Of Human Bondage (1934)

Here it is, the film that started it all! While I had seen a few Bette Davis films before Of Human Bondage, watching this film sparked my initial exploration of her filmography, and I have never looked back.

The film features Leslie Howard as the club-footed Phillip Carey, a failed artist who trades in his brush for a scalpel and becomes a doctor. Unfortunately for Phillip, he falls in love with the rude, cockney-accented waitress Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis), which sets about a depressing cycle of Mildred abusing Phil, running to him whenever her current sugar daddy gets tired of her. Unfortunately for Phillip, she usually comes back whenever he is in a relationship that is starting to get serious.

The film itself isn't terribly good, there's a lot of weird, awkward camera work, and Leslie Howard comes across as very wooden (I've heard people who praise his performance, but I just didn't see it), he essentially mopes around from relationship to relationship only to throw it all away for a woman who openly treats him like garbage, which can be frustrating. He's in another Bette Davis film, called The Petrified Forest, and he's much better in that film.

The real reason to see this movie is to see Bette Davis' breakthrough role (the role that caused her to receive a consolation Oscar the next year for Dangerous). In a time when actresses didn't want to play nasty characters, Bette Davis dives in head first and makes her character as horrible and crude as possible. She doesn't really give a flying fig if you like Mildred or not. She is full of so much venom that she release in a steady flow of insults and apathy towards Phillip that her eventual blow-up at him is astounding.

It really established Bette to be what Marlon Brando would later become years later, someone who gave explosive, realistic performances (some may scoff at this by today's standards, but it's true), with some at the time proclaiming this performance to be the greatest screen performance by a woman in history.

For Bette's performance as well as earning it a place in film history for changing the way that some viewed acting, this film should be watched. It's good enough to warrant a recommendation, but just be aware that the rest of the film as a whole is a bit mediocre.