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Of Human Bondage | Year: 1934 Classification: Drama Directed: - John Cromwell Actors/Actresses: - Leslie Howard - Bette Davis The fascinating film that made Bette Davis a star Of Human Bondage, based on the novel by Somerset Maugham, is a powerful but melancholy film that I find strangely mesmerizing. Leslie Howard stars as Philip Carey, an introverted, artistic man who comes to London to study medicine after abandoning his dreams of becoming an artist in Paris. Carey was born with a club foot, and we watch rather mortified as one of his instructors makes him show his foot to the class, revealing the embarrassment that he normally keeps contained on the outside. One day in a nearby café, Carey sees waitress Mildred Rogers (played fabulously by Bette Davis), a rather ill-natured, brazenly taciturn waitress. Her attitude is rather rude and certainly strange and cold, but Carey is immediately fascinated by her. After inexplicably falling in love with Mildred, he succeeds in winning a few dates with her, putting up with her mind games, deception, and seeming lack of humanity. She is frustratingly noncommittal in everything he asks her, replying "I don't mind" to virtually all of his questions and allowing him almost no emotional contact with her at all. He finally resolves to ask her to marry him, but she shocks him by declaring her impending nuptials to another man. Carey's depression grows, and his grades in medical school suffer horribly. In time, he finds a young woman who is a bit matronly but genuinely cares for him. Then Mildred shows up again, pregnant and alone. He takes care of her with money he doesn't really have only to see her leave again with another man. This trend continues throughout the story. Whenever Carey finds happiness within his grasp, Mildred shows up unannounced, and he finds himself powerless to save himself from her debilitating influence on him. Carey and Mildred are complicated creatures. While Mildred basically comes off as an unfeeling tramp, one can't help but believe that there is something human inside her that is genuinely attracted to Carey and the kind of gentlemanly life he can offer her, but her affections continually prove themselves fickle at best. As for Carey, his fatalistic love for Mildred makes no sense whatsoever, as she never fails to treat him harshly. Other women do come to love him deeply and truly, and Sally, the daughter of one of his patients, seems perfect for him, yet one strongly senses the fact that he can only truly love Mildred. It is really that part of the story and not the tragic life of Mildred herself which makes this movie so poignant and sad. Of Human Bondage is the movie that made Bette Davis a verifiable star way back in 1934. Her performance is certainly fantastic, but she really provides only a hint of the actress she would become. The fact that her character is so impossibly self-serving and unfeeling makes it hard to identify with or like her (especially when she gets angry), yet Bette Davis makes her an unforgettable character of almost hypnotic fascination. I should say that Leslie Howard is also wonderful in this movie. The kind of al The Joseph Goebbels story this ain't! This film offers excellent portraits of three very different women. Each woman is connected to the clubfoot milquetoast Philip, played exquisitely by Leslie Howard. Norah (Kay Johnson) is a striking Nordic beauty. She writes Romance novels under a male pseudonym. She is strong, devoted and demonstrates her love for Philip by insisting that focus on his medical studies. This means nothing to Philip because Norah's love takes on mundane characteristics. It isn't full of histrionics or morbid devotion. Sally (Frances Dee) is quite young and fickle in her way. She seems fascinated with Philip and appears "fond" of him. However, she lacks any passion whatsoever and comes across as merely a mirror image of Philip. She's capable and strong, but ultimately dull. She's not the kind of girl one goes mad over or that causes one to nearly flunk out of medical school because he can't stop obsessing over her. Those afflictions attack our hero because of Mildred, famously played by Bette Davis and her flickering Cockney accent. Mildred is unencumbered by almost every affectation expected in polite society of the well-bred woman. Mildred is ill-bred, snotty, corrosive, opportunistic and terminally bored. Philip falls into the psycic sewer for her and she gives him nothing for his troubles but frustration and heartbreak. He stupidly loves her and she sees it all to clearly. She sees it as a weakness and despises him for it. The clubfoot plays an interesting psychological role in this film. There is suggestion that Philip suffers from a clubfoot of the mind--something that has emotionally crippled him and turned him into a pathetic ladies blouse who is quite unmanly in his inability to cast women aside when they no longer serve any purpose. Overall, it is difficult to recognize love in this film. There is very little affection on screen. Sex is, of course, only implied. There is a marvellous musical sequence that comes just after one of Mildred's many betrayals. The music fits perfectly with Philip's wan dejection. His depression is expressed with expert clarity, and it is a stunning moment in an thoroughly enjoyable film. Revolting First of all, the 'quality; of this DVD is reprehensible. It's a blurry, jerky print of a very dirty negative and simply will not do. It's difficult to believe this is a DVD, but there you go. Catch this movie on TV if you can, or if you're a huge Bette completist, pay as little as you can for it. Now, on with the review. To say that 'Of Human Bondage' is a silly and dull movie is an understatement of the first magnitude. It takes people's preconceptions of silly and boring and completely redefines them, creating instead new and terrible adjectives to replace them. 'Flapsnot' could be one, 'Turd-esque', another. Adapted from a well-loved W. Somerset Maugham novel, this original version of the movie (there are two others) attempts to utilise procrastinated silences and over-long facial close-ups of its leading man, Leslie Howard, to express the deep emotional turmoil and self-destructive impulses wrought on his life by Mildred The Slutty Waitress, played by the usually sublime Bette Davis. The trouble with this, however, is that Mr. Howard is, was, and ever shall be, a wooden character actor, with just one facial expression in his repertoire (see 'Gone With The Wind' for proof of this), so we can't really tell if his character, Philip Carey, is upset, bored, hungry, depressed or gassy. The result is a leading man of unprecedented blandness. We don't care about his disability, or his artist's soul, nor do we give one whit about why he finds Mildred so compelling - we don't give a damn about him in general. Running a close second to Mr. Howard's performance in terms of sheer pointlessness is that of Ms. Davis in the role of Mildred. Normally, Bette Davis is a true virtuoso, a delight to watch and a memorable character, no matter how drab her supporting cast. Sadly, in this, her first major motion picture, she comes off as totally and utterly irritating. As the wanton and manipulative Mildred, she has neither enough lines nor screen presence to pull off a convincing man-eater. She is disjointed because her character, direction and particularly her script are disjointed. We can't believe that any man, even one as shy and ill-favoured as Carey, could find her attractive. And the accent! In all of history, there has surely never been a worse attempt at a cockney accent. Ever. We can hear that she's struggling with it - she mispronounces Champagne as something like 'Sham-paaaaaan' and her own clipped British voice is clearly audible beneath it all. It's a horrible thing to see such a great actress in a terrifically demeaning role. Devoid of all human emotion, the film goes from bad to worse (and ends up at confusing and unwatchable) when Carey finally rids himself of his lust for Mildred and begins dating impoverished-but-upstanding Sally Athelny, a woman who appears to live in a calendar. In fact, it's thanks to over-ambitious and disasterously-edited 'special' effect sequences like this, prevalent from the get-go, that, by the pictures' Buy Of Human Bondage at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Of Human Bondage Search with the Priority Search Engine on Of Human Bondage This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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