MovieChat Forums > Madame Sin Discussion > BETTE DAVIS

BETTE DAVIS

posted 12 years ago by BOBBEN515
3 replies | jump to latest

I am always intrigued by posts that actually scrutinize the later day films of Bette Davis. After you reach perfection, particularly when you have as many times as Miss Davis, i.e. Jezebel, Dark Victory, The Letter. The little Foxes, Now Voyager, Mr. Skeffington, All About Eve, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane ? etc., an appearance in anything is interesting even if it shows her boredom with the subject matter as in Madame Sin but not her boredom with its leading man Robert Wagner. Miss Davis was asked, after making Hush Hush ...Sweet Charlotte, why she made horror films, her answer: " THE WORLD IS HORRIBLE."
You may not agree but her appearance in any thing at this point in her career could be compared to Sarah Bernhardt's career when in her 60's & 70"s she made several "farewell tours." It didn't matter whether she read the phone book OR acted only in French she was fascinating in her own right.
Maybe Miss Davis ' acting is an acquired taste but if you read anything about her incredibly long career from 1928- 1989 you will find the terms greatest actress in motion pictures, First Lady of Film, or as LIFE magazine said as early as 1934 for her performance in Of Human Bondage:"the greatest performance
(up until than) of an actres in movies."
So I'll suffer through Madame Sin with pleasure at seeing a great actress walk through a mediocre film.
Bob Ben

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] WarpedRecord 9 years ago

Did Bette Davis ever speak of this film in interviews, or did she prefer to forget it?

This is indeed a mediocre film, but if Bette Davis' character were better integrated and utilized here, I'd have given it more than 6/10 stars.

[–] PrometheusTree64 8 years ago

Miss Davis was asked, after making Hush Hush ...Sweet Charlotte, why she made horror films, her answer: " THE WORLD IS HORRIBLE."

Sometimes they say different things at different times. She also later said HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE was "fantastic" and that it was amongst Bob Aldrich's best work, and admitted that although the horror genre had been good to her, "I want out."

She was rightly afraid of being trapped in it.

MADAME SIN was just a TV movie, a pilot for a possible series. It frankly seemed like a good idea for Davis, had it been a little better than it was. And given her film work in the '70s, maybe a MADAME SIN program should've happened.

--
LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA