This Spring, I am watching Bette Davis films.
This week I watched Dangerous (1935) and I will be honest before we get too far — I didn’t like it very much. I feel weird writing that because Bette won an Oscar for this movie and it is regarded as one of her breakout roles besides Human Bondage (1934). I think what I didn’t like about this film was the story. It didn’t seem super well written to me.
There are many film buffs who feel similar, according to what I read online.
Bette seemed a bit too over-the-top for me at times, but then she was playing a woman who wasn’t really mentally stable, especially toward the end of the movie.
The movie is about a former theater star who loses her career due to her alcoholism, but is rehabilitated by an architect/theater buff who falls for her.
I partially didn’t like the movie because, to me, it did what too many movies of the 30s through 50s did and made the woman out to be evil and the man innocent, even if he did the same thing as the woman.
How many movies of that period have you watched where everyone warned people of a man who was a womanizer instead of warning a man about the “floozy woman”?
I’ve watched a fair amount and it gets a bit old.
Bette’s character is a mess, and she does bring ruin to all men she’s around and encounters, yes. She’s also ruined her own acting career with her alcoholism.
You can’t help hoping throughout the movie that she’ll turn her life around, and at least once, it looks like she might.
I won’t give the end of the movie away, in case you ever want to try it, but I will say, don’t hold out too much hope. The ending is complex. Did she turn her life around, didn’t she? I’m not sure what to think, but I believe there was some character development.
The beginning starts with our male main character, Don Bellows (Franchot Tone), who is an architect, hearing about what a trainwreck Bette Davis’s character (Joyce Heath) is, but having fond memories of seeing her on the stage.
Don is engaged to Gail Armitage when he sees Joyce, drunk in a bar, later in the movie (what a coinky-dink, eh?). He feels bad for her and wants to rescue her, so he offers to let her stay at his house in the country (White Knight Syndrome anyone?).
The big issue is that Joyce, and many others, believe that she is bad luck for any man who comes around her.
This proves to be true for poor Don, who falls for Joyce and works to rehabilitate her, even though she acts like a spoiled brat who hates the world. Eventually Joyce starts to act better, like a stray cat that finally lets its rescuer give it a pet. Don breaks his engagement with Gail and puts up his fortune to back Joyce in a Broadway show because no one else will hire her unless he offers money.
He wants to marry Joyce, but she refuses him.
That’s when we learn that dear Joyce is still married to a man who was loyal to her but who she financially ruined. She asks him for a divorce and . .. Well, you will have to watch and see what happens.
Bette almost didn’t make this movie, which seems to be a theme with her actually. I’ve read a couple times that she had to be talked into starring in certain films. Those films were later a success.
I’ve also read a couple of times now how she started affairs with her leading men. This one was no different, other than it might be what kicked off her years-long rivalry and bitter feelings toward Joan Crawford, or Joan’s feelings toward her.
Joan and Franchot (what a name) were engaged when Bette started an affair with him, although she claimed it was an unrequited crush. Years later, producer Harry Joe Brown said it was anything but that when he found the two “in a compromising position.”
Reports say that Crawford knew all about it but didn’t break the engagement. Instead, she simply increased her visits to the set to make Davis jealous. She eventually did marry Tone and, like most of her marriages, it lasted about four years.
Dangerous was originally titled Hard Luck Woman.
In the movie, Bette plays a wide range of personalities, from a drunk woman to a woman who hopes for a better future with a man she loves.
I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t thrilled with the movie overall. Critics didn’t like the story, but they did like Bette’s performance.
One critic is said by TCM.com to have given her one of the most famous reviews of her career:
E. Arnot Robertson in Picture Post wrote: “I think Bette Davis would probably have been burned as a witch if she had lived two or three hundred years ago. She gives the curious feeling of being charged with power which can find no ordinary outlet.”
So, while I didn’t like the storyline of the film as much as some, I did like Bette’s performance.
Up next, I am watching The Letter.
My watch list for this feature:
Jezebel https://lisahoweler.com/2026/05/06/spring-of-bette-davis-jezebel-1938/
Dangerous
The Letter (May 26)
Of Human Bondage (May 28)
Now, Voyager (June 2)
The Petrified Forrest (June 11)
I am tacking another movie on to this list — The Petrified Forrest with her and Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart. My husband watched this one years ago and says it is very good so I will use it to round out my Spring of Bette Davis, which will stretch a little bit into the summer.
Sources:
http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2014/2/25/seasons-of-bette-dangerous-1935.html
If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish
