A Masterpiece!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mom and I used to watch 1940s movies on TV in the 50s. She liked this one, starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as two childhood friends who become competing authors. Hopkins' character is quite plainly crazy, but in reality, she was quite insecure about Davis's fame. They had this big feud, though you sure couldn't tell it from the film. My Mom never dreamed of what was going on in real life with those two. At least, I don't think she did.

. . . then two OLD MAIDS will be great, Warner Bros. decided in 1943. In this thematic sequel to OLD MAID (1939), Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis reprise their roles from the earlier film, with even a JEZEBEL reference thrown into the mix. This time the functions of biological and nurturing mother are switched, as it's Hopkins popping out the daughter but Davis becoming the De Facto mom. In another new wrinkle, screenwriters decide to double the number of Great Loves in the sterile life of the Davis character, and to engineer a series of implausible circumstances to have Hopkins' family snuff out ALL of Davis' opportunities for Love Connections. No doubt this was on the direct orders of the U.S. War Department's censors, who reigned supreme over every nuance of Hollywood flicks during the early 1940s. The prospect of Bette Davis birthing baby after baby on the Big Screen was viewed by the Top Brass as a less enticing reason for G.I.'s to fight their way home than Lana Turner and Betty Grable's bare legs. Though Ms. Davis' "Kit" makes a big point of nixing P.J. bottoms here, military censors were unmoved by her Nocturnal Bare-Leggedness

Enjoyable melodrama is even more so if you are aware of the back stage tension between the stars. Having costarred with Miriam Hopkins in The Old Maid several years previously and finding it a wearing situation Bette had no desire to do so again. She really wanted to make this with Norma Shearer but Norma turned it down and retired so Miriam was in and it became an ordeal that Bette bristled about whenever asked to the end of her life. That conflict seems to have fed into the spark between the actresses on screen and gave a lot of energy to their scenes. That energy is missing from the rest of the movie whenever either lady is not on screen because the other featured players John Loder and Dolores Moran while attractive are missing that spark that makes a star and their contributions are minor. Anne Revere, glamorized for once, has an amusing scene as a reporter who respects one of the ladies as a writer and not the other.

Chatty, entertaining and well-acted drama with comedic trimmings has lifelong friends Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins both becoming writers: Davis, the literary authoress who charms the critics but can't score a bestseller; Hopkins, the fluttery, popular novelist of romantic fiction. Director Vincent Sherman does a good job at bringing this all to a boil, and yet there's too much breathless soap opera packed into the last act (the fault of the screenwriters, working from a play) and it eventually becomes fatiguing. Still, Hopkins does a high-wire act with her performance that is quite nimble (she's pitched very high but is never grating). Davis starts off very fresh and natural, but as her character ages and becomes glamorously middle-aged, Bette's affectations and mannerisms tread a self-parody; she's good throughout the film, yet one longs for more of that earthy quality she displays in the film's first hour. A fine "woman's picture" nevertheless, with some unusually good dialogue and well-paced sequences. *** from ****