The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 (The Old Maid / All This, And Heaven Too / The Great Lie / In This Our Life / Watch on the Rhine / Deception)

Since this is Volume 3 of the Bette Davis DVD sets, one would expect it to reach into the more controversial of her Warner Brother's legacy. Six films are included as follows:- in 1939, possibly Davis's best year, "The Old Maid" paired her with the bitchy Miriam Hopkins in an emotional work out as a spinster who lives with her cousin who raises Davis's illegitimate daughter as her own. The film is very well made by Edmund Goulding and based on an Edith Wharton play but it was a dated yarn even in 1939.- in 1940, "All This and Heaven Too" was filmed as Warner's rival production to "Gone with the Wind", a long and detailed film, the opposite of the normal gutsy Warner's product. Davis plays a governess in the unhappy home of Duke Charles Boyer and the film was based on fact. It is a dull film but Davis underplays poignantly.- in 1941, "The Great Lie" was an entertaining but absurd soap opera with fireworks from Oscar winning Mary Astor as Davis's rival for the affections of George Brent. This was one of the films which contributed to Davis's reputation for interference. She found the screenplay poor and worked with Astor to re-write it and give it some guts.- in 1942, the controversial "In This our Life" was released with a thin Davis playing a southern gal wreaking havoc on all around her. The film has underlying themes of racism and incest and is well constructed. Olivia De Havilland plays her sister and they make an interesting contrast. Davis is mannered and frenetic but it is not simple enough to dismiss her performance as such because she absolutely nails a bitch on heat.- in 1943, "Watch on the Rhine", based on a very successful Broadway play, starred Paul Lukas in an Oscar winning performance as an anti fascist. Davis subdues her fireworks and matches Lukas with a warm and sympathetic portrayal of the wife who understands the reality of her husband's work. The film is stage bound and the children are awful but it is a worthwhile piece of history.- 1946, Davis was pregnant and insecure and the overwrought "Deception" betrays her personal tensions. The film is high camp entertainment with an over the top Claude Rains as a conductor/composer. A plush melodrama, probably the last real Davis vehicle, what it lacks in credibility, mainly due to the censors, it makes up for in over the top dramatics.The prints of all of the films are superb. All the disks contain Warner Brother's Night at the Movies, that entertaining program of cartoon, shorts and trailers - something for everyone. There are commentaries on 4 of the films - two good, one not so good and one dreadul. Janine Basinger gets better and better and her comments about "In This Our Life" are first rate. She also has a wry sense of humour which adds so much. The commentary for "Deception" is interesting because the commentator carefully points out how what went on behind the scenes, particularly Davis's personal life at this time, affected what can be seen on the celluloid. This is a good character study of Davis and her art. For "All This in Heaven Too", Daniel Bubbeo lost me in the first 10 minutes when he managed to completely repeat himself, almost word for word. He is wet in the worst sense. The commentator for "Watch on the Rhine" is a Lillian Hellman biographer and manages to talk almost entirely for the duration without mentioning the film. He also is a Claudette Colbert fan, including irrelevant stuff about Colbert, even going so far as to undermine Davis's famous performance in "All About Eve" when she replaced Colbert. This is a rotten commentary.The set is excellent value.

I buy these collections because they give you your favorite star on demand. In this instance, this six film collection might be called the Suffering Bette Collection if it weren't for the inclusion of In This Our Life. These movies are all good, though some tanked at the box office.Here is a breakdown of what you get in this package.The Old Maid is a Civil War melodrama. Bette manages to have a one time fling with George Brent before he toddles off to the battlefield. However, he left her a gift to remember him with. He impregnated her. Of course, Brent is killed and Bette allows her cousin to raise her child with her cousin's children. Drama ensues and who better for Bette to tangle with than her cousin (Miriam Hopkins). This is a fairly typical WB melodrama, but Bette and Miriam are great when the feathers fly. George Brent is great eye candy. It's easy to understand why Bette gave up her virtue.All This And Heaven, Too is set in 19th century France. Bette is a nanny to the Duke and Duchess du Presline. The Dutchess is a shrew and the Duke (Charles Boyer) is attracted to Bette who is gentle and kind and great with the children. A scandal ensues and there are no winners in this one. It's not all downhill for Bette. She gets solace from the Rev. Henry Fielding(Jeffrey Lynn).The Great Lie proves that life can be complicated. Bette's daredevil husband (George Brent) is presumed dead. His ex-wife (Mary Astor) who probably has the shortest lived marriage on record turns up pregnant and doesn't want the baby which will hamper her career as a concert pianist. Bette takes on the baby as her own and then her husband turns up very much alive and as handsome as ever. Bette and Mary hog the screen in this one and both play off each other with gusto.Watch On The Rhine is WWII propaganda at its best. Bette is an American returning home after 2 decades to DC to her wealthy family with her freedom fighter husband (Paul Lukas) and three kids with odd accents. Lots of intrigue and nazis abound. Based on a stage play and very well done.In This Our Life has Bette stealing her sister's (Olivia De Havilland) husband (Dennis Morgan). This story has Bette as an evil slut who is selfish and mean and shows absolutely no remorse. There are subtle hints of incest. Will evil Bette get hers in the end? this is rather heavy handed in the drama department, but Bette is a hoot as a southern charmer named Stanley.Deception has Bette as a concert pianist who has been having an illicit relationship with her mentor Hoelenius (Claude Rains). Her husband (Paul Henried) who is a musician, escapes the nazis and reunites with Bette. Bette thinks she can escape an enraged Hoelenius, but can she? This one bombed in the theaters, but the cat and mouse game Rains and Davis play is interesting and tense.If you like Bette Davis, this set will be a good fit. The fims offer a lot of drama and good supporting players and are great when you need a Bette Davis fix.

