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20 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
A Lovely Old Maid, 4 May 2009

Author: jpdoherty from Ireland

Based on the novel by Edith Wharton THE OLD MAID (1939) is one of the great Bette Davis Warner Bros. classics and besides "Jezebel" (1938) is my favorite Bette Davis movie! From a cracker of a screenplay by Casey Robinson it was splendidly directed with a deft hand by Edmund Goulding. Davis gives one of her finest performances as Charlotte the prim and proper old maid who years before was left pregnant when her suitor (George Brent in what must be his smallest role) is killed in the civil war. The child - a girl - is born and some years later Charlotte allows her widowed cousin (Miriam Hopkins) to raise the girl as her own which causes much resentment in Charlotte and the alienation of her daughter who doesn't know who her real mother is.

It is an absorbing highly charged piece of drama in a duel between two fine actresses in which Davis is clearly the victor. Helen Menken and Judith Anderson played the roles on stage in 1935 and it's hard to think of Menken being anywhere near as good as Davis playing Charlotte. Here in the movie you simply cannot take your eyes of Davis as she brilliantly conveys the consummate artistry of her craft to an audience. Also giving splendid support in the picture is the always reliable Donald Crisp plus Jerome Cowan, James Stephenson and a young William Lundigan.

In a much better second half of the picture the daughter - now a vivacious young lady - is played by an actress called Jane Bryan. Born in 1918 Bryan had an appealing screen presence and at the time was getting a build-up from Warners. But in 1940 she abruptly retired, married a business tycoon and never returned to the screen. Something of a loss I would opine! She died in April 2009 at the age of 91.

Beautifully photographed in glorious black & white by the gifted Tony Gaudio the picture also boasts a lush score by the great Max Steiner which has a lovely central waltz theme. The music for "The Old Maid" was one of 18 scores the composer wrote for Bette Davis' films which included such gems as "Dark Victory", "Jezebel", "All This & Heaven Too" "Beyond The Forest" and most memorably "Now Voyager" in 1942 for which Steiner won the second of his three Acadamy Awards. The great actress once remarked of the composer "At Warner Bros. Max knew more about drama than any of us".

"The Old Maid" is quite a wonderful movie! It has lost none of its charm or impact over the years and hasn't dated one iota. Collectors will cherish and relish "The Old Maid"!

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13 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Bette Davis And Miriam Hopkins Are Dynamite In Costume Drama, 31 December 2004

Author: Hal-900 from WA, USA

Cousins Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins battle each other and the elements as they struggle to find happiness during the second half of the 19th Century. It's one of those films that rests on the shoulders of the main actors. Since Davis and Hopkins are so good, the result is a passionate film with many stirring dramatic sequences. Many film revisionists now claim this film contains Davis' best performance, and while I disagree, Davis is indeed brilliant in one of her most difficult roles; her transformation from radiant debutante to embittered old maid is something to be seen. Hopkins is not far behind, and this movie reminds me of what a good actress she was; Hopkins almost manages to steal the show from Davis. However, despite two powerhouse performances, this is not your typical star vehicle; this is an extremely well-written, well-directed Civil War melodrama. It could also be considered as one of the best studies (on film) of women living under the shadow of a male-dominated society.

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11 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
My darling Clementina, 19 May 2006

Author: jotix100 from New York

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A lie prevents Charlotte Lovell from getting married to a decent man, Joseph Ralston. Delia, her scheming cousin, can't forgive Charlotte how she was able to get her old flame, Clem, even though she had refused to have anything to do with him when he returns home on her wedding day to the rich Jim Ralston.

Charlotte, who is seen years later running a place for orphans of the Civil War, dotes on little Clementina, or Tina, as she calls her. One realizes it's not just an interest she shows, it's a mother love she displays. Fate intervenes again in bringing Charlotte and Tina to live with Delia, who loses her husband. Tina loves her new palatial surroundings and starts resenting Charlotte's discipline.

