A Estranha Passageira

Look. I *love* "Now Voyager." I don't love it as a guilty pleasure, or as camp, or as an example of film-making from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I don't love it as a soap opera or as example of the long lost genre, the theatrical-release, big budget, "woman's picture." I love "Now Voyager" as a movie. "Now Voyager"'s quality could stand comparison with any great film out there.

Plot: Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis), the psychologically abused child of a sadistic iceberg of a wealthy, Boston Brahmin mother (Gladys Cooper), thanks to the intervention of a compassionate sister-in-law (Ilka Chase) is packed off to a posh asylum, where Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) restores her to well being.

Charlotte loses weight, loses her glasses, and receives tutoring in how to dress and carry herself. Superficially quite the glamor puss, she goes on a cruise and charms Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid) an unhappily married architect.

Circumstance intervenes and Jerry and Charlotte enjoy a brief affair. As time goes on, they make some heart-wrenching decisions about how to handle their adulterous love; along the way, Charlotte forms an important bond with Tina, Jerry's daughter, whose mother does not love her.

The screen is full of women's bodies, women's voices, women's choices, and women's lives. There are old women, middle aged women, and young women. There are good and bad women in every class. For example, while Tina is the sweet but unattractive and lost young woman, Bonita Granville, as June Vale, is a pretty, blonde, young b----. The scenes in which June, without censure from any quarter, uses her youth and prettiness to torment her pathetic spinster aunt are terrific, honest, and cruel.

The plot is built around the issues of which women's lives are built: their relationships with their mothers, or mother figures, both good and evil; how the world treats women based on how women look; women's competitions with, and support of, other women; what women do to survive economically and emotionally.

The scenes between Charlotte and Tina are stunning in their sensuality. Tina, the daughter-surrogate, and Charlotte, the mother-figure, cling to each other in bed at night, and while sleeping under the stars on a camping trip; Tina sobs tears that wet her face; Charlotte strokes Tina's hair, and Tina clings to Charlotte's bosom.

The simple message here is how incredibly important parenting is in the lives of both children and mothers, and how a person who has suffered -- Charlotte -- can often be a better person than those who have had it easier -- Mrs. Vale and June, and how having been handed a life that denies you love doesn't make it impossible for you to go out and find love on your own, to create your own family.

Mrs. Vale is one of the most naked depictions of a child abusing mother ever committed to the screen. No, there are no graphic scenes of abuse, but the film never lets you believe that this woman is anything but a nightmare who damaged her child for life while the world let her get away with it because of her money.

Again, the abuse is not graphic, but it is made certain. In one brilliant scene, Charlotte has returned to her mother's house after being out in the world and, for the first time in her life, experiencing some affection, joy, and confidence.

Charlotte speaks in her new voice, a voice of self possession. But she is trying to be nice to her mother, and her voice quavers a bit, without losing its ground.

Charlotte is out of camera range; we hear her, but do not see her. Her mother's back is to the camera. She is motionless -- except for her bejeweled, claw-like hand, which taps rhythmically against a carved bed post. One thinks of a cat waiting to pounce. One realizes that all that is going through Mrs. Vale's head is, "How do I destroy her this time?" That motion alone renders the scene both chilling and telling.

Charlotte's love affair with Jerry Durrance is equally complex. This is no "soap opera" as some reviews here dismiss it as. Viewers are so caught up with Jerry's (Henreid's) trick of lighting two cigarettes at once that they miss the depth, power, and complexity of this relationship.

"Now Voyager" gives us a terribly convincing portrait of two people who really love each other, and whose love is apparently doomed. Jerry is a superficially charming, nice guy whose unhappy marriage has given him reason to see beneath the surfaces of life; he's no rocket scientist, though, so he's not as smart as he could be. He is attracted to a superficially glamorous woman whose secret past as an ugly duckling and abused child gives her a hidden side. For both, society demands that they present a pleasant facade, but pain has caused them to develop in ways that many people never do. Their love is real.

Jerry is deep enough to be attracted, but not deep enough to realize, as soon as he might, how much his acting on his attraction could potentially devastate Charlotte, a woman whose hold on her life is tenuous, at best.

Whether their love can ever be realized, or whether it would continue to grow outside of the confines of an adulterous affair begun on a cruise ship and consummated after the most outlandish interventions of fate on a mountain road, is a question viewers can still debate to this day. What is clear is that this love is real, and its stakes are terribly high. Charlotte's whole life hangs in the balance here, no less so than a Scorcese hero's life hangs in the balance given how he handles his weapon.

Claude Rains is solid as Charlotte's best hope at the beginning, and, perhaps, also at the end of the movie..

This film tugs on a few different heartstrings, with themes of a domineering mother, being an awkward, depressed young person, finding a deep connection and love with someone who can't be yours, and then personally evolving to the point of being able to transcend all of that, and finding one's path. It's really quite a touching film, and Bette Davis turns in another brilliant performance. The supporting cast around her is strong as well, and features Gladys Cooper (her mother), Paul Henreid (her lover), Claude Rains (her wise doctor). And, how fascinating is it that both Henreid and Rains began filming Casalanca immediately afterwards; clearly a great year for them.

