That Certain Woman

In a way, it's a pity this movie isn't well-known enough to spawn parodies, because it's more than ripe for it. It's high-toned and glossy, so glossy that it takes a while for one to notice just how cheap and mawkish the sentiment is. Self-sacrificing is not Bette Davis's strong suit, yet she pulls it off, and more convincingly than, say, Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas of the same year. Henry Fonda makes a good sap, but why she loves such a spineless weakling is an unexplained mystery.

Cinzas do passado estreava há 85 anos em Londres. Esse é o Stella Dallas da Bette Davis naquele ano de 1937, melodramas de mulheres que se sacrificam, mas cada qual com 7m peculiar final feliz. Box OP Bette Davis.

There is no doubting Bette Davis' class, but a soppy script keeps That Certain Woman (1937) from being among her more memorable roles. Henry Fonda drowns in the women's story too. The heat however is turned up whenever father-in-law Donald Crisp spars off against the young couple, but that's only a small portion of the movie. Most of it is a naive Davis longing for her true love and clinging to her baby boy, when what this movie needed was more of that Davis attitude.