The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2

The most important female star on the Warner Brothers roster during the 1930s and ‘40s, Bette Davis squabbled constantly with her employers over the films she was assigned, even going on strike to avoid appearing in formulaic “B pictures”—and she usually prevailed, landing plum roles in major projects. This five-film collection offers a good cross-section of her work. Lloyd Bacon's Marked Woman (1937) cast her as a nightclub dancer implored by crusading district attorney Humphrey Bogart to testify against her boss, racketeer Eduardo Ciannelli. William Wyler's Jezebel (1938) earned Davis an Oscar (her second) for her performance as a tempestuous Southern belle whose flirtatious behavior has devastating consequences. In William Keighley's hilarious The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), top-billed Davis actually had a supporting role but made the most of her limited screen time as the hardboiled associate of acerbic radio commentator Monty Woolley. Vincent Sherman's Old Acquaintance (1943) reunited Davis with former costar Miriam Hopkins in a story about the 20-year-long personal and professional rivalry of two headstrong women. The two-disc special edition of Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) finds Davis beginning a new phase of her career: her performance as a former child star, living with her crippled sister (Joan Crawford) in a decaying Hollywood mansion, briefly typecast her as an interpreter of grotesque, neo-Gothic characters (very different from her earlier films, it's nonetheless a classic). Also included in this excellent boxed set is the topnotch original 2005 TCM documentary Stardust: The Bette Davis Story, as well as DVD extras such as commentary tracks, new and vintage featurettes, and classic cartoons. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)