NOW, VOYAGER - DVD review

It is regrettable but true that female movie stars have always had a pretty short shelf life in Hollywood. While male stars are still filling lead roles well into their fifties and sixties and romancing girls half their age, women are usually past their starring prime by their mid thirties and are thereafter relegated to small character parts, mothers, or grandmothers.

But there are the exceptions. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Katharine Hepburn are examples that come to mind. And since it's Bette Davis who is the subject here, take a look at a starring career that spanned six decades, starting in 1931 with "The Bad Sister" and ending in 1989 with "Wicked Stepmother." In between there were any number of classics: "Waterloo Bridge" (1931), "The Cabin in the Cotton" (1932), "Of Human Bondage" (1934), "The Petrified Forest" (1936), "Jezebel" (1938), "Dark Victory" (1939), "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939), "The Little Foxes" (1941), "Now, Voyager" (1942), "Deception" (1946), "All About Eve" (1950), "The Star" (1952), "The Virgin Queen" (1955), "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962), "Dead Ringer" (1964), "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964), "Death on the Nile" (1978), "The Whales of August" (1987), and probably a dozen more of your own favorites that I missed.

Ms. Davis's career included romances and romantic adventures, gushy melodramas, so-called women's pictures, straight serious dramas, and gothic mysteries. She was, indeed, an actress of many talents and temperaments.

In honor of her position as one of Tinseltown's major leading ladies, Warner Bros. have put together "The Bette Davis Collection," a box set of five of her more-important pictures. It does not include what I consider to be her very best film, "All About Eve," because that title was issued separately on DVD a few years earlier, but it does contain "Dark Victory," "The Letter," "Mr. Skeffington," "The Star," and the subject of our present review, "Now, Voyager," each title also available separately.

"Now, Voyager" is an unabashed soap opera, a tearjerker that over the years has had more than a few viewers reaching for their hankies, and no one's ever wanted it any other way. It became one of Davis's most popular films. The movie, which recounts the experiences of an overprotected, ugly-duckling spinster who is encouraged by her therapist to change her life, takes its title from two poems by Walt Whitman from his collection "Leaves of Grass." The first poem, which is referred to in the movie, reads, "The untold want by life and land ne'er granted, Now, Voyager sail thou forth, to seek and find." The second poem reads, "Now finale to the shore! Now, land and life, finale, and farewell! Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store)." In either case, the lines are apt. The lady charts a new course for herself, a physical makeover followed by a literal sea voyage that turns her into a new person.

Charlotte Vale (Davis, Oscar nominated for the role)--plump, graying, bushy eye-browed, never married--has lived her entire life under the thumb her repressive, mean-spirited mother, a mother we're told never wanted Charlotte in the first place. The Vales are a rich, old Boston family, and the mother, Mrs. Henry Windle Vale (Gladys Cooper, also Oscar nominated for her role), expects only the most proper decorum and devotion from her daughter. Poor Charlotte tends to her mother's every whim until she has a nervous breakdown, whereupon at the urging of her sister she visits the country retreat of Dr. Jarquith (Claude Rains), a renowned psychiatrist, for a few months' therapy.

At the suggestion of Dr. Jarquith, Charlotte effects a complete physical makeover, losing weight, dying her hair, dressing more smartly, and, most important, plucking her eyebrows! Then, heeding Whitman's advice, she voyages forth on a cruise to Rio, where on board she meets the man of her dreams. Jerry Durrance, played by Paul Henreid, is perfect in almost every way--a handsome, charming, debonair architect. He is an elegant gentleman traveling alone on business to South America, but as Charlotte is soon to find out, he is also very, very married, with a wife and two daughters. (Henreid was on a roll at the time, having made this film and "Casablanca" back to back.) Their shipboard friendship soon blossoms into a full-fledged love affair and leads to the movie's subsequent complications. It was not an age such as our own where divorce was a common answer to marital difficulties. Jerry will not, or cannot, divorce his wife.

As the story continues, Charlotte attempts to further develop her self-confidence and self-reliance, and with determination, she succeeds. But with Jerry, she is on less-sure ground. The moth has turned into a butterfly, but she still has a desperate need to be wanted, needed, and loved. The ending gets a little complicated insofar as Charlotte's relationship with Jerry and his youngest daughter is concerned, but it's wholly in keeping with the emotional tone of the film.

Besides the love story, Charlotte's transformation, and Ms. Davis's acting, the movie remains popular for two additional reasons. First, there is Max Steiner's music. It's another sweeping score from the composer who practically invented the integrated movie musical track with things like "King Kong," "The Informer," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "A Star Is Born," "Gone With the Wind," "Casablanca," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," and literally hundreds of other motion pictures. For "Now, Voyager" he won an Academy Award, and even if you're not a fan of old movies, you should find the main theme instantly recognizable.

The second notable reason for the film's success is Henreid's now-famous cigarette lighting routine. He puts two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them both, and then hands one to Davis. It was considered the height of sophistication at the time and copied all over the world. Henreid repeats this piece of business throughout the movie. But I'll let John Eastman explain it, from his book "Retakes" (Ballantine, New York, 1989): "Henreid claimed to have originated this bit on the set, but it had apparently been used between George Brent and Davis herself in 'The Rich Are Always With Us' (1932). Following 'Now, Voyager,' at any rate, the fad caught on with the public, and Henreid couldn't go anywhere without being accosted by women begging him to 'light me.'"

"Now, Voyager" is romantic and romanticized, sudsy and sentimental, a quintessential "woman's picture" that, nevertheless, has over the years found quite a following among men as well. The story is a throwback to an earlier age in Hollywood when movies didn't have to be loud or vulgar to sell a point. They say they don't make 'em like they used to, which comes as a relief to a lot of people. But "Now, Voyager" for all its exaggerated mawkishness can still keep one entertained for its full two hours. Thank director Irving Rapper ("The Corn Is Green," "The Glass Menagerie," "Marjorie Morningstar"), composer Max Steiner, the fine supporting cast, but most of all Ms. Davis for that.

Video:
The black-and-white print Warner Bros. found must have been cleaned up for the DVD because it looks like new. In fact, there are so few visible age spots, it looks better than most modern films. The B&W contrasts are deep, dark, and distinct; the gray levels are well accented; and grain is almost nonexistent. Quite a beautiful video presentation, actually.

Audio:
The audio is remastered in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono, also cleaned up to sound better than it ever did in 1942. There is virtually no noise in the background, as there would have been in its day, and the midrange is as smooth as velvet. Naturally, there is a limited dynamic range and limited frequency extremes, but since the movie is all dialogue, what does it matter?

Extras:
Understandably for the presentation of an older film on DVD, there are few extras included. There is a series of scoring session music cues that are almost as good to listen to as watching the movie. There's a cast and crew list, with detailed information about Bette Davis. And there is a theatrical trailer that makes one appreciate all the more the excellence of the feature print. A generous thirty-eight scene selections accompany the movie, plus English and French spoken languages, and English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
Schmaltz sells, then and now. "Now, Voyager" was one of the most popular films of 1942 and one of most famous and popular films of Bette Davis's lengthy career. Years ago, the "New Yorker" wrote of the picture that "If it were better, it might not work at all. This way, it's a crummy classic." Well, no, it's not "a crummy classic," but a classic woman's weeper it is. And, as I've said, no one would want it any other way.