I Want a Snow-Globe, Jul 14 2002

Bette Davis plays Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, who is a sweet, kind governess to three girls and a boy, the children of the Duc and Duchesse du Praslin. I do like Bette in roles such as these, much better than the hard, scheming, or vicious woman she has the reputation of being. This is a sweet, chaste, hopeless love story between the Duc and Henriette, and the jealous, neurotic wife who completes the triangle. (The jealous, neurotic wife is the same lady who played Ellen O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Now I will never look at Ellen O'Hara the same way again.) At first I thought it strange that the film did not probe more into la Duchesse's character to explain why she was a jealous, neurotic wife - but then, the story is told from Henriette's perspective, and I don't think she really understood the jealous, neurotic wife either.

You gotta love Bette's hair in this movie. I mean - it looks like someone sculpted it over her ears just so with hairspray. But the lovely dresses make up for the weird hair. All except the one she wore to the theatre with the huge ruffled flower on the front. And the children are all quite sweet. I've always enjoyed Virginia Weidler whenever I have seen her, and the little boy was an angel too. Charles Boyer's voice... Let's just say I dig the guys with the accents, Paul Henreid and Peter O'Toole among others.

The first time I watched this, I thought that the Duc's suicide at the end was a bit too melodramatic after all the more realistic drama that preceded it, and I didn't understand why he had to kill his wife either. A moment of violent passion, I suppose. Still, with Henriette, you come to love him so much that although you dislike these aspects, you can't hate him for it either. But the book says this is what happened, and that makes it more believable.

Speaking of the book, I recently read it - same title, and by Rachel Field. I recommend reading that along with watching this movie. Basically the movie adheres to the book, except that the book has a lot more after the film ends, and some of the scenes are switched around a bit.

Overall I thought this a very engaging, almost perfect film. I hope to own it one of these days, but meanwhile I'm happy to know the library has a copy for me to check out.

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