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She's briefly described in Biblical terms, earlier there's a choice understatement amid the hysteria, "politeness was never one of her virtues." Antebellum New Orleans, a bustling veneer to conceal a pestilent swamp. Woman is "a frail, delicate chalice to be cherished and protected," the willful belle (Bette Davis) has no time for such bromides, she's busy striding into the genteel drawing-room still in her riding clothes. A more scandalous fashion choice follows—the scarlet gown that clears the ballroom full of ingénues in virginal white, and drives away her fiancé (Henry Fonda). (A sequence of bravura excruciation, showcasing William Wyler's variety of camera angle and movement.) The heroine sees an alternate version of herself in the docile weary aunt (Fay Bainter) and a male counterpart in the rakish former beau (George Brent), she waits at the plantation mansion only to be faced with a sensible Yankee rival (Margaret Lindsay). "I like my convictions undiluted, same as I do my bourbon." The Old South as a sumptuous diorama lashed by ingrown fury, just the stage for Davis' concentrated rendering of a woman who luxuriates in and suffers for her fire. Male eruptions on the other hand have an acceptable name, "chivalry," thus the duel laconically staged as pistol smoke emerging from both sides of an empty frame. Nothing like an apocalypse to sort things out: Yellow jack epidemic (cf. Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island), distant canons for "the fever line" inescapably crossed, "We're Gonna Raise a Ruckus Tonight." The final stretto is less sacrificial redemption than perverse exaltation of the lady who gets her man. Wyler further explores facets of the tale in The Heiress and The Big Country. Cinematography by Ernest Haller. With Donald Crisp, Richard Cromwell, Spring Byington, Henry O'Neill, Theresa Harris, Janet Shaw, Margaret Early, Gordon Oliver, John Litel, and Eddie Anderson. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |