Now, Voyager

Don't let's ask for the VHS; we have this dazzling DVD! Not yet another Star Trek spinoff, but rather a quintessential melodrama based on the novel by Stella Dallas author Olive Higgins Prouty, Now, Voyager features Bette Davis in one of her greatest and most sympathetic roles as a repressed spinster struggling to get out from under the thumb of her hateful, domineering mother (Gladys Cooper). Thanks to a compassionate psychiatrist (Claude Rains), Charlotte (Davis) comes to her own "fork in the road" and, as the Walt Whitman poem that gives this film its title implores, sails forth on an ocean cruise "to seek and find"--meeting Jerry (Paul Henreid), a suave stranger. In one of the movie's most devastatingly romantic moments, he lights two cigarettes simultaneously and hands one to her. And then there's the swooning dialogue: "Don't let's ask for the moon," Charlotte tells Jerry, "we have the stars." Max Steiner won an Academy Award for his stirring musical score, which sounds great on the DVD's restored soundtrack. Highly recommended (as is keeping a box of tissues nearby). (K. Lee Benson) [Blu-ray/DVD Review—Dec. 3, 2019—Criterion, 117 min., not rated, DVD: $29.95, Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD and debut on Blu-ray, 1942’s Now, Voyager features a great transfer with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray release. Extras include two Lux Radio Theatre adaptations from 1943 and 1946 (96 min.), a 1971 episode of The Dick Cavett Show with star Bette Davis (54 min.), an interview with critic Farran Smith Nehme (32 min.), selected-scene commentary by film scholar Jeff Smith on Max Steiner’s Oscar-winning score (27 min.), a new video interview with costume historian Larry McQueen (11 min.), a 1980 TV interview with costar Paul Henreid (4 min.), and a booklet featuring an essay by scholar Patricia White and a 1937 reflection on acting by Davis. Bottom line: this Bette Davis classic sparkles in a handsome Criterion edition.]