers, and now came Davis, eclipsed by Crawford on her home lot, playing love tag with unknown James (later better known as "Jim") Davis, who'll not give BD a tumble for preferring priesthood. Hang the crepe, said WB bookkeepers --- here was where showmen could vacuum floors 'neath empty seating.

Davis later said she knew, in fact realized from start, that Winter Meeting was a clinker. Blame that on censorship, rife at the time, a grievance she took to press, a bold stroke during contract era when stars were paid as much to keep mouths shut as act. If Davis told interviewers her movie was a cop-out, why should anyone bother with Winter Meeting? Some of blame, then, might reasonably go to her. Jack L. had lost patience in any event. Davis was behaving as if her stuff was still hot at the stalls. Did he clue her to how far receipts had dropped? Based on distrust between management and talent, I wonder if BD would have believed a word JL said. One area where the company skimped was location shooting, that is none of it for Winter Meeting, a Gotham-set story where at least a second unit might have ventured there for urban color. Selznick would do as much for Portrait of Jennie, to great enhance of the finished movie, but Winter Meeting conveys neither NY or winter itself over reels of indoor talk.

A Major Plus Is Waspish John Hoyt as BD Confidante

So strapping Jim Davis, his character named "Slick" Novak, chooses reverse collar over Davis favors. What if she'd been Lana Turner or Gene Tierney? As it is, any of us might go monastic after squint at BD in free-fall toward forty (that B'day celebrated as Winter Meeting played off). On Davis, 40 looked more fiftyish, hers an engine fueled on nervous tension and cigarettes. Some of shots in Winter Meeting betray her badly, one close-up a hark-back to flattering pre-war, followed by another that looks like Storm Center or The Catered Affair arrived early. BD needed camera attention like MGM would have given her, or maybe a Joe Von Sternberg in consultant capacity as Selznick arranged for Jennifer Jones and Duel In The Sun. Still, it was Davis, and acting was what she sold, but were fans and scrapbook-keepers still aboard? Falling receipts suggested not, but this was all of Hollywood's problem, not just hers. As to skill, no one denied Davis still had it, and undiminished, but the vehicles needed to be something really special to pry patronage from suburban housing, night baseball, and soon enough television, these part of nationwide kick of a movie habit. They'd see and enjoy her in event that was All About Eve, an ensemble she couldn't claim sole credit for, as cans labeled "Bette Davis" sat increasingly on shelves. But again, that was struggle most of pics and all of her generation faced.

The end of Winter Meeting, but Bette will be back tomorrow in The Star.