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In This Our Life
Some spectacular performances and uncompromising direction make a slightly cringy 1942 melodrama called IN This Our Life more than worth the time of fans of the genre.
The film stars two time Oscar winners Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters named Stanley and Roy Timberlake, respectively, heiresses to a tobacco company co-owned by their father and uncle. The family is preparing for Stanley's upcoming wedding to Craig (George Brent) while Roy is trying to deal with the end of her marriage to Peter (Dennis Morgan). The sisters' Uncle William (Oscar winner Charles Coburn} gives Stanley a check to help finance her wedding and not long after that, Stanley and Peter run off together. And while healing their wounds, Roy and Craig start developing feelings for each other. Unfortunately, while this is happening, a couple of tragedies begin to derail Stanley's life.
Howard Koch's screenplay, based on a novel by Ellen Glasgow, features everything classic soap opera fans want, but there are some creepy undercurrents to the story that give this story a little more edginess than we get from the average 1940's melodrama. The first thing that quietly emerges is the almost incestuous relationship between Stanley and her Uncle William. It reminded me a bit of Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Even though it isn't overt, it is clear that Uncle William would do anything for Stanley and that she is aware of it and not above using it to her advantage. It is kind of odd that we can this, but Roy is the only character onscreen who sees it.
It's the performances of Davis and de Havilland that really make this one sizzle. In a dynamic that sort of resembles the Hudson sisters in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, we see a toxic relationship between two sisters who have lived with it for so long that they try and pretend it doesn't exist. Davis' ferocious scenery chewing is sometimes frightening to watch here and de Havilland beautifully underplays without ever letting Davis blow her off the screen. de Havilland's Roy is so subservient at the beginning of the film but by the end, has no desire to protect her sister, who becomes downright evil as she goes into pure self-preservation mode.
Research revealed that Davis was miserable during the making of this film. She hated the script and did not get along with director John Huston, having him replaced by Raoul Walsh, though Huston is credited as the sole director onscreen, but Huston and Walsh successfully created one of the creepiest melodramas of the 1940's. Davis and de Havilland are both Oscar-worthy as Stanley and Roy and Charles Coburn is appropriately greasy as Uncle William. Shout-outs to Frank Craven as the girls' father, Billie Burke as their bed-ridden mother, and Lee Patrick as Stanley's girlfriend. Mention should also be made of Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel as the Timberlake maid and a young actor named Ernest Anderson as company clerk Perry and McDaniel's son. Anderson was discovered personally by Davis and made sure he got this part. Another nearly forgotten gem on Davis' resume that will not disappoint her fans.
Some spectacular performances and uncompromising direction make a slightly cringy 1942 melodrama called IN This Our Life more than worth the time of fans of the genre.
The film stars two time Oscar winners Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters named Stanley and Roy Timberlake, respectively, heiresses to a tobacco company co-owned by their father and uncle. The family is preparing for Stanley's upcoming wedding to Craig (George Brent) while Roy is trying to deal with the end of her marriage to Peter (Dennis Morgan). The sisters' Uncle William (Oscar winner Charles Coburn} gives Stanley a check to help finance her wedding and not long after that, Stanley and Peter run off together. And while healing their wounds, Roy and Craig start developing feelings for each other. Unfortunately, while this is happening, a couple of tragedies begin to derail Stanley's life.
Howard Koch's screenplay, based on a novel by Ellen Glasgow, features everything classic soap opera fans want, but there are some creepy undercurrents to the story that give this story a little more edginess than we get from the average 1940's melodrama. The first thing that quietly emerges is the almost incestuous relationship between Stanley and her Uncle William. It reminded me a bit of Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Even though it isn't overt, it is clear that Uncle William would do anything for Stanley and that she is aware of it and not above using it to her advantage. It is kind of odd that we can this, but Roy is the only character onscreen who sees it.
It's the performances of Davis and de Havilland that really make this one sizzle. In a dynamic that sort of resembles the Hudson sisters in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, we see a toxic relationship between two sisters who have lived with it for so long that they try and pretend it doesn't exist. Davis' ferocious scenery chewing is sometimes frightening to watch here and de Havilland beautifully underplays without ever letting Davis blow her off the screen. de Havilland's Roy is so subservient at the beginning of the film but by the end, has no desire to protect her sister, who becomes downright evil as she goes into pure self-preservation mode.
Research revealed that Davis was miserable during the making of this film. She hated the script and did not get along with director John Huston, having him replaced by Raoul Walsh, though Huston is credited as the sole director onscreen, but Huston and Walsh successfully created one of the creepiest melodramas of the 1940's. Davis and de Havilland are both Oscar-worthy as Stanley and Roy and Charles Coburn is appropriately greasy as Uncle William. Shout-outs to Frank Craven as the girls' father, Billie Burke as their bed-ridden mother, and Lee Patrick as Stanley's girlfriend. Mention should also be made of Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel as the Timberlake maid and a young actor named Ernest Anderson as company clerk Perry and McDaniel's son. Anderson was discovered personally by Davis and made sure he got this part. Another nearly forgotten gem on Davis' resume that will not disappoint her fans.