In a movie career that spanned six decades, Bette Davis played everything from a Cockney waitress (in Of Human Bondage) to a Bronx housewife (in The Catered Affair) to Queen Elizabeth I (twice, in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and The Virgin Queen). My first exposure to her was through the 1946 film A Stolen Life, in which she has a dual role as a pair of twins — one good, one bad. (This, of course, is not to be confused with 1964’s Dead Ringer, which has her portraying two bad twins.) As I delved into her filmography, I quickly realized that I much preferred Bad Bette to Good Bette. Admittedly, that’s an oversimplification, and many of her roles fall somewhere between the two extremes, but I never get tired of watching her misbehave, and 1942’s In This Our Life offers ample opportunity to do just that.
In This Our Life, directed by John Huston (fresh off of The Maltese Falcon, his directorial debut), stars Davis as the rather extraordinarily named Stanley Timberlake, part of a family of Virginia tobacco merchants. “What we want, we go after, and what we go after, we get,” says her (far too doting and affectionate) Uncle William (Charles Coburn), a kindred spirit who’s just squeezed her father (Frank Craven) out of their business partnership through less than ethical means. What Stanley wants is Dr. Peter Kingsmill (Dennis Morgan), and she gets him — never mind the fact that he’s already married to her sister, Roy (Olivia de Havilland), and that Stanley herself is engaged to lawyer Craig Fleming (George Brent). Any pang of guilt she might feel is no match for the selfishness that motivates her every action.
“Stanley, do you realize what we’ve done, all the unhappiness we’ve caused? If we don’t make up for that in our own happiness, heaven help us,” Peter says. Once his marriage to Roy is dissolved, he and Stanley wed, but despite their determination to be happy together, a variety of problems — including Stanley’s reckless spending and Peter’s drinking — soon make that impossible. When the marriage comes to an abrupt end, Stanley is left wretched and restless. To make matters worse, at least as far as she’s concerned, the abandoned Roy and Craig have found comfort in each other’s arms; she takes this as a personal offense. “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to see other people happy when I’m so miserable,” she tells her father, then adds, “And you just can’t sit and wait for unhappiness to come to an end. It takes too long.” Her solution? Break up the romance between Craig and her sister, of course. But her attempt to win him back has unforeseen consequences, and these bring out Stanley’s selfishness in startling new ways.
Besides being an entertaining melodrama, In This Our Life does have some substance to it, especially where Parry Clay (Ernest Anderson), son of the Timberlakes’ maid, Minerva (Hattie McDaniel), is concerned. Parry, a hardworking young man, has his heart set on becoming a lawyer, and he explains his reasoning to Roy: “A white boy, he can take most any kind of job and improve himself — well, like in this store. Maybe he can get to be a clerk or a manager. But a colored boy, he can’t do that. He can keep a job or he can lose a job, but he can’t get any higher up, so he’s got to figure out something he can do that no one can take away.” Shortly thereafter, he starts to work at Craig’s office and seems to be firmly on the path to success — until Stanley decides to pin her own crime on him, knowing full well that the police will take the word of a white woman over that of a black man.
That being said, the film is, above all else, the story of a woman who lives only for herself, regardless of how it affects the people around her, and Davis certainly makes Stanley a memorable character. In essence, she’s a spoiled child in an adult’s body. “I wish I could fly. I wish I were rich enough to buy a plane and fly away,” she says to her father, pouting like a five-year-old. She’s the kind of person who leaves her fiance for another man at the last minute but uses a check she received as a wedding present to buy an expensive record player; the kind who explodes when someone who’s just found out he has six months to live is too absorbed in that news to save her from a problem she’s created entirely for herself. “All you’re thinking of is your own miserable life. Well, you can die, for all I care! Die!” she screams.
Bette Davis is very, very bad in In This Our Life — and that’s a good thing.
This post is part of The Second Annual Bette Davis Blogathon, hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. Click the banner above to see all of the other great posts.
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Awesome post! I have not seen this one yet but I am now very intrigued. Bette had such a great range as an actress, but I LOVE when she plays villainous roles.
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Thank you! She’s definitely villainous in this one, so I hope you enjoy it.
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Terrific review! Wow, Bette sure liked pushing the envelope in all kinds of ways. And a woman named Stanley? That’s like “A Boy Named Sue” in reverse. 🙂
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Thank you! The movie was based on a novel, so maybe there was more of an explanation for her name there. At any rate, it’s unique. 🙂
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Definitely need to watch this again! I always thought she had range as an actress, but when you put it this way (“from a Cockney waitress…to a Bronx housewife…to Queen Elizabeth I”) that really brought it home to me. I agree – it doesn’t seem like there are many people quite as marvelous being bad as Bette Davis being bad!
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Yes, when you look at her filmography as a whole, it’s amazing how many different types of characters she played. Even, for example, Margo Channing and Baby Jane Hudson, though they’re both actresses, are wildly dissimilar.
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That’s true! I haven’t seen her as Baby Jane Hudson, but when I do I will have to look at how different it is. It must have been quite something to play so many different roles.
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Let’s just say that “different” is a good word for Baby Jane. 🙂
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I’ll remember that! 🙂 I hear there is a new series about the making of that film. Do you know anything about it?
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I think it’s called Feud, but I don’t know much about it beyond that, to be honest. I’ll have to look into it, though.
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I agree: I love Bette Davis when she’s bad, and she is truly bad in this film. I love her performance here.
As an aside, I really like the Parry Clay storyline. I mean, I don’t like what happens to him, but I like that it’s included in the film. It’s quite an indictment on society.
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Yes, I’m glad that they included the Parry Clay storyline too. It really adds some weight to the film and sets it apart from other, similar movies.
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Great post! I would love for you to add it to the Classic Movie Marathon link party that launched last night. http://classicmovietreasures.com/classic-movie-marathon-link-party-premiere/
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Thank you, and thanks for the invitation!
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Excellent post. This is one of my favorite Bette movies. I love it when she’s bad, but I think that Stanley Timberlake in this is my favorite of her villainous roles. Thanks so much for participating in the blogathon, and I’m sorry for the late reply.
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Thank you, and thanks for hosting the blogathon! She really is a lot of fun in this role.
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I’m happy I discovered your blog. I love Bette Davis, she’s a real powerhouse. If you wanted someone to play a bitch, she was the woman.
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Thank you! Yes, she certainly played a lot of memorable characters.
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Indeed, what a major talent. I’ve spoken about her many times on my blog.
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I’ll have to check that out!
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Please do, you’re most welcome on my blog.
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