Book review - "Joan Crawford" by Scott Eyman (2025)

 Very good book. Eyman loves to step up when redeeming maligned figures. He's sympathetic to Joan but doesn't gloss over her negative qualities. Solid research. A few too many smart ass asides.

Top Ten Three Girl Movies

 (I'm also including ones with four girls)

1) Three on a Match

2) How to Marry a Millionaire

3) Where the Boys Are

4) The Student Nurses

5) Summer School Teachers

6) Valley of the Dolls

7) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

8) Hollywood Boulevard

9) Night Call Nurses

10) 9 to Five

Book review - "George Brent - Ireland's Gift to Hollywood and Its Leading Ladies" by Scott O'Brien

 A book about George Brent? Well, why not? Brent is famous for not being famous, not really, but he had an amazing career. At least twenty years as a leading man, which is not bad for someone who was never a top star, though he had his chances. He was good looking, could act, was a man,.. all those things helped. His ace in the hole was though he was an ideal leading man for the ladies - and that was needed in the 30s and 40s.  Brent would've struggled in the 60s and 70s.

It's harder to be a good leading man than it looks - you have to support, not over shadow, but also hold your own (Robert Cummings could do it - like Brent he struggled as a solo star).

O'Brien does a worthy job on Brent, who to be honest isn't that interesting. He did some interesting things - worked as a messenger boy for the IRA during the Civil War (he's Irish), slept with a lot of famous women (Ann Sheridan, Ruth Chatterton, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Kay Francis), flew planes - but wasnt that interesting a person. A loner, moody, a whinger. He was lucky. It wasn't easy to break in as ana actor but easier than for most - he got a long run relatively early in Abbey's Irish Rose on stage, and then when sound films came in after some more door knocking got long term contracts. His big break was Ruth Chatterton catching a glimpse and wanting to grab some of that... so he was cast as her leading man, and carved out that niche.

Brent was a better actor than I recall and had the knack of appearing in a decent film every few years - Dark Victory, The Keyhole, Rains Came, Spiral Staircase. Even his Hammer flick with Diana Dors, The Last Page is worth a look.

Brent had amibitions to do other things - ran his owns stock company, bred horses (did well at this), invested in Hawaii. Aussie readers will find particularly interesting his marriage to Constance Worth aka Jocelyn Howarth star of Squatter's Daughter. That didn't end well nor did most of his marriages but he got it right towards the end. Fascinating weird relationship with Jane Powell (she had a crush on him, later he proposed to her). I love that Brent had a nose job.

I'll admit I didn't really like Brent that much as an actor and not as a person but it was great O'Brien wrote this book.

Marilyn Monroe Top Ten

 Not many films but anyway

1) Some Like It Hot (1959) - easy choice, so perfect... imagine Mitzi Gaynr in this. No thanks.

2) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) - again, easy choice - shame she was never reteamed with Russell.

3) How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) - glorious fun. Steals movie. 

4) Bus Stop (1956) - I recall Don Murray being creepy and Marilyn being great.

5) All About Eve (1951) - one scene but a great one.

6) The Misfits (1961) - flawed, but marvelous

7) Niagara (1953) - she's probably miscast but it's a good movie.

8) There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) - hokey story but those song and dance numbers!

9) The Seven Year Itch (1955) - icon.

10) Don't Bother to Knock (1952) - haven't seen this in ages just throwing it in there.

Movie review - "The Virgin Queen" (1955) **

 Bette Davis returns to the part of Elizabeth I, this one focusing on her relationship with another handsome young lout, here Sir Walter Raleigh played by Richard Todd.

There's bright colours and set design and it all looks splendid in CinemaScope - I assume that's a big reason why Fox greenlit this project.

Dramatically it's not very interesting. The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex was stronger because it concerned a great love, built up to Essex leading a rebellion against Elizabeth and being executed..

This has less focus. It's about Walter Raleigh trying to persuade Elizabeth to finance ships and he marries Joan Collins which annoys Davis but not that much and she lets them go. The "baddies", Robert Douglas and Jay Robinson, are bad because they don't like Todd because... it's never really spelt out. I didn't care about Raleigh and Elizabeth because he was just after her cash and she was just a little egotistical but basically decent. There's no stakes.

