Dark Victory (Warner Bros.) (1939)

UNRIVALLED ... Bette Davis, Academy Award | winner for 1935 } and 1938, goes | on to new triumphs in "Dark Victory," the soulstirring drama Mat 207—30c Bette Davis 1939 Heroine In ‘Dark Victory’ Film Star Returns to Modern Role After Jezebel’ and ‘Sisters’ (Advance Feature) MONG the more intriguing cinema metamorphoses of the past year is the current modernization of Miss Bette Davis. After almost two years of being hidden away behind yards of petticoats and barricades of corset stays, Miss Davis’ figure is being emancipated to the comparatively revealing freedom of modern gowns. Her personality is also being freed from the conventionimposed shackles of Civil War and Gay Nineties periods. In short, the heroine of “Jezebel” and “The Sisters” is once more an up-to-the-year-and-minute girl. In “Dark Victory,” her latest Warner Bros. picture, which opens next Friday at the Music Hall, she comes to the sceen as a 1939-model heiress. Orry-Kelly, the fashion designer who handled the exterior decoration details of the modernization, equipped Miss Davis with some eighteen gorgeous outfits. They run the style gamut from informal sports costumes to formal evening gowns. There’s also a little item of a $25,000 sable coat which goes with one of the more elaborate evening ensembles. Casey Robinson, who wrote the screen play version of the New York stage production by George Brewer, Jr., and Bertram Bloch, contributed bright, modern dialogue and up-to-date situations for the beautiful but ill-fated young heiress. Art director Robert Haas built her an expensive, but tasteful modern home and put the today touch to her surroundings. The rest, Miss Davis attended to. There was no question about the star being genuinely deighted To make the most of Bette Davis’ past record of hits, don’t miss the Bette Davis Film Quiz on pages 18 and 19. All the titles of her previous pictures are used in a unique contest that will have movie fans sharpening their pencils. Page Twelve at the chance to play a modern girl again, “T adore doing period pictures,” she explained, “And I really think period gowns are flattering to a woman, even if I can’t say much for their comfort. Every actress, however, needs a change of pace. Let her do enough costume pictures and the first thing you know audiences begin to believe she can’t do anything else. They mentally associate her with hoop skirts and corsets. “Why I was almost shocked myself when I first appeared on the ‘Dark Victory’ set in a short skirt. I felt almost indecent.” At the very outset, Miss Davis proved herself a genuinely modern girl by making her own decisions. She doesn’t like the new top-of-the-head coiffure, so she had her hair cut in a short bob and wore it that way for practically all her scenes. She did, however, grant a concession. For an outfit or two featuring modern hats that demanded it, she wore her hair up. Then there was the question of night gown or pajamas for a boudoir sequence. Miss Davis said pajamas were the more modern and it’s pajamas that she’s wearing. And try to imagine Jezebel or the Louise of “The Sisters” wearing pajamas! Another modernity note that the star suggested and which was carried out was the use of trimly tailored slacks for her riding outfit. The character she plays does her riding on her own practice track, supposedly early in the morning. “A really modern girl isn’t going to pop out of bed at the unearthly hour of five in the morning and put on an elaborate riding outfit just to do a bit of exercising on her own track,” she said. “At least this one isn’t.” There is one point to which the modernization of the blonde star is not carried, She isn’t shown doing a jitterbug dance. After all, despite its modern characters, situations and trimmings and its moments of light-hearted gayety, “Dark Victory” is a powerful, intensely dramatic piece. Stars Go To Night Clubs, But To Work! (Advance Reader) WO thirds of Hollywood’s night-clubbing is done right on the studio sound stages, during working hours. As a matter of fact, that’s the only kind many of the screen’s better known stars ever do. Bette Davis, for example, spent 48 hours on night club sets in scenes for her latest Warner Bros. picture “Dark Victory,’ which comes to Radio City Music Hall Friday. That’s more time than she has spent in real night clubs during the last five years. Geraldine Fitzgerald, who took part in the “Dark Victory” social whirl with Miss Davis, has yet to visit a real Hollywood night spot. James Cagney and his pretty wife are seldom seen in the famed Hollywood night clubs. Yet Cagney sees plenty of bright lights life in his pictures and was even part owner of a swanky club in “Angels With Dirty Faces.” John Garfield, Jeffrey Lynn, Priscilla Lane and Gale Page never frequent the colony night clubs, yet they get their share of night life in the movies, as do such stayat-home stars as Edward G. Robinson and Pat O’Brien. Even the celebrities who do mingle more in the Hollywood night life and are listed as “regulars” at the clubs seldom make more than one or two appearances a week at their favorite haunts. John Payne and Anne Shirley are included in this group. It will take Payne years, however, to run up a real night club hourage to equal the total he compiled in making just one film — “Garden of the Moon.” Most of the time, however, the stars who are pretty hard-working folks don’t do much night-clubbing off the set, because ol’ debble alarm clock rings just as loud. Audience Aids Bette Davis In Big Scene (Advance Reader) UDIENCES, says screen star Bette Davis, do a lot of acting for film players in their own imaginations, Consequently, they’re entitled to a big assist in dramatic moments of a picture. Miss Davis explained how audiences give that help after she had played a poignantly dramatic scene for her latest Warner Bros. picture, “Dark Victory,” which opens at Radio City Music Hall Friday. In rummaging carelessly through papers on a doctor’s desk, she had accidentally come across her own case history and read _ what amounted to a death sentence. No one else was in the room. The star’s reaction had to be expressed silently — with a look of suddenly dawning horror and terror, tensing muscles and shaking hands. It was tremendously effective and elicited from Director Edmond Goulding the adjective: “magnificent.” And Mr, Goulding is not given to the use of adjectives. “Tt was a difficult scene,” Miss Davis admitted to the question, “but not as hard as you might imagine. You see, audiences will know what I’m reading, They know when I pick up that report exactly what it contains and the horrible shock I’m about to receive. Mentally, they’ll be reacting for me and helping me with it.” To a great extent audiences give the same sort of help with comedy scenes, when they’ve been taken into the scenarist’s confidence and know. what is coming, Miss Davis added. The knowledge that the audience is working with her in getting over the dramatic possibilities of a scene like this is one of the many things which make acting such a satisfying profession, Mat 205—30c FROM THE LIPS, NOT THE HEART—Bette Davis kisses Humphrey Bogart but her mind is on George Brent in this scene from the Music Hall attraction “Dark Victory," which will open on Friday.