Old Aquaintance

"Old Acquaintance", a masterful Warner Brothers production from 1943, tells the story of a friendship between 2 woman over 25 years of their lives. Both are authors, one of trashy romance novels and the other of serious ones. This reflects their natures. Miriam Hopkins plays the flighty superficial Millie and Bette Davis plays the level headed intellectual Kit.

Both actresses are well cast and the film raises many issues for women - career versus marriage, youth versus age in relationships etc. In 1943 Hollywood, these were unusual subjects and hence the enormous popularity of the film for the female audience. The film, moving between arch comedy and heavy drama, has a slick, glib quality and will not appeal to men.

"Old Acquaintance" is beautifully made by director, Vincent Sherman. While Hopkins penchant for theatrical mannerisms and overacting sits perfectly on her character here, Davis still outshines her with her superb mastery of the medium. Watch her use of props in this film and her movement around the sets. Hopkins has dated, Davis has not. The climax of the film is probably the scene when an exasperated Davis shakes Hopkins, reportedly reflecting the attitude of the director and the film crew, not just the audience. The film also has a fine Franz Waxman score, never used better than in an intimate scene in an hotel lobby between Davis and John Loder.

The print of the film is excellent and the DVD benefits from a very good commentary by Boz Hadleigh accompanied by the elderly Sherman. It is a treat to hear Sherman speak highly of Davis and her co-operation and intelligence while making the film. There is also a mediocre cartoon and a short film called "Stars on Horseback" which compiles clips, some of which are interpolated misleadingly from Warner's films, showing some of the studio's stars on horses - fairly dumb. The original trailer shows some shots cut from the film and lastly, there is a very good discussion of the film by the a number of historians/ biographers. These Warner's DVDs provide a lot of enjoyable extras and are good value.

This film has never been available before but can now be obtained alone or as part of the Davis Collection Volume 2. It is a worthwhile addition to the usual Davis classics.

When The Bette Davis Collection was rerleased last year on DVD, the most surprising omission was her famous catty comedy/melodrama with Miriam Hopkins OLD ACQUAINTANCE--not only because it is such a seminal film but also because Vincent Sgherman, the director, is one of the few directors from the Golden Age of Hollywood still alive and available to provide commentary (as he did for his other film with Davis MR. SKEFFINGTON). OLD ACQUAINTANCE does not show Davis in one of her very best roles--unfortunately she's required to be somewhat self-sacrificing, but noit in an exciting and over-the-top way (as in NOW, VOYAGER), and Hopkins gets almost all of the best comedy bits. And both the perfoirmances and the direction of the film seem to work against exploring the ambiguities in the script that suggest Davis's character Kit Marlowe may in some ways be as much to blame for the problems in her friendship with Hopkins's character Millie as is Millie herself. (Why is Kit spending so much time in the first place with Millie's husband and daughter? Even if Millie is a poor mother and wife, shouldn't Kit stay out of their lives?) But the film is famous in that it is one of the most important Golden Age films to stress at all the importance of friendship between women, and the ending where the two women, left only with one another at the end and forgiving one another, toast each other with flat champagne is beautifully done. Another plus is the sad sensitive suite for strings Franz Waxman composed for the film, which is one of his finest scores, and really brings out the pathos of the scene in Millie's husband's hotel lobby.

Having just read that famed director Vincent Sherman died, it seems a fitting tribute to take a look Old Acquaintance, one of the films he made with the legendary Bette Davis. Part of the recently released Bette Davis Collection volume 2, Old Acquaintance is a classy and stylish movie about the topsy-turvy relationship between two women who end up bearing it all for friendship, loyalty and for love. As the saying goes, friendship has no bounds.

In Old Acquaintance, Bette Davis plays Kit Marlowe, a serious literary writer who has returned to her childhood home to stay with her best friend Millie Drake (Miriam Hopkins). Kit is a down-to-earth and unpretentious sort of girl, modest, cheerful, and ladylike - she sails through life with an unassuming confidence. Millie's husband Preston (John Loder) obviously has a soft spot for her, and likewise Kit is attracted to him, although she doesn't want to admit it to herself or to Preston.

Millie, however, is a surefire pain the neck. Neurotic and insecure, she aches for a life of her own, outside of the trimmings of her husband and her quiet domestic existance, and is inspired by her friend's visit to try and get her trashy romance novel published. Although Kit has had minimal success herself - her own novels have "artistic merit" - she agrees to help Millie out.

Fast forward eight years 1932 and Millie has become a huge success from romance potboilers - most of the critics agree that they're trash. She's now incredibly wealthy and can afford to live in salubrious apartment in Manhattan, deck herself out in gorgeous outfits and give her young daughter Deirdre absolutely anything.

The problem is that she maybe rich but she's still self-absorbed. Preston still suffers by her side choosing to endure indignities to be a good dad to Deirdre. Kit stays the ever-loyal friend, taking Deirdre shopping and putting up with her best friend's temper tantrums. The deep love between Kit and Preston is still unfulfilled, and as the story progresses, he again professes his love for Kit. Kit returns his love but cannot "do that" to a friend.

A woman of integrity, Kit plays the martyr as she turns down Preston's advances yet again. Time moves on and all three characters cross paths, and there's more romantic shenanigans involving Deirdre, (Delores Moran) now all grown up and Kit's younger suitor Rudd Kendall (Gig Young).

Much of the drama in Old Acquaintance centers on the ever changing needs between Millie and Kit. The poor Kit is constantly having to put her own needs on the back burner, while she spends much of her live feverishly trying to placate the insufferably selfish Millie, who has never listened to reason and who automatically assumes Kit's friendship with her husband is more than platonic. Meanwhile, Kit is getting on in years and feels the pressure to marry and have children - this is a real issue for her as she's ten years older than Rudd.

Sherman directs the film with a great style and visual flair and he really manages to nail the characters, emphasizing how diametrically apposed Kit and Millie actually are. Kit is the selfless, dependable sufferer for a cause, while Millie is all to ready to sacrifice a lifelong friendship for petty jealousies.

Old Acquaintance is also notable for the fact that Bette Davis decided to take on the nice, mannered and subtle character, rather than play, showier, over-the-top role, which Hopkins made her own. This is a smart, erudite - if not a little talky - movie that really presents a friendship that truly does weather the stormy waters of time. Mike Leonard June 06.