They should've done the Mary Queen of Scots story with Davis as Elizabeth. That would've been more worthwhile. The one effective moment is when Elizabeth reveals herself to be bald. I guess when Dan O'Herlihy died.

Rod Taylor appears as a Welsh soldier delivering a message from the palace while Dan O'Herlihy is there - he passes on gossip that Collins is pregnant.

It was so hard to care. Todd and Collins were so selfish.

Movie review - "Pocketful of Miracles" (1961) **

 Frank Capra's last movie (though he didn't intend that to be the case at the time) is a remake of his earlier hit Lady for  Day. It has bright, garish colours, as if set in toy town, and is an alright time-filler.  I have memories of it being on TV on Sunday afternoon. 

Peter Falk shines in an early role. It was Ann Margret's first movie and she's lovely - always better as a good girl. She sings a song. At times watching this I wondered if it could be a musical - I think other people had the same idea after Guys and Dolls. Some random handsome American plays her Italian fiance. He warbles a tune too.

I quite enjoyed the family of pan handlers - the little person, the mute girl. I know it was hokey but it worked.

Glenn Ford is miscast as a gangster hero, though not as much as Hope Lange who plays his dancer girlfriend. Bette Davis is also miscast playing "old lady" (a few years down the track it wouldn't matter) though I got more used to her.

In the second half the story kicks in and it became especially watchable (though Ford disappears from the action). But then at the climax I watched Davis introducing all these New York figures be introduced to the Italian count I went "who cares if the count approves or not... like he's an Italian count, Italy got smothered in the war and depended on American kindness". That's when it hit me the story didn't update that well.

Maybe it should've been set in Las Vegas - but do they have panhandlers. More could've been made of Davis' alcoholism... that's a ticking clock that was never used. Ditto Mitchell's drinking problem. No romance between her and Thomas Mitchell?

Movie review - "Another Man's Poison" (1951) **1/2

 Much disparaged and not entirely successful but there is a good movie in here struggling to get out. The plot needed to be simplified. Also I think every guy in the movie should have wanted to shag Bette Davis. Gary Merrill clearly does, which is great (he and Davis are an excellent on screen couple you can imagine them having drinks, slapping each other around and having make up sex every night); Anthony Steel is meant to be sleeping with Davis but while he's handsome he can't convey lust; Emlyn Williams as a smug neighbourly vet should love David too but he's asexual.

Davis was an excellent actor but the film was unsure how to pitch her - she should have gone full throttle, been a complete villainness. The film has good twists - the final poison drinking, the reveal she's rooting Steel, Merrill pretending to be her husband - but feels inconsistent.

I think maybe it was a mistake to make her a writer and not something more obviously sexy like an actor. Or maybe that would have worked. She could have been costumed more flatteringly.

The movie should have been about passion: everyone hot for Davis, her hot for Steel, furious when rejected etc. There's not enough sex in it. Maybe that wasn't within directing Irving Rapper's skill set. 

Still not as bad as some have dismissed it. It suffers next to All About Eve but on its own level is fine.

Movie review - "The Sisters" (1938) ***

Decent melodrama, with disturbing undertones and great production design. It's not really about the sisters - it starts off that way, with Bette Davis, Anita Louise and Jane Bryan all having romantic entanglements. But focus shifts to Davis and her relationship with dead-shit Errol Flynn.

The marriage is actually a very accurate depiction of an abusive relationship - he drinks, whines about his novel, has his masculinity threatened, she takes it because she loves him and he promises to get better and there's nowhere else to go. Flynn gives a fine performance - he's lifted by having doing scenes with Davis and also Donald Crisp.

Really his character should have died... he gets back with Davis at the end, in a scene that test audiences wanted. No doubt it inspired women to stay with their loser husbands who subsequently murdered them.

It is a shame that more time couldn't have been spent on the other sisters - or at least Louise, who has an interesting character (flirty, always looking for a new love, hooking up with old Alan Hale and incurring the wrath of his sister). I wasn't wild about the scene where they teamed up to help men drive a trampy woman out of town - I mean, Louise is pretty trampy isn't she?

I liked the election eves device, the recreation of the earthquake and the depiction of the brothel.

Book review - "Burt: But Enough About Me" by Burt Reynolds

Highly entertaining memoir from the beloved star, the first star I remember feeling sorry for because his run of luck with projects was so bad in the 80s. He always was a good raconteur and is so here (props to his ghost writer who gets the book to sound pure Burt).

We get lots of stories about his dad, who was so formative, but never told Burt he loved him and was a hard bastard; his longing to spend time with son Quentin (why only one child though?); he says he never loved Loni just sort of went along with it; Sally Field was the one who got away; Hal Needham was great; Darren McGavin was a prick on Riverboat; Marlon Brando hated the fact Reynolds looked like him; he didn't get Paul Thomas Anderson (thwarting another comeback); he regrets the Centrefold; loves Deliverance but fell out with John Boorman after turning down Zardoz due to injury; was shunned after being injured making City Heat and rumours spread he had AIDS; he was hit on by Greta Garbo (!) and became great mates with Bette Davis.

Burt is impulsive, needy, insecure, honest, a little dumb. He adored acting. A fun book.

Movie review - "Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?" (1969) ***

The third in Robert Aldrich's psycho biddy trilogy although he didn't direct this, just produced it. Bernard Girard originally directed and was replaced by Lee Katzin.

The plot has recently widowed Genevieve Page  realise she's short of cash so she starts murdering housekeepers who have savings, and lives off said savings. A new housekeeper (Ruth Gordon) proves troublesome because she's looking into the death of a friend.

Page and Gordon are great fun - Page is clearly a bit too young but plays the role to the manor born. You know something, though? This really needed Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and it's a shame Aldrich found both so hard to work with. They simply have more charisma, and were more compelling on screen.

there's also far, far too much time devoted to Page's dull neighbour (Rosemary Forsyth), her young son, and Forsyth's romance with Gordon's nephew (Robert Fuller). Peter Brandon and Joan Huntington are better value as Page's nephew and his wife - but even with them the punches are pulled. If you make a film like this you've got to go for it.

I do love how Page is so smart and figures out Gordon's antics fairly early and Gordon's death is a genuine surprise. It's a solid film, worth watching, but falls short of a classic.

Book review - "A Letter of Introduction: The Life and Films of James Stephenson" by David a. Redfern (2013)

James Stephenson was a slim British gentleman best known for one performance - and it's a fantastic one, the lawyer in The Letter. But really that was it. He may have added to the tally but he died shortly after The Letter, of a heart attack, aged 53. Still, he inspired enough devotion from David Redfern to write a very thorough biography on him.

Stephenson was born into a reasonably prosperous middle class family in northern England. Fir the first part of his life he was a good boy and did the right thing - appropriate school, war service in World War One, working as a bank clerk and a merchant (including a stint in China). He got the acting bug relatively late in life and starting performing in amateur theatricals. He had looks, height, presence and a beautiful speaking voice and eventually decided to take the plunge and go professional. There was work to be had in rep and also British quota quickies. Stephenson didn't appear in the more memorable British films of the time but he did come under the eye of Irving Asher who ran Warner Bros' London operation and spotted Errol Flynn and Patric Knowles... he thought Stephenson had possibilities for Hollywood and so Warners paid him to come over.

Stephenson was screen tested by Warners who elected to keep him and put him in lots of small roles - there were plenty of parts for authoritative British actors during the late 30s at Warners. He pops up in movies like Boys Meets Girl and Nancy Drew. His parts grew better in the B movie division like King of the Underworld and Devil's Island and he had bits in As such as The Sea Hawk and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Warners eventually gave him a lead in Calling Philo Vance and he eventually was cast in The Letter.  This earned him an Oscar nomination; if it didn't propel Stephenson to stardom, Warners were impressed - he had good roles in Shining Victory and International Squadron.

How big a star would James Stephenson have become? This is all hypothetical of course but I think, not very - he lacked great individuality, he was too old by the time he "made it". However I think he would have had a long, impressive career - the sort of actor who would have benefited from the decline of the Hollywood studios and the rise of quality in Britain; I can see him hopping back and forth across the Atlantic, doing lots of Broadway and TV in between films, maybe getting a TV show, playing a lot of leading men to aging female stars and generals and dads, never being a great star but never being out of work. Alas, it was not to be.

