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Bette Davis was one of the strongest women in Hollywood, she fought for the best roles when her studio (Warner Brothers) wouldn't give her the parts she felt she deserved.
When she didn't win the role of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind the studio bought her Jezebel and so started a career of amazing roles in some of the best film from the Golden Age of Hollywood. She left Warners when they didn't give her good material and went it on her own having a successful career in horrors and thrillers in her later life.
This is my list of the incredible films of Bette Davis. Enjoy.
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Running Time: 1 Hour 55 mins
Genre: Drama
Director: William Wyler
Stars: Bette Davis, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson
Davis is Regina Giddens a member of the despicable Hubbard family. She along with her brothers are conniving and sneaky involved in a shady business deal. The whole family are manipulative and thoughtless, thinking only of themselves. Davis gives a vicious performance for director William Wyler whom she would work with many times is her career.
09 - The Nanny (1965)
Running Time: 1 Hour 30 mins
Genre: Thriller
Director: Seth Holt
Stars: Bette Davis, Wendy Craig, Jill Bennett
A starring role later in her career, cashing in on the success of simmering thriller/horror What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Davis plays the titular Nanny to a family welcoming back their little boy Joey after a stint in a facility for disturbed children after drowning his little sister. When he returns home he is extremely distrusting of the Nanny continually persisting she did it. When his mother is poisoned heads turn again to Joey but the neighbour believes his story. Davis is excellent.
Running Time: 1 Hour 35 mins
Genre: Crime/Film-Noir
Director: William Wyler
Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson
The film begins with a shooting. Davis is the wife of a sugar plantation owner in Singapore, who shoots and kills a man on her doorstep. She claims self-defence and everyone naturally believes her, her story is so good. But a letter in her handwriting could be her undoing, both her and her lawyer know the truth but what will the lawyer do? Damn her or free her knowing she killed a man.
Davis is her usual stunning self, fantastic performance from all.
07 - Jezebel (1938)
Running Time: 1 Hour 45 mins
Genre: Drama
Director: William Wyler
Stars: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent
After losing out on Gone With the Wind, Davis was given the role of Julie in Jezebel. Rather similar to Scarlett O'Hara Julie is a headstrong, vain independent Southern Belle who in her stubbornness and sometimes cruel nature loses her fiancée Preston Dillard (Fonda). But she vows to win him back, and doesn't care who she hurts or how far she goes to do it.
Davis won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.
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06 - Dark Victory (1939)
Running Time: 1 Hour 45 mins
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Edward Goulding
Stars: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart
Davis plays Judith Traherne a young active socialite in her prime, who is plagued by headaches and sudden failing eyesight. She visits Dr. Frederick Steele who diagnosis an inoperable brain tumour. After the surgery she is told that it is successful but it appears it is not. Judith falls in love with Dr. Steele and they are to be married she finds out she will die and becomes depressed. After the advise of her horse trainer who loves her (Bogart in a small role) she marries Steele and tries to be the happy doting housewife waiting for the blindness that will sign her death.
05 - All About Eve (1950)
Running Time: 2 Hours 15 mins
Genre: Drama
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm
Remembered not only for being one of the truest films about the acting and fame industry but also for being possibly the greatest role of Davis' long career. She plays Margo Channing a famous stage actress who lets a besotted fan (Baxter) become part of her circle. However things turn sour when she begins to question her loving fan and her motives. Riveting performance that came in good time for Davis it was a comeback of sorts; stupendous!
Running Time: 2 Hours 10 mins
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Director: Robert Aldrich
Stars: Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, Joseph Cotten
Davis is an ageing Southern Belle who has a reputation for being mad after a dark family secret has made her lose her mind. When a kindly family member (De Havilland) comes to stay the past comes back to haunt her and we find out what really happened. As Charlotte becomes more unhinged her cousin's friendly manner starts to change.
A great mystery thriller that keeps you guessing until the end. Davis is at her best.
Running Time: 2 Hours 15 mins
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Robert Aldrich
Stars: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono
The film that re-invented Davis for a new genre, that stemmed many copy-cats in the coming years. Davis is Baby Jane Hudson a former vaudeville child star living in an old mansion dreaming of a comeback; living in the past and trying to recreate her glory days. Not only that, she has become so demented that she torments her wheel-chair bound sister (her biggest rival Crawford) who became the bigger star as they grew up, which Jane has always resented. This is a great dramatic thriller reviving both actresses stalling careers.
Running Time: 2 Hours 25 mins
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Vincent Sherman
Stars: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel
Mr Skeffington is a film about ageing and accepting it. Davis plays Fanny Trellis known for her beauty she is popular with all the single bachelors. But she ends up in a loveless marriage to much older Job Skeffinton to save her brother from an embezzlement charge by Skeffington. Obsessed with youth and her looks, the important people in her life fall away. It is only when her looks are gone due to an illness that she realises those who truly cared for her. An excellent performance from Davis not afraid to hide her movie star looks for a great role.
Running Time: 1 Hour 55 mins
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Irving Rapper
Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Now Voyager is remembered as a great romance but it must also be considered a great dramatic performance from Davis. She plays Charlotte Vale a Boston spinster fulfilling the Ugly Duckling role of the family repressed under the constant watch of her overbearing mother. After a breakdown she flourishes in a sanatorium and becomes a new woman. No longer under the thumb of her mother, she holidays abroad and falls in love with a man she cannot marry. Through the sanatorium she meets his troubled daughter who reminds her of herself, her way of showing her continued love is to help bring up his daughter. A classic performance from Davis, I prefer the mother daughter relationship to the romance, it truly shows what Davis could do.
A list of just 10 of the amazing roles that Bette Davis made her own during her long and successful career. I can promise you if you watch just one of the movies on this list you will be hunting for her back catalogue because you simply won't be able to get enough of her.
Let me know what you think of the list in the comments below. Would you pick differently?
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