Warners Start the Southern Cycle with ‘Jezebel’ at the Music Hall (Real Time + 70 Years)

Microfiche-New York Times archives | 3/11/38 | Frank S. Nugent

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Warners Start the Southern Cycle with ‘Jezebel’ at the Music Hall

JEZEBEL, based on the play by Owen Davis Sr.; screen play by Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel and John Huston; directed by William Wyler; a Warner Brothers production. At the Radio City Music Hall.

Julie----- Bette Davis
Preston Dillard------ Henry Fonda
Buck Cantrell------ George Brent
Amy------ Margaret Lindsay
Dr. Livingstone------ Donald Crisp
Aunt Belle------ Fay Bainter
Ted------ Richard Cromwell
Gen. Bogardus------ Henry O’Neill
Mrs. Kendrick------ Spring Byington
Jean La Ceur------ John Lital
Dick Allen------ Gordon Oliver
Molly Allen------ Janet Shaw
Zette------ Theresa Harris
Stephanie Kendrick------ Margaret Early
Huger------ Irving Pichel
Gros Bat------ Eddie Anderson
Ti Bat------ Stymie Beard
Uncle Cato------ Lew Payton
De Lautruc------ George Renavent

By FRANK S. NUGENT

Since a Southern cycle is in the offing, where it has been since Mr. Selznick started looking for Scarlett, it is probably for the best that Owen Davis’s “Jezebel” should have got in the first licks. Being a heavy melodrama with the intense Miss Bette Davis as its heroine, the Music Hall’s film should clear the air, prepare us for the gentler things to come. After “Jezebel” Scarlett herself should have no terrors; we could even welcome the quiet of the battle scenes in Hervey Allen’s “Action at Aquila.”

For Miss Davis’s Jezebel, whose real name is Julie, is a ruthless person, as unsparing of herself as she is of her audience. When she sets her cap for Henry Fonda’s Pres Dillard you can hear it bong on the floor and when she encounters Pres’s Yankee wife the hissing of her hate sizzles along the edge of the sound-track. We had no idea the feudal South of the Fifties bred such hoydens; the chivalry was all on the masculine side. We suppose that makes for conflict, and conflict is the heart of melodrama. Perhaps that is why Jezebel’s surrender to decency breaks the melodrama down at the finish.

We found that finish fairly painful. It reveals the willful Julie, whose pride and arrogance and selfishness already have done irreparable harm, making a vaingloriously self-sacrificial speech to Pres’s wife, pleading for the privilege of cleansing her soul by going with the plague-struck Pres to the leper island where New Orleans is dumping its yellow-jack victims. And the celestial choir, which always is lurking offstage, raises its voice in a swelling crescendo as we (according to the script) fade out.

“Jezebel” would have been considerably more effective, in our opinion, if its heroine had remained unregenerate to the end. Miss Davis can be malignant when she chooses, and it is a shame to temper that gift for feminine spite. While she is being hateful, flouncing in late to her own party, insisting upon wearing a shocking red dress to the Olympus ball - and being dramatically punished for it too - or baiting her man to a duel, Julie dominates the show. But it beats her at last, just as it defeated Miriam Hopkins in the play.

It is still an interesting film, though, in spite of our sniffs at its climax; colorful, generally well-performed and admirably directed by William Wyler. But, like most works in which characterization rather than story supports the drama, it needs a deal more character-shading than the author has given it. Once you refuse to accept its heroine, you see the picture dangling - a puppet show left overnight in the rain.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I predict that Bette Davis and Fay Bainter will both win Oscars for their performances in this movie. It’s a safe bet, seeing as how all my predictions for the 1937 Academy Awards turned out to be correct.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Real time + 70 Years ping. Movie review.

I got this movie from Netflix last weekend. (March 11, 1938 was a Friday, then as now the normal day for running reviews.) Melodrama is right! This is probably one of Bette Davis's weaker vehicles, although she still makes the most of it. Of course, I am not a big Henry Fonda fan so that influences my opinion.

[societygirl]

See 1950’s “All About Eve,” if you want to see Bette Davis at her best.

[agere_contra]

Fascinating, thanks for posting.

As usual the world of 70 years ago seems to be a parallel universe, like us and yet unlike.

[Right Cal Gal]

Absolutely.....incredible dialog in that movie!
Thelma Ritter alone is worth the price of admission.

[societygirl]

Thelma knocked me out. Anne Baxter was incredible, and Celeste Holm was at the top of her game. But George Sanders was tremendous, and deserved the Best Supporting Actor award he got. Hugh Marlowe and Gary Merrill were a kick. The best dialog ever in a movie.

[Right Cal Gal]

My personal favorite is not even the “Bumpy Night” line — it’s “I can’t be had for the price of a cocktail - like a salted peanut.”

[societygirl]

How about Sanders introducing Marilyn Monroe at Margo's party by saying, “she's a graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Arts.” Or Bette screaming, “all playwrights should be dead for 300 years.” Or Anne saying to Celeste, “I'd do much more for a part that good.” Or Bette to Anne in the final scene, after she won the Sarah Siddons award, “congratulations Eve. You can put it where your heart should be.’ Classic.

[Right Cal Gal]

Or this exchange - at the party when Eve and Margo greet Addison:

Margo: “I’ve been meaning to introduce you [to Eve].”

Addison: “It must have been your natural temerity that kept you from mentioning it.”

[societygirl]

Oh yes, and Margo introducing Marilyn to Eve saying, “she's a friend of Mr. DeWitt’s mother.” Or Margo saying to Addison, “what are you doing here? I thought I distinctly remember crossing you off my list.” Or Margo, “remind me to tell you how I looked into the heart of an artichoke.”

[societygirl]

Addison to Margo at the same party after being introduced to Eve: “don’t worry, your little charge is safe with me.” I CHOKE with laughter.