When Tina falls for the handsome Lanning Halsey, she overhears his parents remarking that the young lady is an orphan and below their expectations for their son. Delia intervenes one more time in suggesting she will adopt Tina to give her a Ralston name and position. Charlotte wants Delia to tell Tina the truth and who the real mother is, but at the last moment has a change of heart when she looks at the radiant Tina as she is preparing to marry the man of her dreams.

Bette Davis made a valuable contribution to the film. Her Charlotte is at the start an eager young woman who changes into a bitter person as she gets to know her cousin's betrayal and her daughter's cold treatment. Miriam Hopkins plays Delia, a selfish woman, with conviction. George Brent is only seen at the beginning of the film. He plays Clem, who goes to war, never to come back. Jane Bryan is Tina, the young lady unaware who her real mother is. Jerome Cowan, Donald Crisp, William Lundigan and the rest of the supporting cast do an excellent job.

Edmund Goulding directed with an eye to the details in this adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel, which had been turned into a play for the New York stage. Max Steiner's music plays well against the background of the Civil War. Tony Gaudio's elegant cinematography is notable as it captures the essence of the story in vivid images.

Although not one of Bette Davis' best films, it's a must for all fans of the actress' work. The best achievement is how we see her age in front of our eyes into a convincing old woman.

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11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Excellent early Bette Davis film, 25 July 2003

Author: Wayne Malin (wwaayynnee51@hotmail.com) from United States

Superb soap opera takes place from the 1860s to the 1880s. Miriam Hopkins spurns long-time fiancee George Brent to marry another man. Her cousin, Bette Davis, also loves Brent and "comforts" him before he goes off to war. He dies in the war and leaves her pregnant. She secretly has the baby and tells nobody except Hopkins. Hopkins, now a rich widow, convinces Davis to let her adopt the child so she will have a name. She does and watches her child grow up treating Hopkins like her mother and Davis with contempt as an old maid.

The story is very sudsy but the script has wonderful, literate dialogue and the picture is very elaborately made. But what really puts the picture across is the superb acting by Hopkins and Davis. They both hated each other passionately off screen but you'd never know it on screen. The scenes when they're friends or rivals are just great--every single line rings true and they play their roles to the hilt. A real surprise is seeing Hopkins play a sweet woman at the end--she certainly wasn't like that in real life! And the very last scene in the movie will bring a tear to your eye--just Bette Davis' reaction to something really hits.

A great film--don't miss it! A must if you're a Bette Davis fan.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Bette is wonderful in period soap opera from Edith Wharton novel..., 14 May 2001
Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.

Bette Davis vies with Miriam Hopkins for the affection of George Brent in this film version of Edith Wharton's 'The Old Maid'. As hard as Hopkins tries, she can't steal the film from Bette -- nor Bette's daughter (Jane Bryan), the love child being brought up by Delia (Hopkins). Basically the story of Bette being unable to tell her daughter that she's her real mother.

There are some odd peculiarities about the film itself. George Brent makes a few brief appearances early in the film and then is suddenly killed off after going to fight in the Civil War. A montage shows the passage of time and suddenly we're given an abrupt change of scene and events before still another time transition. The continuity is choppy and leaves an unsatisfying impression of the film as a whole. It's as if events that should have been shown are compressed because of time constraints.

Bette Davis gives one of her more restrained portrayals, aging rather realistically, showing the loneliness of the embittered woman who is cheated out of marrying another man when her cousin Delia (Miriam Hopkins) discovers that she bore Brent's child.

The soap suds are pretty thick, all of them backed by a nice Max Steiner score and handsome sets and period costumes. Miriam Hopkins plays the selfish bitch with her customary skill and makes Davis seem even more sympathetic by comparison. I have seen this movie praised to the skies by some who consider it a work of art--but there are too many flaws, including a false and abrupt ending involving Bette Davis and daughter Jane Bryan, and time changes that seem more like a case of bad editing.

There are fine performances in supporting roles by Donald Crisp, James Stephenson, William Lundigan and Jerome Cowan under Edmund Goulding's tasteful direction.

