In This Our Life
by John Huston
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Product details
Actor: Bette Davis, Charles Coburn, Dennis Morgan, George Brent, Olivia de HavillandDirector: John Huston
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: NTSC
Release Date: 1998-09-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: MGM (Warner)
Studio: MGM (Warner)
VHS Movie Reviews of In This Our Life
Movie Review: John Huston Unleashing Bette Davis' Tantrums
Summary: 5 Stars
Director John Huston was known for having said that he let Bette Davis loose when he directed her performances. Here's a fine example. As Stanley Timberlake, a young Bette Davis is unleashed to royally throw tantrums of a very spoiled brat of a wealthy heir. Her sister, played by Olivia de Haviland usually takes the tormenting hits that Davis dishes out.
If a viewer believes Scarlet O'Hara (from "Gone with the Wind") was a spoiled Southern brat, Stanley Timberlake is the more modern day, more realistic version of that character. Davis' Stanley makes Leigh's Scarlet seem way less self-centered and as if she cared about several people other than herself. Stanely Timberlake doesn't give a hoot, frankly.
This motion picture gives an early glimpse of how great a character portrayal Davis is capable of delivering because Timberlake isn't anything like Bette Davis was in real life. So Davis had to put on an entirely different face for the camera. She did so expertly well that it is real easy to detest Stanley Timberlake and be quite satisfied with the ending (which I wouldn't dare tell!).
De Haviland's performance is nothing short of brilliant. George Brent's is quite convincing. This is a movie I hate to love.
Movie Review: Good Melodrama
Summary: 4 Stars
This film mainly belongs to the type of Woman's melodrama that was expertly made back in the 1940s (I feel that the genre reached its zenith during that decade) and that surely is not being filmed anymore.
Here we have the queen of melodrama, Bette Davis in one of her most over the top performances, with all her mannerisms at full display, especially those exaggeratedly open eyes and the nervous tics that go with it.
She plays Stanley Timberlake, a spoiled, manipulative, whimsical, fiery southern belle who's used to having her own way, especially due to the extreme pampering courtesy of her apparently weak, whining mother, Lavinia Fitzroy Timberlake (Billie Burke) and her no-holds-barred rich maternal uncle William Fitzroy, expertly played by that grand actor Charles Coburn -who had a big run of good parts in noteworthy films the year in which this picture was released (Kings Row, The Man Who Came to Dinner & George Washington Slept Here). Uncle William has no children of his own and Stanley is his absolute weakness; he does anything Stanley wants, just like mum Lavinia.
Olivia De Havilland plays her mature, subdued, modest, good natured sister Roy Timberlake (I wonder why both characters were given masculine names...was it on purpose?) who's betrayed in one of the most terrible ways by her "dear" sister Stanley.
Dennis Morgan and George Brent play the men in the Timberlake girls' lives, giving both good performances.
I was surprised that this melodrama tackled serious social issues for 1942, principally the discrimination of black people, especially in the South (the film is mainly set in Richmond, Virginia), where at the time they had little chance to improve their socioeconomic position in life. Ernest Anderson plays perfectly against stereotype the smart, ambitious Parry who wants to be a lawyer, in spite of being conscious of all the obstacles he will have to face. Hattie McDaniel portrays his mother Minerva, who works as a maid in the Timberlake Residence, playing a non-comic role for a change.
Lee Patrick is also in the cast as a dizzy lady who befriends Bette Davis' character in Baltimore, after she flees Richmond to avoid public scandal.
Being a film directed by John Huston it shouldn't surprise anyone that in spite of its predominant melodramatic elements it has also many moments of truth, especially in the scenes that involve the idealistic lawyer played by George Brent, the good natured Roy, beautifully played by Olivia De Havilland and the lovable, dependable Parry, played deftly by Ernest Anderson in one of the few non-stereotypical, truly dignified roles I've seen an African American actor during the 1940s. When Bette enters the picture though, we're back in Melodrama's Neverland.
Walter Huston, father of the director, plays a small cameo role as bartender in a Tavern.
Movie Review: Best of Bette
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the Davis greats. Other favorites are: Dark Victory, Stolen Life, Watch on the Rhine, Little Foxes, Mr. Skeffington, and of course, Now, Voyager.Movie Review: Bette Davis: the trashier, the better
Summary: 5 Stars
Bette Davis plays another scum-of-the-earth character who this time steals her sister's (Olivia de Haviland's) doctor husband (played by Dennis Morgan), drives him to commit suicide, then tries to steal de Haviland's new male companion (George Brent), who also happens to be an old flame of her own. Inbetween all this Davis carries on incestuously with her degraded uncle (Charles Coburn), and then runs over a young girl, killing her, and blaming it on a young black man (Ernest Anderson). Only Bette Davis could get away with this kind of stuff, and she pulls it off marvelously. The script is tight and top-notch, and the direction by John Huston excellent. There is even a somewhat sympathetic acknowledgement of the raw deal blacks were getting in 1942. There's a wonderful cameo appearance of THE MALTESE FALCON cast, including Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, in a bar scene, with Walter Huston as the barkeep. Terrific trashy fun.
Movie Review: Dysfunctional When Dysfunctional Wasn't Cool
Summary: 5 Stars
This family is a mess,complete with lying,spouse-stealing, and incest, and Bette Davis' character Stanley is the worst of the lot. StanleyTimberlake has to be one of the most repulsive characters ever to make it to the screen. Bette Davis makes her believable, though. Olivia deHavilland is the good sister, refreshingly calm and sane amidst the turmoil. Her family consistently ignores deHavilland's character, Roy, as they obsess over spoiled rotten sister Stanley's "happiness." Through it all, Roy maintains a dignified composure, even when Stanley takes off with her husband. You wonder how she does it in the pre-Prozac era.
This movie is loads of fun to watch, if you can tolerate lots of melodrama. Surprisingly enough for a film made in this era, the Black characters areportrayed as some of the very few morally grounded, decent, rational people in the whole mess.
Perry and his mother are the only ones out of the whole lot whom I would care to know. Stanley is much too eager to try to pin a crime of which she is guilty on the upright Perry, and it is far too easy for her to almost suceed.I found myself wishing that Perry would reach through the prison bars and belt Stanley in the mouth. But he maintains his composure, in spite of the fact that Stanley seems perfectly willing to let him spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime of which she is guilty.
It is perversely amusing to watch the Timberlake family and their associates( all of whom ought to have wised up long ago) gasp, "But Stanley wouldn't LIE!"
You wonder where they've been all this time.
If you like Bette Davis melodrama, you will LOVE this movie. It doesn't get any more melodramatic than this.
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