Dark Victory (Warner Bros.) (1939)

Bette Davis Glad To Be Modern Again (Current Reader) In the words of her film wardrobe woman, Bette Davis is “wearing legs for the first time in two years.” Miss Davis’ first appearance on the set of “Dark Victory,” the Warner Bros. picture playing at the Music Hall, was the inspiration for that remark. The star, very slim and svelte in fur trimmed afternoon ensemble, walked into a doctor’s reception room with a swirl of skirt and a flash of sheer silken hosiery. The skirt Miss Davis wore wasn’t short, as modern fashions go. It reached well below the knees, but it did leave revealed an alluring expanse of shapely calves. It was the first time in two years that Warner Bros, technicians and set workers had glimpsed Miss Davis’ legs. The long skirted creations she wore in “Jezebel” and “The Sisters” didn’t so much as reveal a bit of ankle. “T feel positively undres‘ed,” the star commented, “parading around before all these folks with my calves exposed. I also feel remarkably free.” “I’m convinced that stylists did a great humanitarian act in emancipating the feminine leg from trailing skirts.” Mat 110—15c BETTE DAVIS and GEORGE BRENT Currently playing in "Dark Victory." Everyone Convinced Except Bette! Bette Davis still isn’t sure whether or not it was a compliment to the realism of her acting or a rib. She had just finished a hard, nerve-trying scene in a doctor’s office for Warner Bros.’ “Dark Victory,’ now showing at the Music Hall. She was the seriously ill patient, George Brent the doctor. As she entered her dressing room, her maid took her arm and helped her to the couch. Her hairdresser hurried in with a glass of water and the wardrobe woman removed her shoes and slipped on her bedroom slippers. Then the script clerk came in and tucked a cushion behind her head. Mat 303—45c BETTE DAVIS IN MANY MOODS—Twice winner of the Motion Picture Academy Award for best acting, Miss Davis is shown here as she is being alternately tender, gay, haughty and angry for her current starring role in "Dark Victory" which is now showing at the Radio City Music Hall. ( Current Feature) Bette Davis Found Playing Bad Girls Was Good Luck CTRESSES who play the “other kind of women” in their early pictures often arrive at stardom ahead of their more respectable screen sisters. A good “bad role” is a better stepping stone to public favor and producer attention than any good secondary straight role can be. There are many Hollywood careers to prove this contention, Bette Davis was merely an acceptable leading woman until she shocked both Hollywood and the movie-going public with her charactreization of the despicable Mildred in “Of Human Bondage.” A thoroughly “bad” girl was Mildred and Miss Davis played the role for all it was worth. In fact she played the unpleasant character so whole-heartedly that the director, after the first two days of shooting, asked her not to watch the “rushes” at night but to rely upon his judgment in the cutting of the picture. “T was afraid, if you saw yourself,” he told her later, “that you would unconsciously soften the characterization and spoil it.” Bette didn’t see the rushes and she didn’t attend the preview of the picture. She first saw herself as Mildred in a second run picture house and when the film ended she Mat 109—15c BETTE DAVIS Good ‘bad' roles her stepping-stones. didn’t go out into the lobby. She sat right in her seat, her hat hiding her eyes and waited until the theatre was completely empty before leaving. “I shocked myself terribly,” she admits. “I didn’t think that my family would ever speak to me again.” Bette continued to play ladies of questionable virtue in several pictures, including “Dangerous,” which won the Academy award for her, and she has played such roles successfully on occasion _ since, notably in the highly successful “Marked Woman.” Since that picture, however, she has reformed in her screen life and has lately limited her screen sins to displays of high temper and selfishness. In her latest picture for Warner Bros., “Dark Victory,’ which is now showing at the Music Hall, she goes the whole way toward respectability and sympathy, her first completely “good” role in several years. One reason for the eventual success of young actresses who start out in their careers playing these “other kind of women,” thinks Lloyd Bacon, who directed Bette Davis in “Marked Woman” a year or so ago, is that such roles demand real acting ability and the woman who can play them successfully can usually play almost any other sort of role convincingly. “Tt is an acid test,” he suggests. “Tf she can forget her pride, her vanity and her prejudices enough to tackle such a role she has the material that is needed in any great actress. Not all young women who try such parts succeed later in more pleasant roles, but most of those who are good do.” Page Fifteen