TV and Movies

[Oznell]

12:30 p.m. Eastern--  "Winter Meeting--   This is a noon-time treat!   One of Bette's somewhat lesser known love stories, that is poignant and affecting.

Bette is a rather well-known poet in this, with "family issues".   She is quite social, but seems not to date.  Until an older bachelor friend of hers invites her for drinks with his bombshell secretary (coquettish Janis Paige) and a recently-returned war hero (James Davis).

Much to everyone's surprise, the handsome warrior seems to prefer bookish Bette to the glamour girl.  He is quite open about it, and Bette is taken aback.  But tantalized.  They are swept into romance, but with obstacles-- natch.

I find this quite interesting, in that Bette was so often paired with love interests in her films who were more passive and diffident, less confidently masculine than Jim Davis. There were exceptions of course, like Gary Merrill, but often Bette would be blazing away on screen with a fairly "recessive" male as her partner.  Here she's met someone as strong and willful as she is -- and it makes for dynamic chemistry!

This one is not to be missed-- a real 'sleeper' of a love story, and also a sort of satisfying psychological study, if I may be so pretentious!

[Catiele]

Hope I am able to catch this. I am a big Bette Davis fan. The older I become the more I appreciate her. Only one BD.

[Oznell]

So true, @Catiele-- one of a kind.  She can play such a range of characters.  Even though we all know the Bette of tumultuous, over-flowing emotions, she is equally at home in a part like this one, where she's kind of a tamped-down, sophisticated but "blocked off" intellectual...

Always fun and instructive to watch!

[drizzellla]

Jim Davis! - I think I will watch just to see him in a movie. I never heard of him until Dallas.

[Judaline]

Just the name of this movie has roped me in. I love it. Jim Davis, hasn't he always been a B movie kind of star? Never quite making it to the big time. I can't believe they gave him the romantic lead in a Bette Davis movie. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when they were off screen.

[Judaline]

Uh-oh, did I miss it? I just noticed Oznell wrote this yesterday. I surely didn't see it.

[Oznell]

No, no, @Judaline, you haven't missed it, it's today, Wednesday, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.

A great lunch-time flick!

[Oznell]

Clever @drizzellla and @Judaline,  points for spotting who Jim Davis was!  I wondered if anyone would remember him as the judicious patriarch of Dallas.

I read up about this, here's the back story--   They wanted Richard Widmark (oh, I love him, he would have been great. I wonder if at that young age though, he would have seemed too "slight" for powerhouse Bette?)

Widmark had recently been playing one of his cackling crazies, I think, and they worried he would be associated with that, instead of this thoughtful, downplayed soldier role.

They tested many, but Bette thought Jim Davis was very suited to the part.  She later said he wasn't up to it, that he felt lost and never got his footing, despite her help, etc.

(That's the side of Bette I don't like-- she was quite capable of these very cutting remarks and sentiments about people-- not generous at all in that respect.)

Although of course not as accomplished as Bette, I think Jim Davis "worked" in the role-- if you watch, see what you think.  Yes, he was sort of strapping and could give the impression of a bit of a lummox, but he certainly conveyed to me enough of the conflicting turmoil and sensitivity of the young man torn between two worlds.  He had a brooding quality that maybe could make him seem somewhat opaque, perhaps.

I thought everybody acquitted themselves quite well, including the invaluable John Hoyt as Bette's fussy but insightful pal.  

[Mmsfoxxie]

The title didn't sound familiar so I googled it and found a trailer of it and OMG....I haven't seen this one.  And it looks interesting.  I'm always complaining that they show the same movies over and over again.

(My internet connection cut off just as I sent this message so it didn't complete and the only part auto saved was the above part.  Strange).

I can be Ms. Davis saying something like that about Jim Davis because she was never shy.  Jim Davis had a different style of speaking but so did she, lol.

This is not coming on at a good time for me but maybe I can watch this instead of my soap.  I can catch my soap later on the POP channel this evening.

Thanks for the clue @Oznell.  

[withaK]

Sounds great to me....I love BD and have never seen this movie. I am in the storm zone so I will be curled up and cozy and ready to watch !!