If you enjoy movie classics & Betty Davis, you'll like this movie. I certainly did.

Movies included:1. The Old Maid2. All This, and Heaven Too3. The Great Lie4. In This Our Life5. Watch on The Rhine6. DeceptionI enjoyed these rare old movies. Had not seen any of them. I bought on amazon sale 2016 for 15.99. This is a good set.

A oood gift enjoyed by many..

good shape for used

5 Acceptional movies all in one package, I have owned these movies in VHS format and just love the acting and actors in their roles. Bette Davis makes each of these 5 stories so interesting, you more or less get pulled into the plot and you can hardly wait to see how it will all pan out. My favorite was Of This Our Life her character was so believeable . . . you just wanted to choke the snot out of her. My next favorite was The Great Lie with fine acting by all including George Brent and Mary Astor. I am looking forward to my next Bette Davis Collection and fine acting. I highly recommend to the public for their viewing enjoyment.

This collection contains six Bette Davis films, from 1939 to 1946, on six separate DVDs. The DVDs do not have their own cases, but are housed on hubs on movable leaves within the main box, which snaps shut. A cardboard slipcase covers the inner box. (This arrangement differs from that of my Bette Davis Volume 1 set, which had five movies in five separate DVD cases, all inside a larger slipcase. The main advantage of not having the separate DVD cases is that the whole set of six DVDs in the Volume 3 set takes up less shelf space than the set of five DVDs in the Volume 1 set.)The picture and sound for all the movies is good. Each DVD has good chapter menus, the original trailer for the film, and its own set of special features, including "Warner Night at the Movies" and, for 3 or 4 of the DVDs, a commentary track.I think I should report a minor but systemic flaw in the "Warner Night at the Movies" feature. One of the regular items in this feature is a newsreel, generally from the exact same year of the film and often from within a month or two of the film's release. But for some reason -- and I've never seen this problem on any Warner DVD before -- in at least two of the newsreels there is no audio, and in another of the newsreels the sound is there for only part of the running time. It's pretty pointless to have a "newsreel" where the viewer can't hear what the announcer is saying, so one wonders why Warner would include such defective newsreels.It is logically possible that I got defective DVDs -- defective only in the newsreel audio. But this seems unlikely; what are the chances that I alone would get three defective DVDs in a set, and defective *only* on the newsreel, and *only* for the audio? It seems more likely that some sort of engineering mistake was made in manufacturing the DVDs or in the audio mastering. If anyone else had this problem with this set -- or if anyone didn't -- it might be useful to Amazon customers if those people would append comments here, to give some idea of how widespread this defect is. But in any case, the newsreels are short -- only about a minute each -- and the ones that are missing the sound don't seem particularly interesting anyway. I mention the missing audio only because potential buyers deserve to know what they are buying.For information on the films themselves, readers can consult the IMDb. I will say that I didn't buy this collection for Bette Davis, but for some of the other stars and because some of the plots sounded interesting. However, Davis was very good in most of the films. I particularly liked her in All This, and Heaven, Too, and in Watch on the Rhine; in both of these films her characters are different from the usual extreme characters one expects her to play, and it is a testimony to her acting talent that she can portray more than one kind of female role convincingly. I think she is helped in this by two stellar performances in these films by Charles Boyer and Paul Lukas respectively; Boyer gives one of his finest acting performances, Lukas one of his best as well. Olivia De Havilland also has some fine moments in *In This Our Life* (which has some fine performances from several other actors as well). In the other films, there are good performances by Miriam Hopkins, Mary Astor, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains.All the films have that Warner Bros. 1940s polish about them -- great music, sets, photography, scripts, etc. They are pleasant to watch for their sheer competence of execution. You will enjoy at least some of these films if you are a lover of that period of film history -- unless you simply dislike Bette Davis so much that she spoils any film for you. (But if that were the case, you probably would not be reading this review!) As I said, I didn't buy the collection for Davis. But two or three of her performances in these films are outstanding, which is icing on the cake for me.I got a brand-new copy of the set very recently for only $40, but as it is out of print at the moment, many people are asking outrageous prices for the set. Don't jump to pay the top dollar. These movies are good, but the set is not worth hundreds of dollars. Look around for new or "like new" used copies. If you dig around patiently, eventually you should find a copy at a reasonable price.As a DVD product, I would give this set about 4.5 stars out of 5, due to the faulty audio on the newsreels. But when you take into account all the other special features, and the high quality of the prints, and the fact that the movies are mostly very good, a ranking of 5 stars would not be terribly misleading.