Redfern's biography is exhaustive and would have to be definitive - he had access to family papers and really fleshes out Stephenson's history. It feels almost a shame to report that Stephenson didn't have that interesting a life - he was a decent guy, seemed to live well; the most outlandish thing he did was to go into acting. He was a gentleman - no outrageous sex life, or bad habits. Which leaves his work and the movies he made on the whole weren't that awesome.

Still I did enjoy the book. Stephenson was lucky to have a biographer as devoted as Redfern. 

Book review - "Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters" by Michael Digby (2015)

Larry Cohen has done a lot of interviews in his time - one of them, for The Incredibly Strange Film Book, is one of my favourite, his no-nonsense approach to filmmaking helped encourage me to be a writer. When I heard about this book I wondered if there was a point to reading it, because there are so many other Cohen interviews out there. But there is, because it's so exhaustive.

Absolutely, some of it will be familiar, especially his writings on his more cult-y favourites like God Told Me To, It's Alive and Black Caesar, as well as the recent blockbuster Phone Booth and famous-for-being-Bette-Davis'-last-film The Wicked Stepmother and The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover which Cohen likes to talk about a lot. I did know of his TV work, which is well covered in Backstory 4.

But because Cohen is so incredibly prolific there was heaps I didn't know - his childhood, plays, lesser known directorial efforts (The Ambulance, Special Effects, Perfect Strangers), recent concentration on being a screenwriter, the extent of his success in 60s TV. He was often unhappy with the work directors who weren't him did on his films - even Sidney Lumet on Guilty as Sin and Joel Schumacher on Phone Booth (he basically likes the job the latter did but wished it had a bigger star than Colin Farrell and thought Schumacher could have shown him more respect). He really gives it to William Lustig, director of the Maniac Cop series.

A very clear picture of Cohen emerges - as you'd hope from 700 plus pages of interviews! Talented, smart, a ferocious work ethic, independent, grumpy, always a little touchy about lack of industry respect and mistreatment. He talks about his encounters with Alfred Hitchcock, troubles with Bette Davis, a friendship with Sam Fuller (who he used as an actor), his good experiences with some difficult actors (eg Eric Roberts), his fights with friend David Carradine, his unhappy experiences in network television (even on NYPD Blue), Billy Dee Williams' drinking problem, working for AIP in the 70s, getting fired off several movies, and lots more.

His key creative impulses seem to be social commentary, a lively imagination, and old movies of the 30s and 40s, particularly Warner Bros and Universal. It's a very comprehensive, impressive book that made me want to go revisit Cohen's work.

Book review - "Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice" by David Skal and Jessica Rains (2008)

Claude Rains was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, character actor from the Golden Years of Hollywood. Best known for villains, particularly in the films of Errol Flynn, he could play all sorts of parts - heroic monsters (Phantom of the Opera), dodgy Vichy policemen (Casablanca), sympathetic Nazis (Notorious), kindly shrinks (Now Voyager), kindly shrinks with a very dark side (Kings Row). The number of classic films in which he appeared, and helped make classic, is remarkable. It's hard to imagine him giving a bad performance.

It's surprising in a way that it took someone so long to write a biography of Rains. He had an interesting life - mother wound up in a mental asylum, father was a shonky actor; he saw genuine active service in World War One and was gassed and wounded; worked as for Sir Herbert Tree; became a teacher of, among others, John Gielgud and Charles Laughton; was a surprisingly successful ladies man, being married six times (once to his stalker); he was also an alcoholic, yet the managed to live until his seventies.

Part of the reason must have been the fact that Rains shyed away from publicity for most of his career, and during his most famous years would retreat to his East Coast farm when not working. He was involved in scandals but rarely with someone that well known - some theatre actresses usually; Bette Davis always regretted not having an affair with him (and sexually harassed him on set); an ex wife tried to charge him with bigamy. He was also very reticent and discrete - as per many actors of his time (eg Herbert Marshall, Basil Rathbone)

Skal is best known (to me at any rate) for his books on Tod Browning and horror - maybe he got involved in part because of Rains' connection to Universal horror movies. He was technically a star from his first film - providing the voice of The Invisible Man. Before then it had been a long apprenticeship though - starting in theatre at age 11, working his way up as a stage manager before turning to acting, earning more as a teacher than a performer for a long time, chalking up many stage credits but never really getting a big hit. When his wife at the time went to New York Rains went with her and gradually made his reputation. He never became a star technically but seems to have been highly regarded from the first; he found the perfect studio in Warner Bros, who used him brilliantly (though, as was common with every actor under contract there, he would fight with Jack Warner).

