Victim of a great love

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Movie
German title Victim of a great love
Original title Dark Victory
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1939
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Edmund Goulding
script Casey Robinson
production David Lewis ,
Hal B. Wallis
music Max Steiner
camera Ernest Haller
cut William Holmes
occupation

Dark Victory (Original title: Dark Victory ) is a in black and white twisted American film drama by Edmund Goulding from the year 1939 . The leading roles are cast with Bette Davis , George Brent and Geraldine Fitzgerald .

The role of Judith Traherne is considered one of the best roles of Bette Davis. The script, written by Casey Robinson, is based on the Broadway play of the same name by George Emerson Brewer Jr. and Bertram Block. The film shows the transformation of the wealthy heiress Judith Traherne, who is only interested in pleasure, who learns that she suffers from an inoperable brain tumor . The love for her doctor helps her to give her life a completely new direction. The play was originally written by the authors for Tallulah Bankhead , but in 1934 it was not as successful as expected, with only 55 performances on Broadway.

action

Judith Traherne, just 23 years old, capricious and financially independent as the wealthy heiress of a horse racing stable , loves horses, dogs, lavish parties in high society and smoking. More and more often, however, they are plagued by unbearable headaches and increasing poor eyesight, which ultimately even leads to a riding accident. Stubborn as Judith is, she refuses to go to the doctor until Ann, first and foremost a friend but also her secretary, can finally get her to talk to the brain specialist Dr. To seek out Frederick Steele.

Judith, who lives a life completely opposite to that of Dr. Steele leads, admires her doctor, who enjoys his responsible job. So she agrees to a quick operation, after which Judith feels extremely good and is strengthened in her belief that she is healed. Unaware of her terminal illness, Judith held a party on her property with all of her friends, at which she also included Dr. Steele invites. There Ann, who suspects something, confronts the doctor and he finally confesses to her the truth about Judith's condition. Steele increasingly gets into a conflict of conscience because he has fallen in love with Judith - and Judith reciprocates his affection completely impartially.

By a stupid coincidence, Judith discovers her patient file, believes she has been betrayed and, deeply injured and heartbroken, rushes from one pleasure to the next. During this phase of her life, one evening she confides in her long-time friend, the stable boy Michael, who finds the right words in this difficult conversation to make her realize how empty her life actually is. Judith draws a line and changes her life completely. She is now ready to accept the sincere love shown by her doctor. She apologizes to Dr. Steele, whom she loves from the bottom of her heart - Steele proposes marriage and Judith happily accepts. The two get married and then move to rural Vermont , where Steele opens a laboratory . They are very happy with each other there; Steele has become a renowned researcher and is desperately trying to find a way to cure Judith after all.

Some time later, Judith receives a letter from her best friend Ann announcing her visit, which Judith and her husband are very happy about. Judith and Ann spend happy hours together, but when they plant bulbs together in the garden, Judith is dismayed to see that their eyesight is rapidly deteriorating; both know that this is a sure sign of their approaching death. Frederick received an important telegram that same day. He is invited to a congress taking place in New York , where he will present his medical results to the most important scientists. Of course he would like Judith to accompany him there. Judith, however, knows how to hide her true condition from him and to get him to drive without her.

Judith, now almost completely blind, still wants to plant the last hyacinth bulbs with Ann, flowers that her husband loves so much, and asks Ann to take care of Frederick after her death, because it is “worse for him than for me, because I just have to go! ”Shortly afterwards she sends Ann away with the words:“ Be my best friend! Go now! Please! ”She then enters her house, says goodbye to her two dogs and goes up to her bedroom to face her end calmly and calmly.

production

Production notes, background

The melodrama Victim of a Great Love , edited by Casey Robinson, is based on the play by George Emerson Brewer Jr. and Bertram Bloch. The director Edmund Goulding began shooting in October 1938, which lasted into November. The film was partly shot in the San Fernando Valley . It is a Warner Bros. film that was co-produced with First National Pictures.

The film and the leading actor were highly praised by the critics. Bette Davis was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as Judith Traherne . The critics emphasized that the actress had mastered the extremely difficult final scene of the film brilliantly, that at best one could “have criticized the angel choirs with which the composer Max Steiner crowned his music (which earned him an Oscar nomination) . ”Bette Davis biographer Jerry Vermilye went on to write“ that the role of Judith Traherne is a wonderful role for any actress worthy of the title, ”and continued:“ Bette Davis caught every lightning-fast changing mood of this volatile character , while she changes from the daring, defiant young lady of society to a bitter hedonist, then to a loving wife who comes to terms with her beloved man with a brief happiness. "

The film, which appeared in cinemas in the same year as the drama Gone With the Wind , was left behind. The southern epic won the Oscar in eight categories at the 1940 Oscars.

Bette Davis had to fight hard for this role and this film, which is interesting in retrospect, given the success. Jack Warner of Warner Brothers bought the rights to the film for Bette Davis, but expressed doubts until the end that the film could be a success: "Who would want to see a film about a girl who dies?"

