- Warner Home Video’s Bette Davis DVD collection box set comprises five titles that earned Davis Best Actress Academy Award nominations: Dark Victory; The Letter; Now, Voyager; Mr. Skeffington; and The Star.
Newly released Bette Davis DVD collection includes 5 of the Hollywood superstar’s 10 Oscar-nominated performances
Bulging eyes, clipped line delivery, and assorted vocal and physical mannerisms – that would be a fair description of an average Bette Davis performance. At her best, however, Davis is all that, in addition to fearlessness, volcanic energy, and extraordinary sincerity.
Some of Bette Davis’ greatest and not-so-greatest work can be found in Warner Home Video’s “The Bette Davis Collection,” which came out – along with Warners’ “The Joan Crawford Collection” – on June 14.
Included in the Davis box set are the following five titles, all of which earned Davis Best Actress Academy Award nominations: Edmund Goulding’s Dark Victory (1939); William Wyler’s The Letter (1940); Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager (1942); Vincent Sherman’s Mr. Skeffington (1944); and Stuart Heisler’s The Star (1952).[1]
The first four are Warner Bros. productions; the last one was released by 20th Century Fox.
DVD first-timers and remastered transfers
Mr. Skeffington and The Star are new-on-DVD titles.
According to Warners, The Bette Davis Collection’s new edition of Dark Victory has been restored from the original camera negative and remastered for optimum picture quality.
Originally released on DVD in 2002, Now, Voyager has also been restored from the original negative and comes in Amaray keepcase packaging.
The Letter first came out on DVD earlier this year. Included in the box set is a recently rediscovered alternate ending.
Below is a brief look at each Bette Davis DVD collection title.
Dark Victory
After discovering that she is suffering from untreatable brain cancer, spoiled socialite Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) finds love in the person of surgeon (and frequent Davis leading man) George Brent. Ultimately, Judith chooses to endure her fate nobly until her inevitably glamorous final moments.
In Edmund Goulding’s proudly sudsy melodrama, Bette Davis shares starring duties with Max Steiner’s Academy Award-nominated score. (Come Oscar time, Vivien Leigh was named Best Actress for Gone with the Wind, while the Best Original Score statuette went to Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of Oz.)
Of note, Tallulah Bankhead had played Judith in late 1934 on Broadway; two years after Dark Victory, Davis would land another Bankhead role: Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes.
Also in the Dark Victory cast: Geraldine Fitzgerald, a pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart, Henry Travers, Cora Witherspoon, and, more or less as a gay character, Ronald Reagan.
The Letter
A first-rate adaptation – credited to Howard E. Koch – of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play about loneliness, jealousy, murder, and the indomitable human spirit of survival, The Letter features all-around stellar performances and the best production values that Warner Bros. could buy (e.g., noirish cinematography by Tony Gaudio, moody music by Max Steiner).
The alternate final reel is similar to the one in the released print, but with one key difference: The final dramatic confrontation between Leslie and her husband (Herbert Marshall) appears to have been excised.
Gladys Cooper (Bette Davis’ domineering mother in Now, Voyager) and Katharine Cornell had played The Letter’s antiheroine Leslie Crosbie on, respectively, the London and the Broadway stage. Jeanne Eagels had starred as Leslie in Jean de Limur’s 1929 early talkie at Paramount.
Also in The Letter 1940: Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee James Stephenson (actually as much a lead as Davis), Gale Sondergaard, and Frieda Inescort.
Now, Voyager
Casey Robinson’s adaptation of Olive Higgins Prouty’s 1941 novel, Now, Voyager stars Bette Davis as a homely spinster who discovers her inner beauty with the help of psychoanalysis and romantic self-sacrifice.
William Wyler or George Cukor might have been able to make something out of this, but director Irving Rapper lacked what it took to bring to life this overlong soap opera.
Having said that, the cigarette-lighting scene at the end is one of the most memorable in film history. Besides, Now, Voyager does boast top-notch production values, notably Sol Polito’s cinematography and Max Steiner’s now classic score.
Also in the cast: Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville, and Ilka Chase.
Mr. Skeffington
A great-looking morality tale about vanity and devotion, Mr. Skeffington is a surprisingly effective melodrama, in large part thanks to the outstanding performances of Bette Davis and Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Claude Rains (as the titular character).
Davis, in particular, is a revelation as a vain, beautiful woman unlike just about any of her other characters in her nearly six-decade career.
Major plus: Cinematography by frequent Bette Davis collaborator Ernest Haller (Jezebel, All This, and Heaven Too, Deception, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, etc.).
Also in the Mr. Skeffington cast: Walter Abel, Richard Waring, Jerome Cowan, and John Alexander.
The Star
This bit of cinematic high camp stars Bette Davis as a garrulous has-been Hollywood actress who, after having neurotic fits and driving around drunk through the streets of Beverly Hills, finds true love in the person of hunky-but-stolid Sterling Hayden.
In all, The Star should have been far more entertaining than it is, but director Stuart Heisler – whose output mostly consisted of mid-level fare (e.g., Along Came Jones, Chain Lightning) – wasn’t up to the task.
It’s also surprising that Davis – hardly at her best in what amounted to a low-grade programmer – was shortlisted for the Best Actress Oscar when more deserving performances in more prestigious movies were left out (e.g., Jennifer Jones in Carrie; Joan Fontaine in Ivanhoe; Katharine Hepburn in Pat and Mike, Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man).
Also in The Star: Natalie Wood (as Davis’ daughter), Warner Anderson, June Travis, and Barbara Lawrence as herself.
“Bette Davis DVD Collection” notes/references
5 more Best Actress Oscar nominations
[1] Bette Davis’ five other Academy Award nods were for the following titles: Alfred E. Green’s Dangerous (1935), William Wyler’s Jezebel (1938), Wyler’s The Little Foxes (1941), Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950), and Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).
She won for Dangerous and Jezebel.
Besides, there’s also the case of Davis’ non-nomination for John Cromwell’s Of Human Bondage (1934), which led the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to change its voting rules.
Warner Bros. website.
Bette Davis DVD collection cover image: Warner Home Video.
“Bette Davis DVD Collection: 5 Best Actress Oscar Nods” last updated in November 2024.