kissing cousins
by
Douglas Messerli
Casey
Robinson (writer, based on the play by Zoë Atkins, based, in turn, on the
novella by Edith Wharton), Edmund Goulding The
Old Maid / 1939
Edmund
Goulding’s 1939 film, The Old Maid,
starring Bette Davis, is a hot-house tear-jerker, based on a mediocre (but
Pulitzer Prize-winning nonetheless) 1935 play by Zoë Atkins, which in turn was
based on a somewhat sentimental novella by Edith Wharton. It short, it was
perfect material for a Hollywood movie of the late 30s and 40s, just ripe for
the mercurial acting talents of Davis and Miriam Hopkins, who Davis remembered
fought her tooth-and-nail not only on the screen but during the filming of
their scenes. By the time of this movie, Hopkins had lost her major star status
to Davis, and was furious that the role of Jezebel that Hopkins had made famous
on stage had been a triumph for Davis on celluloid. Of course, just such an
on-the-set battle of divas assured the film would become a great public
success; and it was!
Today it is still a great deal of fun,
and well worth watching. The Lovells may begin the film as “loving cousins,”
but by end of this movie they have become “loathing competitors” for the love
of Charlotte’s (Davis) bastard daughter, fathered, in a brief visit back home
to claim the hand of Delia (Hopkins), by Clem Spender (George Brent, once
Davis’ real-life lover). Delia, however, is at that very moment about to marry the
wealthy Jim Ralston (James Stephenson), and has no intention of hooking up
again with the irresponsible Clem, who soon after returns to the Civil War
battlefields, dying a couple of years later without ever knowing that he had
spawned a daughter, Clementina (Jane Bryan).
The middle of the 19th
century, obviously, was not the best time to flaunt the existence of a child
born out of wedlock, and Charlotte establishes an entire orphan’s home to hide
her Clementina, whom she passes off as a foundling.
When Charlotte is finally about to marry
Jim’s brother Joseph (Jerome Cowan), she, continually pressured by the
Ralston’s to give up her orphanage, makes it clear to her cousin why she will
not do so. And the ever conventional Delia quickly discerns from her cousins’
hints who the father was, insisting she intends to tell Joseph the truth; she
doesn’t do that, but instead spreads a lie about Charlotte’s health which has
the same effect, but doesn’t even give the fiancée an opportunity to accept the
child as his own.
Now without a cover, Charlottes does give
up the orphanage and moves in with her cousin, her own daughter perceiving
Delia as her mother, while Charlotte is perceived simply as her aunt. As the
year’s pass the gulf between Charlotte and Clementina grows, as Delia spoils
the girl while the now aging Charlotte, acting the role of the maiden aunt,
corrects her and attempts to instill higher values than the vacuous Delia can
even imagine.
When the young girl falls in love with
the son, Lanning Halsey (William Lundigan), of another wealthy local family,
his parents attempt to block the romance by shipping Lanning off to Europe,
leaving the young girl, quite obviously, heartbroken. Charlotte, finally
determined to act, is about to tell Clementina the truth, until Delia offers
another solution, suggesting she adopt the girl as her own daughter; surely,
she argues, given her own inheritance she has received with her husband’s death,
Lanning’s parents can no longer object to the liaison.
That solution, quite obviously, even
further removes Clementina from her birth mother, and continues to alienate the
beautiful you girl, now about to marry Lanning, from her interfering aunt.
You can almost guess the rest. Davis has
played a long list of self-sacrificing women in love, who give up everything
for their moral principles and societal decorum. All Charlotte gets for her
sacrifice is a last kiss before Clementina is whisked away to her new home.
But, as always in such tear-jerkers, that seems to be enough, as the aging old
maid turns back to a life of what will indubitably be continued in squabbles with
her double-crossing cousin.
What is truly at the heart of this work,
however, is not Charlotte’s grace—which Davis offers up in ladles, making her
the most likeable figure of the work—but the opposition between the
free-spirited Charlotte and the social-conniving Delia, who has, unbeknownst to
herself, given up love and self-reliance to social convention. If both women
are left empty-handed by film’s end, Charlotte is far better able to organize
and control her life. Delia, we are certain, will simply drift into a
meaningless dependency, wasting away. Perhaps some day…. Well, that’s not in
the script. Today they’d make a sequel you wouldn’t want to watch.
Los
Angeles, May 19, 2017
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