Bette Davis: Centenary Collections

On April 5, Bette Davis would have turned 100 years old. Had she lived to see the day, she likely would have blown a bemused puff of smoke and gone about her business pretending it wasn’t important, but awaiting a grand celebration nevertheless.

This is her centenary, and with two new DVD collections just out to celebrate her work, what better time than now to honor all that Davis has given us over the course of her career, and also to reflect upon how she got there in the first place?

Born Ruth Elizabeth Davis in Lowell, Mass., on April 5, 1908, Davis made relatively quick work of joining our best, most iconic movie actors, of which there are precious few. She defied convention. As she rose up through the ranks in early 1930s Hollywood, she hardly was what those in the industry were seeking at a time when the bold curves of Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard and Mae West were commanding the screen.

And yet while Davis may not have had their overt sexuality, what she did have was something arguably more lasting and important--a sense of mischief and mystery, an indomitable spirit that could lay the world flat with a mere glance, and a fierce intelligence that often revealed itself as impatience, particularly when she knew she’d been saddled with dreck.

Much like her Yankee counterpart Katharine Hepburn, Davis became a woman Hollywood--and the world--couldn't do without.

The camera loved her, for sure, as any fan of “Ex-Lady,” “All About Eve” and “Dark Victory” will tell you. But even when she saw in the 1960s what years of heavy drinking and smoking had done to her, she wasn’t one to overlook the opportunity her faded flower offered. Accepting herself as she was, she turned herself into a grotesque in such films as “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” the latter of which won her her 10th Academy Award nomination. So, you can imagine the cocktails that flowed when that nomination was announced, and those that followed when she lost to Anne Bancroft for her work in “The Miracle Worker.”

Still, it was Davis’ seemingly bottomless talent and her staunch refusal to conform that made her a star. She was a perfectionist and could be so difficult and demanding that her boss, Jack Warner, once called her “an explosive little broad with a sharp left.” That she was completely different from anyone else didn’t hurt her career, either.

What Davis had was a vitality the screen barely could contain--a director like William Wyler, for instance, could shoot her at a distance in a crowded room, as he did in “Jezebel” and “The Little Foxes,” and still she’d be the one you’d pick out and follow. Her presence was that great, a mix of genetics and her formidable will.

In her 1962 autobiography “The Lonely Life,” she wrote about herself: “I have always been driven by some distant music--a battle hymn no doubt--for I have been at war from the beginning. I rode into the field with sword gleaming and standard flying. I was going to conquer the world.”

She wasn’t joking, and she’d be the first to tell you that she did it the hard way. But what results. When she made an entrance in her more fiery films, she seemed to have the world's throat in her hand--or at least her co-star’s. Usually both. Likewise, when she left a room, it wasn’t out of place to hear a door slamming behind her. Audiences liked it that way--so did she.

And yet there was that other side of Davis--the less-intimidating side, as seen in such movies as “Now, Voyager,” “The Old Maid” or “Mr. Skeffington”--which complicated her beyond reason, and which earned her our hearts as well as our respect and admiration. The fact that she was consistently watchable even in her bad movies gets to the core of just how transfixing a figure she was.

In Maine, where she summered as a child, she eventually came to live for several years in the 1950s with her fourth husband, the actor Gary Merrill. They lived in Cape Elizabeth at a house called “Witch-Way.” Guess who named it? The house now is gone, burned down by new owners who wanted one of those garish McMansions cluttering the coast. In doing so, they neatly abolished an important part of Maine history, as well as national history.

Of the two aforementioned DVD collections marking Davis’ birthday, Fox’s “Centenary Celebration Collection” is the best, with 1950’s quintessential “All About Eve,” 1952’s “Phone Call From a Stranger,” 1955’s “The Virgin Queen,” 1964’s “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” and 1965’s electrifying (literally) “The Nanny” included.

As for “Eve,” it’s my favorite Davis film, and my favorite movie, period. It embodies everything you love about the actress, every reason you come to her for that unique and necessary escape only a great movie and actor can provide. As many times as I’ve watched the movie, it still reveals something new with each viewing, which is the mark of a great film. The writing, the performances, the wit, the directing, the storyline and of course Davis as Margo Channing, the complicated Broadway star for whom love was difficult and career meant everything (sound familiar?), come together with such timing and ease, it’s staggering in how seamless it is. And that isn’t hyperbole.

Warner’s “Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3” offers some of Davis’ earlier films. When compared to Fox’s collection, you could say this one features Davis’ softer side. Included are 1939’s “The Old Maid,” 1940’s “All This and Heaven Too,” 1941’s “The Great Lie,” 1942’s “In This Our Life,” 1943’s “Watch on the Rhine” and 1946’s very good “Deception.”

Taken as a whole, these collections offer invaluable insight into the savvy way Davis handled her career and especially her complex screen persona. Consider viewing both sets back-to-back over the course of a week, and then consider whether there ever has been an actress as great as Bette Davis.

Grades: “Centenary”: A; “Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3”: B+