The Old Maid (1939)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.9/10   

Director:

Edmund Goulding

Escritores:

Edith Wharton (novel)
Zoe Akins (play)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

2 septiembre 1939 (USA)

Género:

Drama

Frase comercial:

Vividly, unforgettably, a woman's love starved soul is revealed. All those strange secrets she locks in her heart ... moments of rapture and of heartbreak ... longings that no man can fathom. Of these has the year's finest picture been woven!

Plot:

Delia marries Jim, not Joe After Delia breaks her engagement to Clem and marries Jim, Clem promises to marry Delia's cousin Charlotte...

Plot Keywords:

Cousin | Battle | Brother | Wedding | Nursery

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Best of Warner's Era Films Not Directed by William Wyler

Reparto

Bette Davis	...	Charlotte Lovell
Miriam Hopkins	...	Delia Lovell Ralston
George Brent	...	Lt. Clem Spender
Donald Crisp	...	Dr. Lanskell
Jane Bryan	...	Clementina
Louise Fazenda	...	Dora
James Stephenson	...	Jim Ralston
Jerome Cowan	...	Joseph Ralston
William Lundigan	...	Lanning Halsey
Cecilia Loftus	...	Grandmother Henrietta Lovell
Rand Brooks	...	Jim Ralston Jr.
Janet Shaw	...	Dee Ralston Ward
William Hopper	...	John Ward (as DeWolf Hopper)

También conocida como:

La solterona (Spain) [es]

Duración:

95 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono (RCA Victor System)

Clasificación:

Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #5227) | Australia:PG

Locaciones de Filmación:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Compañía:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivialidades:

The 1935 Pulitzer Prize-winning play opened at the Empire Theatre in New York on Jan. 7, 1935 and ran for 305 performances. The leads were played by Judith Anderson and Helen Menken. Marjorie Lord, who later gained fame as the wife of Danny Thomas on TV's "Make Room for Daddy" (1953), was a replacement cast member in a supporting role. Producer-Director Ernst Lubitsch bought the rights to the play, intending to star both Judith Anderson and Helen Menken in a Paramount production, but he sold the rights to Warner Bros. in Jan. 1939.

Citas:

Charlotte Lovell: She thinks I can't understand her. She considers me an old maid.
Delia Lovell Ralston: My dear.
Charlotte Lovell: A ridiculous, narrow-minded old maid. What else can she ever think of me?
Delia Lovell Ralston: Poor Charlotte.
Charlotte Lovell: Oh, but you needn't pity me. Because she's really mine. If she considers me an old maid, it's because I've deliberately made myself one in her eyes. I've done it from the beginning so she wouldn't have the least suspicion. I've practised everything I've ever had to say to her, if it was important, so that I'd sound like an old maid aunt talking. Not her mother.
[...]

Conexiones de Película:

Apareció en Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006) (TV)

Banda de Sonido:

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Best of Warner's Era Films Not Directed by William Wyler

Everyone who is a fan of Davis' knows that William Wyler (director of Jezebel, the Letter, and the Little Foxes) was Davis' "best" director because he could put her in her place and control her, forcing her to not over-act and use too many bits of business and gestures, etc to distract. Davis did not need mannerisms to get emotion across on screen and Wyler seemed to be able to tell her how to control that; she learned from him, for after Jezebel in 1938, she very rarely acted in a manner displaying lack of control that matched her pre-Jezebel career.

The Old Maid was directed by Edmund Goulding; I don't know much about him except that was considered a "women's film" director and was respected as a talented one. In any event, the Old Maid is the best of Davis' four 1939 films. which include Dark Victory, Juarez, and the Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.

In the Old Maid, Davis with the help of Mr Goulding delivers a restrained yet compellingly provocative performance; the film spans a twenty year time period, beginning in 1861 or so with a young Davis ministering to her cousin Delia (played by the talented but very difficult Miriam Hopkins.) Although Miriam does her best to steal each scene from Davis, she never succeeds. Bette Davis is superb in this film; so much so that it really remains one of the few undated movies from the 1930s. True star quality is related to being able to connect with an audience over years and years of time. Ms. Davis certainly has this ability - never better displayed than in the Old Maid.

Favorite scenes: Charlotte (Davis' character) wedding preparation and Delia's subsequent lie - along with the next scene that takes place when Davis realizes that Hopkins' character has lied and ruined her life - watch Davis' face as she utters "it was wicked of you" to Hopkins- (who, by the way delivers a disappointing response.) Now that's star-quality acting!