Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny in Of Human Bondage (1934 Movie)

DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005RERS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=d...

http://thefilmarchive.org/

Of Human Bondage is a 1934 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and is widely regarded by critics as the film that made Bette Davis a star. The screenplay by Lester Cohen is based on the 1915 novel of the same title by W. Somerset Maugham. The film was remade in 1946 and again in 1964.

Sensitive, club-footed artist Philip Carey is an Englishman who has been studying painting in Paris for four years. His art teacher tells him his work lacks talent, so he returns to London to become a medical doctor, but his moodiness and chronic self-doubt make it difficult for him to keep up in his schoolwork.

Philip falls passionately in love with vulgar, illiterate tearoom waitress Mildred Rogers, even though she is disdainful of his club-foot and his obvious interest in her. Although he is attracted to the anemic and pale-faced woman, she is manipulative and cruel toward him when he asks her out. Her constant response to his romantic invitations is "I don't mind," an expression so uninterested that it infuriates him - which only causes her to use it all the more. His daydreams about her (her image appears over an illustration in his medical school anatomy textbook, and a skeleton in the classroom is transformed into Mildred) cause him to be distracted from his studies, and he fails his medical examinations.

In 1932, director Michael Curtiz showed John Cromwell a print of his recently completed film The Cabin in the Cotton because Cromwell was interested in casting its leading man, Richard Barthelmess, in a project he was preparing. Instead of Barthelmess his attention was drawn to Bette Davis, whose portrayal of a femme fatale brought to mind the slatternly waitress Mildred in Of Human Bondage. Cromwell knew producer Pandro S. Berman had purchased the rights to the W. Somerset Maugham novel for Leslie Howard and when he suggested Davis would be the perfect co-star, Berman agreed. Maugham also supported her being cast in the role.

Screenwriter Wilson Mizner brought a copy of the Maugham novel to Davis, who was in the midst of filming his 20,000 Years in Sing Sing. After reading it and learning RKO held the screen rights, she implored Jack L. Warner to lend her to the rival studio. "At the time, however," Davis later recalled, "Warner Brothers had other plans for me. They thought they needed me desperately for such immortal classics as Fashions of 1934, The Big Shakedown, and Jimmy the Gent." She reluctantly filmed those as well as Fog Over Frisco but continued to harass Warner, who continued to resist because he felt the role of Mildred would destroy her glamorous image, the reason Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, and Ann Harding already had declined to play it. "An evil heroine such as Mildred was really unheard of in that day. J.L. could not possibly understand any actress who would want to play such a part", Davis said. Warner finally relented only because Mervyn LeRoy wanted RKO contract player Irene Dunne for Sweet Adeline, the screen adaptation of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical, and the two studios agreed to trade actresses.

Cast Leslie Howard ..... Philip Carey Bette Davis ..... Mildred Rogers Frances Dee ..... Sally Athelny Kay Johnson ..... Norah Reginald Denny ..... Harry Griffiths Alan Hale ..... Emil Miler Reginald Sheffield ..... Cyril Dunsford Reginald Owen ..... Thorpe Athelny Tempe Pigott .....Agnes Hollet, Philip's landlady

Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times said the Maugham novel "has come through the operation of being transferred to the screen in an unexpectedly healthy fashion. It may not possess any great dramatic strength, but the very lifelike quality of the story and the marked authenticity of its atmosphere cause the spectators to hang on every word uttered by the interesting group of characters." He thought Leslie Howard's portrayal "excels any performance he has given before the camera. No more expert illustration of getting under the skin of the character has been done in motion pictures," and he described Bette Davis as "enormously effective."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Human_Bondage_%281934_film%29

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[TheJKVW]

Haven't seen this  for 30trs, Thanks.

[ohsnapiam59]

Alan Hale was the Skipper's (on Gilligan's Island) father.