I can’t say that I have seen many of Bette Davis’s movies, and one of them was Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and that movie is…something else. I did, when I opted to watch Now, Voyager on HBO Max, look into the song “Bette Davis Eyes” just for the heck of it. Turned out Bette Davis actually really dug it and sent flowers to the singer when she won an award for it, saying it made her grandson look up to her. That’s a nice story…well, sort of. I’d hate to think someone needed a hit song to feel appreciated by her grandkids.
Well, that story barely had anything to do with Now, Voyager. How was the movie?
Charlotte Vale (Davis) is the spinster daughter of Mrs. Windle Vale (Gladys Cooper), one of those nasty old women who didn’t want that last kid who happens to be Charlotte. Charlotte has three older brothers who all got their mother’s love and attention. Charlotte lives at home, hiding those Bette Davis eyes behind some glasses, likewise dressing as dowdy as possible, like some stereotypical librarian. One of her sister-in-laws puts Charlotte in contact with psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), a kindhearted doctor who advises Charlotte spend time in his sanitarium, and after that, to take a long sea cruise, during which she meets the charming Jerry Durance (Paul Heinreid). One small problem: Jerry is a married man.
What follows is a rather fascinating movie. Jerry adores a daughter of his own, but the girl’s mother treats her in a way similar to how Windle treats Charlotte. But this is 1942, not exactly a time when divorce could be depicted on screen, so unless the movie is willing to kill Jerry’s wife off off-screen, this isn’t exactly a relationship that can work out. At the same time, I am pleased to see the movie treat psychiatry as something helpful. This was also an era when going to see a therapist was considered shameful. Heck, Richard Nixon used that against his political enemies.
So, really, this is a movie that somehow threads the needle between romancing a married man, something that can never work, and showing the positive side to psychiatry, something that I don’t think we would see much of in 1942. If anything, what comes out is not so much showing Charlotte in therapy as just letting her stay in a relaxing place away from her domineering and controlling mother.
If anything, though it’s not the super-happy ending that so many romances go for, this movie somehow ends with Charlotte happy but, well, not romantically connected with Jerry. But at the same time, she doesn’t seem to mind. She found a way forward for herself, a way that allows her to use her own life experiences to the betterment of herself and one other person. It’s a rather interesting way to end the movie that avoids the super-sugary ending of so many movie romances and sticking to the standards of the time it was made. Oh, and Davis was brilliant in the role as a woman who comes out of her cocoon, retreats back in, and then finds another way out of it in a nontraditional way. Maybe the movie is suggesting there are ways to be happy without getting into a romantic relationship with the male lead. Quite frankly, I’d love to see more movies and stories go that route.
Grade: A-
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