THE OLD MAID

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 63, 6 September 1940, Page 16

THE OLD MAID

(Warners’) This is what is known in the trade as "a woman’s picture." Often that means nothing more than that weddings, weepings, and fashion-parades outnumber gun-fights, murders, and leg-shows in a ratio of about three to one. But in this particular case the classification is apt. "The Old Maid" seems to me to be peculiarly and bafflingly feminine in outlook and treatment: so if I appear to have missed some of the finer points you'll excuse me, won’t you ladies? What chiefly interested me in the film was the opportunity it gave to study the contrasting styles of those two highspirited queens of tragedy, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins. We all know what Miss Davis can do with bad women and just plain unfortunate ones: and here she has the chance to exploit a character complex enough to have delighted the heart of Freud. She’s the old maid of the title, which is a courtesy title only, for the whole things turns on the fact that, as a result of a brief and youthful love affair with a man who is killed, she has a daughter to conceal in public and yearn over in private. What fills the spinster’s cup of sorrow to overflowing and is likely to wet many an eye in the audience is the somewhat sadistic behaviour of her more fortunate cousin (Miriam Hopkins). Never sin; but if you must sin, never repent, somebody once said. The spinster makes the mistake of telling all to her cousin, who thereupon wrecks the unhappy girl’s chance of a respectable marriage out of sheer spite, and sets about winning her child away from her. And the reason for the cousin’s peculiarly feminine behaviour (sorry, ladies!) (continued on next page)

(Continued from Previous page) is simply that the man who loved the spinster had been previously rejected by the cousin and hadn’t been at all broken hearted about it. The film starts with the American Civil war and by the time the turn of the century is being reached Miss Davis is a_ thoroughly soured old maid, Miss Hopkins is having qualms of repentance, and everybody in the story is just about as miserable as it is possible to be. But don’t mistake me. In spite of its somewhat dreary theme and daguerreotype settings "The Old Maid" is a well produced and interesting picture-com-

petent, perhaps, rather than inspired, but often remarkably life-like. As the scheming egotist of a cousin, Miriam Hopkins does an even more efficient job than Bette Davis and even succeeds toward the end in winning some of your sympathy for her character. George Brent’s appearance is very brief but not unimportant (from motives of delicacy I'll not elaborate). He is the only man of note in the story. Didn’t I call it a "woman’s picture "?