The Great Lie

source: The Great Lie

Bette Davis and Mary Astor take place in one of filmdoms greatest bitch-fests, The sappy sweet Davis and obnoxious concert pianist Astor both love the same man(George Brent). He goes back and forth between them. Slick and soapy, the performances are great and Astor walked away with an Oscar. Great classical score, too.

Being a great fan of Bette Davis I was excited to finally see The Great Lie on television. Knowing that Bette was at her peak in this period after having fought with Warners for better scripts,I expected more. The Great Lie is that this picture is any good. Mary Astor won a best supporting actress Oscar which would have been better won for The Maltese Falcon. Her part here really isn't much. Always dependable work horse George Brent is there for Bette but the story is just too trite. Worst of all, the film supposedly takes place in the 1940's, so where did the "Jezebel" plantation, complete with happy darkies (slaves) come from? I swear its the same mansion Bette runs to during the yellow fever outbreak in Jezebel. Meanwhile Hattie McDaniel (and her real-life brother Jimmy) are as usual content to look after everybody. Yech! I love Bette but not in this turkey.

The only familiarity this BETTE DAVIS character has with all the other screen portrayals she did at Warner Bros. is that she smokes like a chimney. Davis and MARY ASTOR both consume lots and lots of tobacco while struggling to put some life into a silly plot that has them squabbling over rights to GEORGE BRENT. For a change, Bette is the good gal and Astor is the villainess, a very glamorous looking concert pianist who gets the ripest dialog and sometimes the best camera shots. It's no wonder Astor was able to walk off with an Oscar for her "Best Supporting Performance." As for GEORGE BRENT, he's more relaxed than usual and doesn't seem to mind the fact that his role is much smaller than the two females. Even HATTIE McDANIEL gets a supporting role larger than his as Violet, the maid who sounds an awful lot like Mammy from GWTW. Edmund Goulding has directed the whole soap opera style story with restraint, allowing Astor to have her tantrums with style. Davis merely watches from the sidelines as Astor plays some piece of goods as the arrogant, vain and self-centered pianist. Hovering in the background are CHARLES TOWBRIDGE, JEROME COWAN, LUCILLE WATSON and other Warner contract players who have almost nothing else to do but watch and listen. Some nice concerto music is a bonus, but the story is strictly third-rate soap opera and not even Davis and company can overcome all the suds.

Happy to discover this movie at a garage sale, I quickly snatched it up. Looked like a great Bette movie to me. Man, was I wrong! I thought the entire plot was so bad, even back in 1941. Later I read that Bette and Mary Astor tried to jazz up the tired script with their own lines and blocking. It didn't work! Bette is simply too 'mannish' in this film, pacing back and forth during the delivery scene like an expectant father made me wince. It must have been a light year for Oscars for Mary to take home a statuette for this bogged down production. I think this type of story lends itself well to daytime TV, "Passions" comes to mind. And I re-sold this movie to another unsuspecting Bette Davis fan at my garage sale.

Many of the Maryland Plantation scenes in the film are dreadful, racist and horrible to sit through, despite the obvious "employment" the film offered african-american actors and actresses. Bette Davis over plays and is never credible. George Brent is nothing. But Mary Astor is worth the perseverance it requires to watch the film. She looks spectacular, and whenever the scene givers her something to work with, she is tremendous. Pay special attention to the night club scene close to half-way through the film. Astor looks and acts spectacularly elegant and profoundly sexy!

