down home
by
Douglas Messerli
Lenore
J. Coffee (based on the novel by Polan Banks), Edmund Goulding (director) The Great Lie / 1941
Hollywood
legend has it that Bette Davis not only wanted Mary Astor to play the
villainess in her upcoming film, The
Great Lie, but when Astor was finally given the role, the two women bonded,
determined to rewrite it: "This picture is going to stink! It's too
incredible for words... so it's up to us to rewrite this piece of junk to make
it more interesting," spoke Davis.
What’s more, Astor is asked to perform the
incredulous combination of concert pianist and alcoholic playgirl incorporated
into the character of Sandra Kovak, a bitchy autocrat beloved by her audiences,
but gradually slipping into career decline. Fortunately, Astor was actually a concert pianist early in her life, and could
give a convincingly good enough portrait of performing the works (in truth,
performed offstage by Max Rabinovitch) that even Spanish conductor and pianist
José Iturbi commented to Astor, "How could you not be playing? I have
played the concerto many times, and you were right in there!"
It’s hard to comprehend why both of these
women are so mad about Brent (although Davis had actually shared his bed) that
they might be so willing to duke it out for his attentions.
Van Allen lumbers in and out of scenes—thankfully
disappearing into the Brazilian Amazon for much of the film—while Violet
dramatically protects her “baby” Maggie. Davis gets the opportunity, meanwhile, to
express a better self than she was usually asked to play, goo-gooing and
kissing the baby boy with great relish. But the true fun of this movie lies in
the icy interchanges between the two
women (in the most famous of which Kovak stares down her rival, saying "If I didn't think you
meant so well, I'd feel like slapping your face")
who, after confronting one another time and again (Davis gets to play a similar
role the following year in The Man Who
Came to Dinner), are finally forced to shack up together in an intense
storm in the Arizona desert, filmed in California’s Mojave.
These scenes alone give the truth to
Davis’ claim about the overly melodramatic script. As the mean-spirited Kovak
stumbles about in the dark, desperately sneaking cigarette breaks and more of
the prohibited foods, the deviously
delirious Maggie
(also with many a cigarette in her mouth)
cooks and cleans for, and accompanies the demented pianist even in a late night
desert walk. Only a snake-bite seems to be missing. But, at last, Maggie gets
what she wanted: a child to remind of her now presumed-dead husband, Van Allen
(yes, she married him after his marriage to Kovak is conveniently voided;
didn’t they used to call this bigamy?).
Anyone looking at these scenes can see
that these two very different, but equally strong women had truly bonded. And
they make for a marvelous team, erasing the film’s many other flaws.
And then, in the end, Kovak gets the
opportunity, for once in her life, to be noble, leaving the child she has come
back to claim, for a better life in the down home Van Allen Virginia estate;
and in Violet (McDaniel) we know that this child will have a “mammy” who will
love him to death.
In real life, the child who played the
role was accidently dropped by one of the off-stage nurses, resulting in a heavy
law-suite against the studio, which I’m sure was quickly hushed up by the
studio executives of the day, just another “great lie.” Yet Astor won the Oscar
for best supporting actor, and the film was surely a box office favorite.
Los Angeles,
August 4, 2017
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