El aniversario

plays Mrs. Taggart, the controlling and manipulative mother to three sons. She oversees every aspect of their lives, the family business - which she owns outright - employs them and she works hard at scaring away any woman they bring into the family.

The Anniversary is the annual celebration of Mrs. Taggart's wedding anniversary to the boys' dead father. A macabre event in itself it is made more horrendous by her constant belittling of her sons, their women and her grandchildren. They are all targets of her caustic wit and cruelty.

Bette Davis is her usual glorious self in the starring role. Wonderfully gowned and housed with a matching eye-patch, she steals every scene she is in with flair and drawl, withering all including her grandchildren - all mere fodder for her verbal cannonballs.

And the ending is quite a surprise. Wait for it! 7 out of 10.

Today this movie would never be made, simply cause there is no star that can handle it. Its a shame, really. Its not that the movie is so magnificent or anything, its just so dominated by the leading lady that you can't imagine how it would be done today, if at all, and with who? Faye Dunaway? She's still living down "Mommie Dearest", twenty years later. Anne Bancroft? She's not hateful and lovable at the same time and not an icon. Davis could play a monster yet keep her fans and probably gain more as a result of playful movies like this.

All the real stars are gone, and watching this makes that painfully obvious.

Bette Davis devours the rest of the cast, and doesn't even bother spitting them out. And all we can do it watch and enjoy. No true fan of hers can do without this.

This engaging dark comedy stars the incomparable Bette Davis in one of her best latter-day screen roles as a merciless one-eyed mother who uses wedding anniversary(although her husband has been dead for quite some time) as an excuse to lure her spineless sons into her lair and demonstrate her strange hold over them. This year is a particular feast for the mother when the youngest, a somewhat promiscuous chap, announces that he's going to settle down and get married. And better yet, the eldest and most spineless of the brood discloses that he will be moving out of the country so mumsy will leave him alone once and for all. Will things turn out as planned? You"ll just have to find out yourself when you watch this stylish, darkly witty, and perversely entertaining tale that could have been written especially for its star.

Even though her husband popped his clogs some ten years before, Mrs Taggart still makes an occasion of her wedding anniversary to him by making sure that her sons join her at the family home so they can celebrate together.

The build up to the event sees her sons describing her as akin to a force of nature that can't be controlled and as a fierce matriarch. This seems fitting when she finally makes her entrance on screen as she is played by none other than Bette Davis who is on flying form and attacks her role with relish. Not just that but she has a fantastic wardrobe topped off with an eye patch!

It's obvious that Mrs Taggart will keep her boys in place by means necessary whether it be manipulation, knowing secrets that her sons would rather be kept private to be used at any given moment like some kind of trump card that she keeps up her sequinned sleeves and by finding any weaknesses that her sons or their partners possess.

It's fitting that this film was made by Hammer Films as whilst on the surface it's a very black comedy, it also works as a horror film with Davis demolishing all around her like a very stylish and catty version of Godzilla.

The tone here is high camp which is why it works so well. If this was presented as more serious it wouldn't have been half as much fun and Davis would have been wasted.

Davis didn't want to take the role but only changed her mind when her friend Jimmy Sangster rewrote the script for the screen from the stage version. Sangster had penned the excellent screenplay for Davis' earlier film, The Nanny (also highly recommended).

There was also animosity between cast members with 'serious stage actress' Sheila Hancock witnessing the way Davis was pampered over and given the attention deserving of a star of her stature and being utterly alienated by it. C'est la vie.

It's my favorite Davis performance post-BABY JANE among her horror films. THE ANNIVERSARY, with Bette as the evil but grand Mrs. Taggert. From the moment the film begins she is constantly in control, even in those scenes where she is not physically appearing.

It is her wedding anniversary, and her three sons and the wife of one and the current girlfriend of another are in attendance. And in the course of the ninety minutes of the film, no matter what attempts to put Mrs. Taggart into her place or at least into a more reasonable frame of mind, she comes up trumps in making them feel like garbage. To be fair Mrs. Taggart has some grounds to be so vile - her missing eye is due to the antics of her sons. But even so, she takes bad behavior to a new level.

I have a sneaking suspicion, giving the devilish charm she brought to the role, Davis enjoyed this film. She was (despite her denials) a very difficult woman to get along with, and probably enjoyed how her character totally dominates this film. But it's done with such panache. Look at how she notes her youngest son's girlfriend (a cute looking blonde) has a secret physical defect that she uses her hair to hide. And she does so accidentally reveal it to the entire family.

Nobody escapes her witchery. In the course of the film she is getting some tiresome phone calls from one of her tenants about the work she did in constructing his house. She is as sweet as molasses in calming him down, but once she has hung up she tells her oldest son that they use a third rate repairman to fix the tenant's problem. Indeed, the last sequence in the film, when Bette passes a fountain that is of a male figure who shoots out water in a "unique" manner shows Mrs. Taggert's view of how the world should be treated.