The film scores points for me for having its title come from a Walt Whitman line in 'Leaves of Grass': "The untold want by life and land ne'er granted; Now, Voyager sail thou forth, to seek and find," which is appropriate. The film speaks to being honest with oneself, to one's identity, as well as to the person you love, even if it's complicated. I loved the little touches of the inner voice that director Irving Rapper employs, which helps underscore this.

It's heartwarming to see how those in love make each other better people. She begins to bloom, and radiate confidence after receiving simple acts of kindness and appreciation. He returns to his passion, architecture, and is more empathetic and understanding of his troubled daughter. The scene where they meet by chance again at a party, and have a conversation interlaced with whispered remarks of tenderness (such as her saying to him she could "cry with pride" over him following his dream) is lovely.

At the same time, she's not defined by him, or dependent on him. In fact, the movie is a celebration of independence, and shows how it can be done gracefully and with class. Her strength come through in so many ways: in standing up to her mother, determining her path with another suitor, asserting herself with her old doctor, and ultimately deciding the terms she'll have her relationship with Henreid on. While she admits that "I've just been a big sentimental fool. It's a tendency I have," she also calmly says "Please let me go" when a big romantic moment threatens to sweep her away.

The story about his child was touching, as we see Davis help her, as she was once helped, but I thought this part dragged on too long, and needed tightening up. It felt overly melodramatic and false; for one thing, where was the mother? There was a much earlier scene with a Brazilian taxi driver that got silly, and should have been left on the cutting room floor as well. On the other hand, I loved those last lines. He asks her, "And will you be happy, Charlotte?" And she responds "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." How brilliant that line is; there is something larger than ourselves, larger than what others consider happiness.

Bette Davis plays Charlotte Vale, an unmarried and very unhappy plain-Jane who lives with, and is under the emotional control of, her wealthy, domineering, matriarchal mother (Gladys Cooper). Help for Charlotte arrives in the person of Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), who suggests a different living environment, and eventually a new direction in life. Charlotte thus sets out on a voyage of discovery, or quest, to find herself and her potential for happiness and love.

The film starts off Gothic, but gradually translates to a love story with lots of twists and turns. The underlying premise is sound, but the plot is overwrought, drawn out, and talky. Small sections of the film's middle section could have been expunged, to tighten the plot. And the dialogue could have been reduced in places, which would have rendered a film of even greater impact. Nevertheless, the film still tells a great story.

The B&W cinematography ranges from good to excellent. In one scene, special effects create an image wherein Charlotte's eyes overlap her mother's face. It is a visually stunning image, and it wonderfully captures the film's timeless theme, the painful process whereby a grown child must confront an overbearing parent, if that child is to grow and gain adult independence.

The film's costumes are interesting. And Max Steiner's original score adds emotional texture to the story. But it is the acting that really makes this film a classic. Except for her work in "All About Eve", Bette Davis gives as good a performance here as in any film of hers that I have seen. Claude Rains and Paul Henreid are good in support roles. And the never smiling Gladys Cooper is stunningly effective as the matron saint of outdated Victorian Puritanism.

Despite its cryptic title, taken from a poem by Walt Whitman, this film presents viewers with a story that most people can identify with, in one way or another. "Now, Voyager" transcends its hyperbolic working script, and compels attention through its cinematography, its music, and especially the acting of Gladys Cooper and Bette Davis.

From frumpy momma's unwanted adult child to liberated raving beauty, Davis is in her element in every scene. With Paul Henreid & Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper & a spot-on supporting cast, "Voyager..." is, hands down, best love story I believe I've ever seen.

Of course, taste in romances has everything to do with what a viewer finds great. I don't like phony, fantasy, goofy romantic shows at all. "Voyager..." has a gritty plot that reveals the kind of love between unrequited lovers that's worth sacrificing oneself for.

Davis' wardrobe is as fabulous in this movie as it is in "Deception," (also co-starring Claude Rains & Paul Henreid). Perhaps having both of them in both shows is what produced the mastery of all the elements in both movies. Though "Deception" is also a love story, Claude Rains coming seriously close to stealing the show from Davis.

In "Voyager..." the characters are much more egalitarian. The balance of love & despise is what makes the movies so intriguing. Davis should have taken an Oscar home for her leading role.

This was surprisingly good. I say "surprising" because I am not a man who likes soap operas and that's what I expected here from everything I had read about this film. The only reason I obtained it was that it was part of a 3-pack Bette Davis collection and I wanted a DVD of "The Letter."

Well, this turned out to be a very interesting and gratifying story. No, I still didn't like the corny - and adulterous (which Hollywood loves to glamorize) - love affair between Davis and married man Paul Henreid. However, I did enjoy the ugly duckling-turned-beauty story that featured Davis tolerating her nasty mother and then using her experiences to help another young lady who was suffering from a similar inferiority complex.

Gladys Cooper was outstanding as the irritating, brutal mother. Janis Wilson was the young girl helped in the end by Davis. Wilson overacts something fierce but the message is so nice and the sentimentality so caring that you put up with the kid's performance.

Claude Raines also was likable as the psychologist. He had a number of good lines in this film. The movie was nicely filmed and looks particularly good on the DVD transfer with attractive grays completing the black-and-white.