Executive producer David O. Selznick originally intended the lead roles of Dark Victory for Greta Garbo and Fredric March in 1935 , but they were already scheduled for Anna Karenina . In 1936, Selznick offered the lead role to Merle Oberon , who turned it down due to contractual complications. Warner Bros. bought the rights Selznick in 1938 for 50,000 dollars who knew off after producer David Lewis and director Edmund Goulding had expressed interest in the fabric turn of Bette Davis interest in the role. Bette Davis said that Goulding had changed the script to the extent that he made Judith Ann as his best friend.

Notes on the film

  • There was an extended ending scene in the first version of the film. Judith Traherne's horse wins the Grand National and her stable boy Michael O'Leary bursts into tears. The audience found this scene inappropriate, so the director had it removed.
  • Bette Davis often said in interviews that this was her favorite role. George Brent is said to have said that Bette Davis made "the greatest portrayal of her life" in this film. Bette Davis and George Brent played the leading roles in eleven films together. At the time of Dark Victory , Davis and Brent were developing a private relationship.
  • The Irish-American actress Geraldine Fitzgerald played her first film role here. The later US President Ronald Reagan can be seen in the supporting role of a "young salon lion".
  • There is a German dubbed version in which Ann is referred to as Anna and Dr. Frederick Steele as Dr. Alfred Stahl.
  • Michael O'Leary is one of the names Pierce Brosnan has given as Remington Steele in the crime series of the same name as an alias in his dark past.

publication

On April 20, 1939, the film premiered in New York in the United States , on April 22, 1939 it was then generally in American cinemas. In 1939 it was also published in the following countries: Canada (Toronto), Sweden, the United Kingdom (London), Denmark, Argentina, Mexico, Hungary, the Netherlands and Slovenia, as well as Finland in 1940, Portugal in 1942, and 1945 in France, 1946 in Italy, 1947 in Hong Kong, 1948 in Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) and in Japan. On April 21, 1950 he started in the Federal Republic of Germany . The film drama also had the reference title As long as love lives . He was seen in Austria from November 3, 1950. In 1951 it was performed again in Denmark. In 2005 it was released on DVD in Greece. It has also been published in Bulgaria, Brazil, Chile, South Korea, Norway, Poland, the Soviet Union, Turkey and Yugoslavia.

In 1995 the film was released on DVD by Warner Home Video. The film has been restored. As a special there is the original cinema trailer, an audio commentary by James Ursini (film historian) and Paul Clinton (CNN film kitker) and a making-of from 1995: 1939: Tough competition for victims of a great love . The DVD contains the original English version as well as the German and Spanish versions.

reception

criticism

For the lexicon of international film , the victim of a great love was "an intrusive, if somewhat sentimental film that tells its soulful story psychologically coherent". Among the good cast, Bette Davis stands out. Alan G. Barbour spoke in his book Humphrey Bogart of a "stirring piece of the popular Bette Davis", in which "Humphrey Bogart as an Irish groom was a terrible miscast". "One of the biggest, saddest roles in Bette Davis," said Cinema .

Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times said that the award of the "Oscars to Bette Davis for her performance in Jezebel " in the previous year was "premature". Dark Victory showed how “excellent the actress actually is and more than that, she enchants and is enchanting.” […] “Miss Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald and the rest of the actors [have] the film with their sensitive play among the most haunting Helped pictures of the season. "

Awards

The film was nominated for Best Actress , Best Score, and Best Picture for the Academy Awards held on February 29, 1940 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles .

aftermath

Barbara Stanwyck and Melvyn Douglas played the leading roles in the play in a Lux Radio Theater version before the film was released in 1938, and Bette Davis played her role with Spencer Tracy in another Lux Radio Theater version in the year the film was released in 1939.

In 1963 the material was filmed again under the title Stolen Hours (Happiness in His Arms) with Susan Hayward and Michael Craig (Susan Hayward herself died of a brain tumor in 1975). 1976 was a film adaptation for television under the original title Dark Victory ( As long as love lives ) with Elizabeth Montgomery and Anthony Hopkins .

Web links

Wikiquote: Victim of a Great Love  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Jerry Vermilye: Bette Davis Your Films - Her Life , Heyne Filmbibliothek No. 32/4, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 2nd updated edition from 1988, pp. 76–79. Quotation: “In the next film Dark Victory (› Victim of a Great Love ‹, 1939) Bette Davis got one of her best roles; probably even the role that the audience remembers best. "
  2. ↑ a b c d e Dark Victory at Turner Classic Movies.
  3. ↑ a b victim of a great love. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 29, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ Alan G. Barbour: Humphrey Bogart His films - his life , Heyne Filmbibliothek No. 32/1, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 6th edition of 1984, p. 179.
  5. ^ Victims of a great love on cinema.de, accessed on March 23, 2013.
  6. ↑ Frank S. Nugent: Dark Victory . In: The New York Times , April 21, 1939, accessed March 23, 2013.