And The Loser Is... #12- Mildred Fierce

One of the great things I've found already, in the short time I've been working on this project, is that even a seemingly run-of-the-mill, or unimportant film, is likely to have an interesting story behind it. So many of the films that I'll be watching as part of this project have been all but forgotten by time, so this is a great opportunity to not only rediscover these films, but also to learn about the circumstances which brought them to the screen.

This became evident when last night I picked out a film to watch, pretty much at random, and discovered that it plays an important role in Oscar history, as well as changing the career of one of its stars. The film in question is Of Human Bondage, directed in 1934 by John Cromwell, and starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.

This film might not have even ended up as part of this project, which brings me to the story of its importance in Academy Award history. At the time, Bette Davis was contracted to Warner Brothers, with a career that was going nowhere. She saw this film as a way to catapult her to stardom, and, as it was an RKO production, she begged Warner head Jack Warner to let her out of her contract. Warner released her, confident that she would fail, but, when her performance started gaining Oscar buzz, he began a campaign urging Academy members not to vote for her.

He succeeded, as Davis was left off the list of nominees, but the story doesn't end there. Davis' supporters petitioned the Academy to add her as a write-in vote, she was, and eventually lost out Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night. It was the film's only Oscar nomination.

Although Davis didn't win the award, as she had expected to, she clearly had the last laugh on Warner Brothers, going on to have a legendary career. Because of the controversy surrounding the situation, the Academy disallowed future write-in votes from being added to the list of nominations. They also changed the way they handled the voting process, leaving the official counting of votes to an outside accounting company, Pricewaterhouse, who still handle the job to this day.

Watching this film now, it's hard to see what all the fuss is about. Davis' performance is a good one, and one can see why she would covet the role, but I don't think it would have been an injustice for her to go un-nominated. The importance of the role is that it gave her an opportunity to play a strong, dominant female character, the kind of role that she would make her reputation on.

The star of the film is Leslie Howard, who plays Philip Carey, a sensitive man with a club foot, who we first join as he pursues a career as an artist in Paris. He is told that he doesn't have the talent to make a living as an artist, so he moves to London to study medicine. It is there that he meets Mildred (Davis), a cold and uncaring Cockney waitress, with whom he falls in love. His requests for dates are met by Mildred with an unfeeling "I don't mind", but she eventually rejects his marriage proposal and runs off with another man. Philip knows that Mildred treated him poorly, and tries to move on with his life, but eventually she returns, pregnant and penniless, and he finds himself falling for her again.

It was unusual for me to see this kind of wish-fulfillment narrative, but with the gender roles reversed. The more conventional plot would see the female character being mistreated, with the eventual pay-off being her finally finding the confidence in herself to realise that she deserves better (which would also coincide with her finally finding a good man to treat her with respect). I don't know how prevalent it was to tell this kind of story with the roles reversed, , but, in Howard, this film has the perfect lead, a man who can tweak his persona of aristocratic intellectualism, to create a character who is believably self-conscious, sensitive and cuckolded.

The film does a good job of establishing these traits in Philip; after the scene where he is rejected as an artist, we see him being made an object of ridicule by an overbearing doctor at the hospital where he works. Philip feels less of a man because of his disability, so, when it is brought to the attention of the rest of the medical students, it is a big blow ot his manhood. To accentuate the importance of this disability to Philip's psyche, Cromwell shoots a lot of transitional shots at ground level, contrasting Philip's awkward limp with the confident strides of those around him. Later, when Philip leaves the restaurant after first meeting Mildred, her expression changes from one of curiosity to one of disgust upon seeing his club

Bette Davis: The eyes have it.

Davis, of course, is a great expressive actress, her face dominated by those saucer-like eyes. She is also an actress of convincing power and dominance, making Mildred a good fit for her talents. She can barely hold in her boredom and disgut with Philip throughout the course of their courtship, and constantly rubs her superiority into his face, turning the tables on their very different social standing in a similar fashion to Marlene Dietrich with Emil Jannings in The Blue Angel (1930). Whenever Philip shows the slightest hint of resistance to her, she accuses him of showing a lack of class, or of being ungentlemanly. When she tells him that she is going to marry another man, she is insistent that he not 'go on about it', a sentiment she echoes when, after she has returned to Philip, she gets back up to her old tricks by blatantly flirting with one of Philip's friends in his presence. Philip, as is so often the case with somebody with low self-esteem, has turned his back on a woman who was treating him right, in order to have another chance with the one who never will.

After another parting, brought about by Mildred running off with the friend, Philip finally starts to realise that things need to change. He becomes friends with one of his patients (a delightful Reginald Owen, sharing wisdoms such as his idea that women shouldn't be allowed to sit down to eat with men because it ruins conversation and puts ideas in their heads!), and begins to fall for his kind, young daughter. However, Mildred returns once more, and it is then that the film swells to its emotional climax.

In the best scene of the film, Philip finally stands up to Mildred, only to have her let loose on him with a tirade about how she disgusts him, and how it made her sick to let him kiss her ("after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth. WIPE MY MOUTH!") She then proceeds to destroy his flat, burning the securities that have been sent to him to pay for his tuition, and, crucially, putting a knife through his paintings, the only link he has left to the dreams of his youth. Davis is excellent in this sequence, giving a sample of the ferociousness for which she would become so legendary.

Philip is left with nothing, but, as is the nature of these films, it is only when all hope is lost that true happiness can be found, and the wish-fulfillment narrative dictates that Philip be 'swept off his feet' by a love pure and true. It isn't a mark against the film that it is entirely predictable in this manner, as the whole genre relies on playing to, not against, expectations. The joy of these films is really in how one gets to the happy ending. There is some joy to be found here in the performances of the two leads, as well as in some creative direction (nice camera movements, the use of special effects, such as a model skeleton transforming into Mildred as Philip daydreams). The script, too, has some nice moments. But, finally, these are all just moments, and the film seems to be lacking that spark that turns a good movie into a great one. If this is remembered only as the film that gave Davis her big break, I don't think there would be any injustice in that. 3 stars.

Next time out, I'll be doing part two of my look at Woody Allen's Oscar career, which will include my favourite Allen film. Until then, here's looking at you.