THE GREAT LIE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 209, 25 June 1943, Page 13

THE GREAT LIE

(Warner Bros.)

Y the same standards as those applied above, The Great Lie is a long way superior to the average contemporary Hollywood pot-

boiler, even though it may not be in the same street as some Bette Davis masterpieces of the past. It is also notable in its own right for three rather unusual circumstances: (1) It marks one of the few occasions on which the normally tragic or unpleasant Miss Davis has portrayed a likeable and comparatively cheerful young woman and has come through to a happy ending. (2) For about the fourth time, Miss Davis has George Brent as her leading man, and this time she gets him. On other occasions either one or the other has died tragically. (3) Miss Davis has to withstand a determined challenge from Mary Astor, not only for possession of George Brent as husband, but also for the right to be considered the star of the picture. Miss Davis triumphs in the domestic situation, but on the acting side honours are about even. Mary Astor, the "menace" of the story, portrays a famous woman pianist; Bette Davis is a country girl, who has loved the irresponsible Brent from childhood, and who marries him properly after his brief and invalid union with Miss Astor. Thus far the film is just a routine triangular drama, but it gains in interest when Brent is reported missing in an air crash over the Brazilian jungle and the pianist announces that she is going to have a baby by him. So the two women strike a bargain: the legal wife is to get the baby and rear it as her own, the pianist is to get enough money to make motherhood worth while. The long sequence in which the wife insists that the temperamental, self-indulgent expectant mother shall conduct herself as far as possible along Plunket lines until the child is born is treated with considerable humour, drama and insight.