Dangerous **** (1935, Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay) – Classic Movie Review 2697

Director Alfred E Green’s 1935 drama Dangerous stars Bette Davis at her early finest. Her florid, highly mannered, but still effective acting secured the 27-year-old rising star her first Best Actress Oscar for this portrayal here.

She makes a five-course meal out of her role as a drunken, formerly starry Broadway actress, Joyce Heath, who has tumbled into the trash can of life as a down-and-out who was once the most promising young actress on Broadway.

Now Joyce is fighting for her career in a hoped-for spectacular comeback and for her self-respect with the help of prominent young nice-guy New York architect Don Bellows (Franchot Tone).

Don is engaged to the beautiful and wealthy Gail Armitage (Margaret Lindsay) when he meets the tempestuous Joyce but he feels indebted to her because her performance as Juliet inspired him to become an architect. While rehabilitating Joyce in his Connecticut home, Don falls in love with her, who ominously warns him she is a dangerous jinx.

Unaware that Joyce is married to the ineffectual but devoted Gordon Heath (John Eldredge), Don asks his fiancée Gail to free him and offers to sponsor Joyce in a play.

The screenplay by Laird Doyle is based on his story Hard Luck Dame. Unfortunately, the drama is old fashioned and a bit melodramatic and mushy. But the film, though much less well known or popular than some of Davis’s movies of the era, is never less than fascinating thanks to the skill of Davis.

She became an overnight star as a result of her performance and her ensuing Oscar, though Davis always felt it was a consolation prize for not having been nominated for Of Human Bondage the previous year.

Surprisingly, maybe, Davis’s only other Academy Award was for 1938’s Jezebel. Dangerous turned Davis into a star but it was Jezebel that turned her into a superstar.

Steven Spielberg bought Davis’s Oscar statuettes for both films from a sale of Planet Hollywood memorabilia at Sotheby’s on 19 July 2001 (Jezebel) and 14 December 2002 (Dangerous), and returned them to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to protect the Oscar statuettes from further commercial exploitation.

Three songs by Harry Warren – ‘Forty-Second Street’, ‘The Little Things You Used to Do’ and ‘Sweet and Slow’ – are heard on the soundtrack. 

Perc Westmore styled Davis’s hair in the bob cut that became her trademark.

Warner Bros production chief Hal B Wallis convinced a reluctant Davis that she could make something special out of the character, inspired by one of Davis’s idols, actress Jeanne Eagels.

Now this is Dangerous. Davis was immediately attracted by Tone, who was engaged to Joan Crawford, who apparently knew about their liaison, but didn’t break her engagement, though this is supposedly the start of the alleged feud between the two actresses.

The movie was remade as Singapore Woman with Brenda Marshall in 1941, using some of the sets from Davis’s 1940 film The Letter.

The main cast are Bette Davis as Joyce Heath, Franchot Tone as Don Bellows, Margaret Lindsay as Gail Armitage, Alison Skipworth as Mrs Williams, John Eldredge as Gordon Heath, Dick Foran as Teddy, Walter Walker as Roger Farnsworth, Richard Carle as Pitt Hanley, George Irving as Charles Melton, Pierre Watkin as George Sheffield, Douglas Wood as Elmont and William B Davidson as Reed Walsh.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2697

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Movie Queen (Bette) by Graeme Jukes 2015.