DARK VICTORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 38, 15 March 1940, Page 30

DARK VICTORY

(Warners) I have met several women who tell me that they wept over this picture as they have never wept before. As a man, I’m not ashamed to admit that the finale moved me more than I can ever remember having been moved at the movies, and that, coming out of the preview, I had to go for a good walk by myself in the sunshine to get over it. All of which must make " Dark Victory" sound not quite the average person’s idea of entertainment. And in a sense that is true, for this film is far above and beyond the average drama. It is, indeed, not far short of being revolutionary; for whoever heard before of a movie heroine who went through a whole picture under sentence of death and wasn’t rescued in the nick of time? Yet Bette Davis does just that in "Dark Victory." She is a spoiled, nervy young sportswoman who develops a mysterious ‘brain disease and learns that nothing can prevent her going blind and dying from it within ten months. And nothing does prevent her. In the final scenes, she simply creeps away alone, like some wounded animal, and waits quietly for death to come to her. That last glimpse of the young heroine, at peace with her soul, lying on her bed in the darkened room, awaiting the end, is enough to wring anyone’s heart -and at the same time to lift it up with exultation. For somehow this seems the very essence of human courage. "Dark Victory" is not a perfect picture. Even a character-study by Bette Davis which is perhaps the most interesting she has ever given, a supporting performance by Geraldine FitzGerald which is almost as good, and some supremely moving passages, are not quite enough to make it that. There are moments in the script when the author’s otherwise shrewd observation of human conduct seems to have failed badly. For instance, would any woman, knowing herself about to die as this one does, be able to push the fact so far out of mind that, in her last few minutes, she would be interested in her horse’s chance in a steeplechase and what sort of cocktail party had been arranged for her friends? And would any husband, let alone a doctor who knew all about the case, fail to notice when the last attack of blindness had struck her? But George Brent, having watched lovingly over her for ten months, goes off at zero hour to attend a medical conference. Yet such lapses do not prevent "Dark Victory" being a remarkable and epochmaking film. Screen heroines may have died before; but never in such daring circumstances as this; and never before that I can remember has any film been dedicated quite so fearlessly to the theme of death. Warner Brothers can still claim to be the pioneers of Holly- | wood. ;