 I get the impression that despite his fame and achievements, Rains was never that happy - too much turbulence in his private life, too much longing for the stage (as if he didn't get better roles on film), too much alcohol. But it was a marvellous career and it's been well captured here by Skal, who had the benefit of co operation from Rains' only daughter Jessica.

I did wish he'd gone into more detail on some of the films, particularly the Errol Flynn ones, and that there was more discussion of Rains the actor - the way say Simon Callow writes about his subjects in his books. But this is a decent book.

Book review - "Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud" by Shaun Considine (1989)

The story of the famous feud between two of arguably the greatest divas in Hollywood. At times as a book it felt a little hyped and gossipy - but Considine has done his research (I really liked his book on Paddy Chayefsky) and benefits considerably from interviewing many of Bette and Joan's colleagues.

Both of them were hard working, talented pieces of work, who had more in common than they cared to admit - sure, Bette was more of a serious actor, but both knew the importance of being a star, both had atrocious track records as mothers and in the world of long term relationships, both liked being with men who adored them but then grew bored with them, both were routinely attracted to arseholes, both could be troupers but also grossly unprofessional. Some of their behaviour was shocking - the carry on and antics.

Joan seems to have been more successful as a lover - she probably liked it more - and glam-bot while Bette was the better actor. Joan became a movie star first, dipping when Bette was at her peak - but then she came back; both got a career boost from the psycho biddy films of the 1960s.  Joan seems nicer than Bette. You come out of this being entertained but also sad that two women had such a knack for making themselves miserable.

Movie review - "Death on the Nile" (1978) ***1/2

Enjoyably civilised entertainment - the British film industry of the 1970s gets a bad wrap at times but they could rise to the occasion, such as this one. It's got a strong story (thanks to Agatha Christie); a cast of familiar faces (I wouldn't say "all star" when the line up includes Jane Birkin, Simon MacCorkindale and Jon Finch but I recognised most of them); some broad comedy courtesy of Bette Davis and Maggie Smith's hilarious double act (I wish they'd be given their own vehicle; does the film hint they're lovers?) and Angela Lansbury; sex appeal via Lois Chiles and some very low cut gowns; location shooting in Egypt; David Niven as his exposition man; Mia Farrow being a crazy nutter very convincingly (I imagine her acting the way she does here with Chiles and MacCorkindale with Woody and Soo-Yi years later); Olivia Hussey being pretty; Jon Finch as a communist who can stay in expensive hotels.

IS Johar does his comic Indian turn again which he was always good at - it just wish in a film set in colonial Egypt (well it was basically a colony) that the only decent sized non Anglo part wasn't a broad comic bit. Jack Warden hams it up as a German doctor (wish this part could've been played by a real German) and Peter Ustinov occasionally goes OTT as Poirot. Niven handles his part with aplomb and is very likeable (I remember first watching this and being terrified he'd turn out to be the killer). Olivia Hussey is pretty as always and George Kennedy fits in well.

The unravelling of the murderer is very satisfactory - though when you think about it too much, it was an incredibly risky plan involving lots of throwing things over the side of the board despite a verandah being there. The film does feel long at two hours 20 minutes. Some funny dialogue.

Radio review - Lux - "The Letter" (1941) ****

The original three of the film's cast - Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson - are united for this excellent radio production, which only really struggles in the final scene as it's hard to convey Davis' murder by the dead man's wife as effectively with words. Marshall isn't quite believable as a rough man of his hands as the role really requires but is spot on when it comes to playing a slightly dim cuckold willing to stick by his wife no matter what. Stephenson is very good as the lawyer attracted to Davis to the point where he breaks the law (his wife is given a short effective scene where she idiotically prattles about vowing not the make a cocktail while Davis was on trial - a good sharp contrast to Davis). You could point to the slippery cultured double dealing Chinese lawyer as an example of Hollywood racism but the white race is hardly well represented here. I wondered if Marshall's and Stephenson's characters wound up in a Japanese POW camp.

