The Great Lie (1941)

Nominated for 1 Academy Award:

Best Supporting Actress: Mary Astor (WON)

 

There are many Bette Davis films that I’ve never seen, given her long career, but probably not many from the good ones. This one, I suspected would fall in the middle. It used to play a lot on TCM when I was a kid & teen, but I never saw it. It’s a melodrama and, like any melodrama, quite exaggerated, but also successful by the end of it. Bette is the lead, but Mary Astor gets the juicy role.

It’s about a love triangle, and a woman who makes a deal to get the other woman’s baby, and by the end of it all sorts of complications. The screenplay is not much, and also kind of predictable, but always pleasant to watch. It does pick up the pace in the last 30 minutes, which are pretty good, and you get to wonder if it’s gonna be a happy ending or a tragic one. Bette is just fine, the role is a cliché, but Astor is quite remarkable by playing a bitch that’s also charming and cool and slick. She is the villain, and yet you root for her, and what a great year it was for her, both with this and especially The Maltese Falcon. Bette’s highest achievement in the same year was The Little Foxes, which I adore.

 

I give it: 7.5/10

IMDB LINK