federovsky Bette Davis is trouble looking for a target. A Richmond girl bored with her declining family, running off with her sister's husband is only the beginning as she leaves a generally destructive trail behind her, though it's more recklessness than malice.As with The Little Foxes, the film links immorality and economics. Davis is aligned more with her shrewd businessman uncle - and a pretty lewd relationship that is - than with her own father, whose escutcheon, at the beginning, we see knocked off their former home. Davis may overdo it a tad with the wide-eyed hysteria but she's given the dramatic leeway - everyone else is rigid - and she's pure entertainment. Good sister Olivia de Havilland has a relatively dull part but makes something quite beautiful out of it.It's obscure to everyone why the two women have man's names (Stanley and Roy) and it certainly creates an odd effect. Huston's directing is immaculate, craftsmanlike, crisp and disciplined. The music is a also feature. If Davis isn't sashaying to the jukebox and the Victrola, she's being smothered by Max Steiner's symphonic score that has a fateful down-stepping motif like a staircase to hell.In the best Warners style it takes you by the lapels, slaps you about a bit, and pushes you back into a chair.

Claudio Carvalho In Richmond, after the Great Depression, the industrialist Asa Timberlake (Frank Craven) is cheated by his brother-in-law and partner William Fitzroy (Charles Coburn) and loses his business to him. His spoiled daughter Stanley Timberlake (Bette Davis), who is the pride and joy of William, is going to marry the idealist lawyer Craig Fleming (George Brent). However, she flees to Baltimore with the surgeon Peter Kingsmill (Dennis Morgan), who is the husband of her sister Roy Timberlake (Olivia de Havilland). After a short period of happiness, Peter cannot afford to support the shopping of Stanley and commits suicide. Meanwhile Roy divorces from Peter and gets close to Craig that proposes to marry her. The black teenager Parry Clay (Ernest Anderson) that worked to Timberlake, dreams in becoming a lawyer, and Craig hires him to work in his office. Stanley returns home and unsuccessfully tries to seduce Craig, inviting him to have dinner with her in a tavern. However Craig does not show up and the upset Stanley drives back home at high speed. She hits and run a mother and her daughter and kills the girl. When the police comes to Asa's house, Stanly accuses Parry of driving her car and the youth is arrested and put in jail. What will happen to the innocent Parry?"In This Our Life" is a film directed by John Huston about a selfish and evil woman. His tight direction saves the dramatic and tense story from becoming a melodramatic soap opera. Bette Davis steals the show with a fantastic performance. The rest of the cast is also magnificent. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Nascida para o Mal" ("Born to the Evil")

writers_reign One of the plus factors about boxed sets featuring one actor, director, etc, is that nine times out of ten they are able to demonstrate any versatility they may possess and this is borne out by the five Bette Davis titles I bought this week inasmuch as that on two succeeding evenings I was able to watch one of her most selfless performances in Watch On The Rhine followed by the bitch from Hell in In This Our Life, John Huston's second film behind the camera after The Maltese Falcon. With a blonde wig and made up to resemble Betty Boop, Davis tears through the film like a twister looking for Kansas. She thinks nothing of brushing aside her husband-to-be George Brent to run away with sister Olivia de Havilland's husband, played by the ultra wooden Denis Morgan, hands down the weakest actor in the movie. Having driven him to suicide she goes back home to have another crack at Brent, now in a strong and loving relationship with de Havilland. When that fails she drives off in a high-speed huff, kills a child, severely injures its mother and blatantly lays the blame on an innocent black boy - a fine performance by Ernest Anderson. For most of her life she had enjoyed a semi-incestuous relationship with indulgent Uncle Charles Coburn but when he too, declines to help her beat the dangerous driving rap she curses him and wishes him dead. This is drama at its most melo and Frank Craven, Billie Burke and Hattie McDaniels all contribute fine cameos to say nothing of the principals from The Maltese Falcon sitting mute in a saloon as bartender Walter Huston (also uncredited) tries to speak over Davis' ranting. Great meller.

tavm This was John Huston's second film as director after The Maltese Falcon. In this one, he guided Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters with the usually male names of Stanley and Roy, respectively. Ms. Davis steals her sibling's husband (Dennis Morgan) while Roy then takes a shine to Stanley's former beau played by George Brent. Later on, some kind of accident occurs and someone gets blamed who was nowhere near the scene. I'll stop there and just say this was quite an exciting melodrama especially when Ms. Davis is on screen with her scenery chewing, so to speak! As the young African-American who gets in trouble through no fault of his own, Ernest Anderson holds his own against the other players. Oh, and what a nice reunion between Gone with the Wind co-stars de Havilland and Hattie McDaniel. In summary, In This Our Life was movie soap at its finest!