Movie review – “Three on a Match” (1932) ****

A three girls film but really the focus is only on two: Ann Dvorak, as the hoity one who marries a rich lawyer and has a kid but gets bad post natal depression and really goes off the rails, running off with a gambler and getting hooked on cocaine (beautifully alluded to). There’s also Joan Blondell as the good time girl who goes to reform school and becomes a show girl, but is actually really nice, and marries the lawyer. Bette Davis is the third but doesn’t do much except look after the kid and wears a swimsuit in one scene which is weird. At the end Blondell, Davis and Warren William are living in this ménage a trios – Davis is the nanny, but is that all…? Maybe I’m reading too much in to it. William is dull but the three leads are terrific and the support includes an electrifying young Humphrey Bogart plus Allen Jenkins and Edward Arnold.

Radio review – Lux – “The Star” (1954) **1/2

This was a follow up vehicle for Bette Davis in the wake of her All About Eve success – she played another aging, temperamental star, albeit one whose career is in worse shape than Margot Channing’s. She’s in complete denial, desperate for a comeback part – she tries to borrow money off her sponging rellies and her ex husband, now a star, and finds true love from a stalker. Whoops, I mean honest mechanic who was a fan and so bails her out of gaol when she’s put in for a DD conviction. That’s just one not-very-realistic account of Hollywood stardom here – another is the screenwriter who comes along at the end and pitches to the star the idea of making a film about a fading star who doesn’t realise she’s fading. Post-modernism 50s style. But it does get points for a rather unflinching look at it’s lead character (based on Joan Crawford apparently – although surely Davis was an inspiration too). Bette Davis doesn’t repeat her role here – Ida Lupino steps in adequately (appropriate since Warners kept her as a Bette Davis back up).

Radio review – BP – “Elizabeth the Queen” (1952) ***

Eva LeGallienne plays the lead role in this version of Maxwell Anderson’s famous play. I’d never heard of her before this – she was a famous theatre actor whose career spanned decades, making the cover of Time magazine at one moment. I preferred her and Richard Waring to the Lunts, who also did a version of this, for Theatre Guild on the Air. I’d be interested to read a feminist take on this – Elizabeth is a strong ruler, but always seems to want to cave to Essex… but she is never really serious about it.

Movie review – “John Paul Jones” (1959) **

The first Spanish epic from Samuel Bronston, who cleverly used assistance from Franco and financial backing from the Du Pont family over several years in the late 50s and early 60s to create a number of epics. It was also the last film as director from John Farrow, for whom this was a passion project (Farrow had served in the Canadian navy and had a life-long interest in sailing).

 

It doesn’t mean it’s good, though – this is a stilted, bland biopic, not helped by Robert Stack’s stiff performance in the lead role. Stack was often stiff but it’s particularly distracting here. For instance there’s quite a well written scene (albeit in a flowery way) where Jones defies the father of his girlfriend (Marisa Pavan) – but Stack sinks to the occasion. The script has flashes of a more complex man in John Paul Jones – his tendency towards violence, for instance – but it’s not conveyed by the actor playing him.

 

I was led to believe this was a big budget film but it doesn’t seem particularly spectacular – certainly not to compare with Bronston’s later epics. I kept expecting epic battle scenes and swarms of extras, instead there’s lots of close ups, tight shots and scenes set indoors.

 

For all that this sheds life in a period of American (and British) history not often featured on screen. The British are treated with the greatest respect - Stack’s scenes with his British opponent captain (Peter Cushing) are positively bromantic. Plenty of hokey biopic moments, such as Stack freeing his brothers slaves (but keeping them on as servants), lines of dialogue like “Who is this Patrick Henry?”. But it is quite open about how some of the most important things the Americans did during the revolution was suck up to the French to get money and arms. And the costumes and photography are pretty.

 

There are cameos from various historical figures including Patrick Henry (played by MacDonald Carey), George Washington (don’t know who plays him – we never see his face, just hear his voice, kind of like a depiction of Jesus), Ben Franklin (Charles Coburn), Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI (Jean Pierre Aumont), Catherine the Great (Bette Davis). 

 

The only one of these that’s a stand out is Bette Davis, who is like this massive jolt of star power and energy at the end of the film – she sweeps in to remind everyone what charisma is. It makes you not mind so much her whole sequence is tacked on. (To avoid this they should have had her play Marie Antoinette). 

 

There’s a bit of Catholicism thrown in there by Farrow in the scene where Pavan goes to mass.