A tear-jerker, 1930s style--but one that doesn't date too well.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
A Warner Major Feature, 1 April 1999

Author: harry-76 from Cleveland, Ohio USA

With Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner himself in charge of the production, "The Old Maid" is a fine example of what that studio's "stock company" was able to produce in the late '30s and early '40s. Here is Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, assisted by George Brent and Donald Crisp acting up a storm a very soapy piece of melodrama, and making it all very engrossing. Based on Zoe Akins' Pulitzer Prize play and Edith Wharton's novel, this drama of sacrifice, deception, and raging emotions is given a superlative treatment by this impressive company. The film even has the services of Max Steiner's score, underlying every scene with original and adapted source material. Edmund Goulding's direction is sure-footed and he has managed to curb histrionic accesses of the two stars nicely; their acting is quite restrained, yet powerful. Whatever sparks flew between the two ladies off-screen may be justified by what on-screen legacy is left for all to appreciate. Further, the drama depicts the limited and restrictive social/class mores of the period, undoubtedly imported from strict European values.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Sisters of Dysfunction, 17 May 2006

Author: nycritic

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Edith Wharton never found a story with a non-ending she didn't like, and her short novel "The Old Maid," made into an excellent period drama starring Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, and Jane Bryan is no exception to the rule.

The story of two sisters living in rivalry as one of them -- the crueler one -- flourishes, while the second one -- the good one -- languishes in a destroyed life, couldn't have been better suited to the two actresses who couldn't have disliked each other more.

Bette Davis up until then had not shared considerable screen time with an actress of mettle until Miriam Hopkins took the role of Delia Lovell Ralston. She'd always had her share of leading men, whether she liked them or not, and in SO BIG! she had no scenes with Barbara Stanwyck. Being on screen with a female who could either out-act her or steal her scenes was something Davis reacted to with a brittle sense of aggression -- that is, unless they were on friendly terms, as when she and Mary Astor shared screen time together in THE GREAT LIE or when she, later in life, allowed pal Olivia de Havilland to mentally abuse her in HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE. Even when acting aside Anne Baxter -- also part of Davis' circle of friends -- neither sought to obliterate the other, and in that film, Baxter played a supreme bitch to Bette's exaggerated but vulnerable Margo Channing in ALL ABOUT EVE.

However, one only had to see how she acted and reacted to women who somehow, she viewed as professional rivals, she thought little of, or felt that their glamor somehow would eclipse her presence. Of them all, it's widely agreed to that with (Joan) Crawford she was on the least friendly of terms, and crew members expected an explosion to take place at any given moment on the set of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? However, Davis is also reputed to have stated that despite their "rivalry", despite that Crawford and she had never been "simpatico", there was no feud... although if filming had been extended to three months instead of three weeks, well -- that was another story. The end result, however, while not the best of films -- in fact it has exploitation moments -- was a fascinating study of Hollywood sisters living in hatred of each other, joined in a battle of wills to survive.

There was a lot feeding the flames of animosity between Davis and Hopkins. While filming THE SISTERS, Davis was reported to have sustained a romantic affair with her director (and Hopkins' husband at the time), Anatole Litvak, even when he gave co-star Errol Flynn most of the close-ups. Hopkins had starred in the theatre production of JEZEBEL, a role she felt entitled to, so she felt that Davis had also stole that character away from her (and quite possibly her chances of winning an Oscar). Davis states that Hopkins tried to make her very ill at ease, even walking at one point onto the set dressed as Julie Marsden. Even so, Davis refused to give in to Hopkins' antics, instead of focusing on her own performance. Because of the animosity between the sisters, it was probably best for them that neither actress have good feelings towards each other. Because both women have a great many scenes together (and even hold hands in that emotional, closing scene), their relationship together seems and feels real.

