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My Easy Marketplace - Old Maid (1939)
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $14.46
Your Save: $ 5.52 ( 28% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Donald Crisp, Jane Bryan
Directed By: Edmund Goulding
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301973311
Format: NTSC
ISBN: 6301973313
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release Date: 1998-09-01
Running Time: 95
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1939-09-02
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: DVD please!
Comment: I really love this movie and really don't understand why this has not been released on DVD. Let's get it out there people!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Old Maid
Comment: A beautiful and touching story with Bette Davis, as a young lady who sees her cousin Delia get all the luck, when Margaret starts a home for abandoned children and also her illigimate daughter. But after her foundation is closed she moves in with her Cousin who infatuates the child.
The 31 year old Bette Davis ages thirty years in the part of Charlotte Lowell, an unwed mother who bears a daughter soon after the father is killed in the Civl War. Taken away by Charlotte's treacherous cousin Delia, the child's misguided devotion is won by Delia, while the once lovely Charlotte deteriorates into a sever tight lipped sour old maid.
Great film for the bette Davis fan.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Racy Stuff!
Comment: Considering our perception of those prudish days gone by, this one has a pretty racy storyline rife with infidelity, adultery and illegitimacy. Bette Davis is great in the first half, even while Miriam Hopkins emotes wildly like a silent movie actress. Unfortunately, the movie falls apart in the second half and Davis plays everything on one note, with an absurd makeup job that screams out community theatre. We come to expect a gigantic payoff that is never delivered. A disappointment, but not bad rainy afternoon matinee fare.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Aunt" Charlotte
Comment: Bette Davis stars as an unmarried mother in 1870's America who allows her wealthier, widowed cousin Miriam Hopkins to raise her daughter, thus saving the child and herself from any scandal. The child's father, George Brent, was Hopkins' former fiance, and was killed in the Civil War. Needless to say, it's a painful thing to watch her daughter calling another woman Mother. Davis gives a sympathetic, tightly controlled performance that anchors the film. Hopkins' character isn't well defined, although she manages to give the character some dimension. Brent, in the presence of these two actresses staking their territories, is his customary non-presence. Jane Bryan, as the grown up daughter, again shows that it is too bad her career in Hollywood didn't last more than a few years. She's excellent as the spoiled, headstrong girl. The film has a number of quiet, moving moments, although I found the pacing a little slow. Of course, this isn't the ideal subject matter for me in a film, but I do recognize the quality of the film. I think fans of melodrama and Davis will certainly want to make a point of seeing this movie. I think there are other better unwed mother films, but this one also delivers.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Davis triumphs in classic tearjerker
Comment: This melodrama / tearjerker is fairly typical of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1960s - a basically decent woman breaks the moral code of her day and pays dearly for it. The story is interesting, but its biggest asset is Bette Davis' rather subdued performance as Charlotte Lovell, the woman who pays the price. Made in 1939, the film is from Davis' golden period. She was nominated for an Academy Award every year from 1939 to 1943. While her work here is strong, she received no special acclaim for it, possibly because the role is so similar to the one she played in the superior "Jezebel", for which she won an Oscar in 1939.The movie begins during the Civil War. Socialite Delia Lovell [Miriam Hopkins] is about to be wed, and her cousin Charlotte is in attendance. When Delia learns that the man she promised to marry two years earlier is in town, she sends Charlotte to beg him not to make a scene. The guy is one Charlotte is secretly in love with, and she winds up consoling him in a very intimate fashion. Several years pass. The man has been killed in the war, and Charlotte is running a home for war orphans. When Delia learns that one of the children is actually one Charlotte had out of wedlock and that the father was the dead soldier, she destroys Charlotte's chance to marry a very prominent man. In a cruel twist of fate, Charlotte's daughter grows up in Delia's home and is led to believe that her mother is her aunt. Bette Davis was a rather unusual star for her time because she was also a consummate actress. As such, she demanded roles in which glamour and beauty were often cast aside. Stunningly pretty in the first part of the movie, she spends the rest of it heavily made up to look like a dowdy old maid aunt. It's a startling transformation. By contrast, her co-star, Ms. Hopkins, typical of female stars at the time, barely ages at all. Hopkins actually gives a sensitive, studied performance, but, because of her determination to portray her character as realistically as possible, Davis totally dominates the picture. The photography and the sets are first-rate. The script seems a little truncated, and I wonder if the print we have today is an edited one that the studio made for second run engagements. [This was a common practice in those days.] The score by Max Steiner is not one of his best and relies heavily on stock music, such as Old My Darling Clementine and Wagner's Wedding March. But when would he have had the time to compose one of his full, lush scores for the movie? He worked on at least a dozen movies that year. One of those was "Gone With the Wind".
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