Dark Victory

Yeah, I think in – Later movies, it became The Best Friend.

So if you think about Dark Victory, Judith, Judith Terhearn and her friend that went along with her to plant the tulips, you know.

Again, devoted in

great big air quotes in that movie.

It conveys so much information all at the same time.

This movie continually has style and energy.

It reminded me of Dark Victory in that way, in that you get over the kind of the stuffiness of the melodrama by constantly having interesting visual information on multiple planes of depth on the screen.

And he does, as I mentioned, like with the hotel room scene, but there are other places where he does it, that there are shadows and light, not to the degree that you'll see later on in film noir.

He directed, the film we talked about he directed was Grand Hotel.

He also directed Dark Victory in 1939, one of Bette Davis's greatest films.

Goulding was not the first choice, however.

The first choice was George Cukor.

It's always George Cukor.

But creative differences led to his removal.

But I think Goulding was the perfect director because he has a history of directing sophisticated character-driven dramas like this, like Grand Hotel, like Dark Victory.

I think Cukor would have been amazing, too.

[laughs]

... she said, what was it she said during her death scene in Dark Victory? Uh, "You know, both me and Max Steiner are not going up these stairs together," [laughs] or something like that.

[laughs]

But-

[laughs] What do you have at four?

Uh, this, at four I put the 1939, uh, Dark Victory with Bette Davis and George Brent.

He was her favorite leading man.

They worked so well together.

however, to see Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan in small roles." Uh, I honestly don't know if I've ever seen Reagan in a movie even though I know he was in a bunch.

He's quite charming, and one can see why he was successful in both Hollywood and the White House.

In the end, Dark Victory feels like one of those best picture nominees we get every year that comes and goes and doesn't make much of an impact.

It's fine, but it didn't especially move or excite me.

I've, I've seen so many of her films.

Dark Victory is such a disturbing film, 'cause it's sad what happens to her.

First, she's very, this arrogant, rich girl, and then she has to have an operation 'cause she's losing her sight.

Or no, not that.

I mean, they started in the early '30s and they w- were, were in pictures together up through some of Bette Davis's most prominent Warner Brothers features.

Some of their pictures together were, of course, we mentioned Jezebel, Dark Victory, The Old Maid, and The Great Lie.

And their pairing was so interesting because Bette Davis, she would attack a scene.

[laughs]

A year later came one of the most important films of Brent's career, and Davis' [laughs] career, for that matter.

Yes.

Dark Victory.

Oh, love it.