Nowadays actors can only put out one movie a year. Bette Davis was able to produce four of them, all top material, major productions, in 1939 alone. THE OLD MAID could have given her an acting nomination the same way DARK VICTORY did -- as Charlotte Lovell she is restrained, resigned, selfless, and internally strong. She ages well, too. Miriam Hopkins is also pretty sharp in conveying icy manipulation and there is a moment where a moment of catharsis should take place, but in Wharton's novels of manners, that never happens. It does help to have the story stick to its pessimistic yet hopeful ending -- again, a trademark of Wharton's storytelling -- and made me think that Hollywood could do a movie without having to force a "satisfying" ending to the movie going public.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Irresistible Tosh, 11 December 2005

Author: Martin Bradley (MOscarbradley@aol.com) from Derry, Ireland

One of Bette Davis' best films and a great weepie; an unashamed Victorian melodrama but made with great panache and played with all the stops out. When Miriam Hopkins jilts her financee George Brent, cousin Bette gives herself to him and gets pregnant. When Brent goes off and gets himself killed Davis disappears out West so she can have the baby, raise her as an orphan and save what vestige of honour she has left. Years later, when Hopkins discovers the truth, she takes the child to be raised as her own while Davis lurks on the sidelines as old maid Aunt Charlotte. (This is the movie in which Davis gets to utter the immortal lines on her daughter's wedding night, 'Tonight she belongs to me. Tonight I want her to call ME mother!'). The film has a good pedigree. The original play won the Pulitzer Prize and was based in turn on an Edith Wharton novel. Tosh it may well be, but it is irresistible.

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10 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
New Spin on an Old Maid, 10 February 2003
Author: genericmovielover

This film would be just another period melodrama: over-scored,sugar-coated, and glossy-slick (especially for a Warners' film) -- except for two things: Bette Davis and Bette Davis.

Bette is truly a revelation in this film, which required her to age twenty years in the flesh but many more than that in spirit - as she turned from a fresh, extremely sympathetic young girl to an "old maid" of forty or so, a bitter, intimidating woman.

Her ability to integrate completely disparate human traits into one cohesive character is amazing - a must see.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Edith Wharton By Zoe Atkins Out Of Warner Brothers, 19 January 2009

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

If anyone knows which of Edith Wharton's novels was made into a play by Zoe Atkins and then filmed by Warner Brothers let us all know on this board. I searched Wikipedia on Edith Wharton and couldn't figure out exactly which of her works this could be. The screen credit doesn't tell as you see and it certainly isn't The Age Of Innocence or Ethan Frome or any of her more well known works. My gut tells me its quite a bit different from what Wharton originally wrote. By the way the Internet Broadway Database doesn't tell you anything either.

It does tell you that The Old Maid ran for 305 performances on Broadway in the 1935 season and starred Judith Anderson and Helen Menken in the roles that Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins play here. Davis and Hopkins are cousins. Miriam's the bright and pretty one and apparently gets first crack at the men. One she had on a string for a while was George Brent who as the story opens arrives back in Philadelphia expecting to take up where he left off with Hopkins. But Hopkins has decided she wants wealth and security and marries solid Jerome Cowan instead.

Davis who's had a thing for Brent volunteers to meet him at the station and break the news. Of course Brent insists on a confrontation just before the wedding, but being the gentleman he always is on the screen, backs off and congratulates the bride. And before he goes off to war Davis gives him a grand send off.

But Brent leaves the film early, being killed in the siege at Vicksburg and leaves Davis something to remember him by. Something she can't explain in proper Philadelphia society. Kindly doctor Donald Crisp arranges for a trip out west for her health where she has a baby girl and later comes back and starts an orphan asylum, the idea to build a forest to hide her family tree.

The rest of the story is pure soap opera, 19th century style with Hopkins eventually adopting the girl and Davis coming to live with her as 'Aunt Charlotte' to her own daughter played when she grows up by Jane Bryan. There's a lot of tension in the air and the fact that Davis and Hopkins hated each other in real life probably helps the performances. But these two women have put across a lot worse than The Old Maid.

What this board could use is someone who knows Edith Wharton and her work and can tell the rest of us what the original story was and how close this was to the story. My gut just tells me that this soap opera was far from what Wharton intended.

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