For many fans of classic films, this is a fun favorite, mainly because of the performances of Bette Davis as Maggie and Mary Astor as Sandra. George Brent plays a playboy, Pete, who marries concert pianist Sandra, only to find out a few days later that her divorce wasn't final. Apparently (though this isn't explained) he was involved with Maggie shortly before, but she refused to marry him because he's a drunk. However, she does marry him. There's a problem, though, which is that Sandra turns up pregnant. Then Pete is missing in Brazil somewhere and is believed dead. Maggie talks Sandra into having the baby and letting her and Brent raise it, in exchange for supporting Sandra financially, and she can continue with her concert career unfettered. The two go to a cabin in Arizona where Sandra, a big drinker with other lousy habits, can be supervised. Well, it's pretty hilarious and only gets better. Davis and Astor give as good as they get to each other, with Sandra screaming that she's an artist who can't get nourishment from a lettuce leaf, and Maggie offering to make her a sandwich. And we all know what happens - Sandra is a nasty you know what and reneges big time. This is truly a wonderful movie for some reason - actors in those days were able to make you believe anything and go right along with it, and take the plight of the characters seriously. This is probably because the stories were character-driven and audiences invested in the people and therefore bought the story. Well-directed by Edmund Goulding, the performances are wonderful from the women, Davis, Astor, and Hattie McDaniel as Maggie's maid, who again proves her strong acting abilities. Brent, who made a career out of supporting these huge female stars, is good. Can't beat this one for entertainment.

The Great Lie in its own way is quite daring for the time. There were not too many films in which motherhood was seen as a burden rather than a sacred obligation. In that sense Warner Brothers was taking quite a chance with this film. The one thing I don't understand is Bette Davis taking the role of the noble one in the triangle that involves her with George Brent and Mary Astor. Astor's part is clearly the showier one which she proved by taking home the Best Supporting Actress for 1941. Perhaps it was simply a matter of screen time and that Davis was not going to be in support of anyone. Be that as it may, The Great Lie involves a possible lie to come when a certain infant comes of age. George Brent's got both these women on the string. He marries Mary Astor who is a renowned concert pianist in a whirlwind courtship as soon as the ink on her divorce became dry. Turns out it wasn't quite that dry yet. But nature taking its course Astor gets pregnant. But before she and we find that out, Brent whose marriage to Astor was technically invalid runs off with Davis who's a member of the rich Maryland horsey set. Later on Brent goes missing in a plane crash in the Amazon rain forest and Davis comes up with a marvelous proposition. If Astor will give up the kid when it's born, she'll raise it as her own. Astor who is career minded to the last exponential degree agrees to this until Brent finds his way out of the rain forest. The Great Lie is one potboiler melodrama which is lifted above its worth by these two women. Davis does what she can with the part, though I think she would have been better as the pianist. But Mary Astor just dominates the film. Her performance is the best thing by far in The Great Lie. This was the pinnacle year in Mary Astor's career. She also co-starred in 1941 in her best known screen part, that of Brigid O'Shaunessy in The Maltese Falcon. Given the mores of the time there are only certain directions this plot can take. The Great Lie would be one great flop, but for Bette and Mary. See it for them.

Warners, and Bette Davis, made some really fine pictures in this genre in the '30's and '40's, but this is not one of them. The plot is unbelieveable, to say the least. From the distance of sixty years I found this picture almost unwatchable as a result. Davis tries hard but the character she plays is too one-dimensional and there wasn't much she could do with it other than be noble and self-sacrificing. The character Astor plays was, I suppose, written as being a selfish woman who is "artistic" and "eccentric". Seen in 2001, however, her explosive behavior seems more the manic episodes of a woman who is mentally ill and delusional, rather than the temperamental outbursts of an artist.

This really is a load of old tosh story wise, a ridiculous soap opera with not a scrap of believability anywhere in it. It starts off appearing to be a light comedy and then veers into a ridiculous melodrama. The racist treatment of the black characters in the film is also very hard to take in this day and age: the black servants come running with cries of 'Yes Massa' as soon as the white folks call. The only enjoyment to be got out of this effort are the scenes of rivalry between Bette Davis and Mary Astor. In these scenes the dialogue crackles with a tension not found elsewhere and Astor looks and sounds sensational. Bette's acting is however not believable and her scenes of grief, when believing her husband lost, are most unconvincing. George Brent is his usual colourless and bland self and the lovely Hattie McDaniel plays her usual stereotyped role. At 1hr 47mins this is a long haul but is worth watching for the stunning performance by Mary Astor.