DVD Reviews
DVD Review: The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3
By June L.
Apr 17, 2008, 14:54 GMT

April 5th of this year Bette Davis would have been 100 years old, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate her life and art than watching a film or films from Volume 3 of the Bette Davis Collection. 

Six of her films, wonderful showcases for her style and dramatic flair, are gathered in this set and surrounded with quite an array of special features certain to both delight fans and win new audiences.

The six films are The Old Maid, Deception, In This Our Life, All This and Heaven Too, The Great Lie and Watch on the Rhine.  Each film has been re-mastered and is crisp and elegant in black and white.  The sound is not bad either, as there is little or no fuzzing of the sound tracks for both dialog and music. 

If that isn’t enough, Warner Brothers has added Warner Night at the Movies for each feature.  A visiting friend (who is a Hollywood glamour days fan) watched many of these with me, and we were surprised and pleased at the variety of featurettes and interesting specials included. 

They range from classic cartoons, to early Technicolor nature short subjects, one act dramas, musical numbers (who knew Ozzie Nelson had a band before doing Ozzie & Harriet on television) trailers for other films that would have been coming attractions had you been watching the feature in the theater, and newsreels to set the film in time. 

And finally add commentaries on the films by people who have knowledge of the subject matter and you have one very rich experience.  With all this bounty the only disappointment (very minor), is that the sound tracks were missing for some of the newsreels. 

Granted, it is easy enough to identify the stars or public figures involved, but for younger audiences, it would help to have a voice over, or at least subtitles to explain what is going on.  This is negligible compared to the lovely way these features are presented. 

It would be grand to see many of the classics treated this way, giving audiences a view of the time period in which the film was made, including the attitudes, fashions, and events of the world.  This would make collecting these films even more interesting. 

Each of the six Bette Davis films selected for this set has something that makes it special, in addition of course to having Bette as a star.  Sometimes it is a co-star giving a performance that is etched on the memory, or other times it is the material itself, a famous novel or play upon which the film is based that has made audiences care about the story for decades. 

There are lots of tears and tender moments, melodrama and romance, the kinds of things one remembers from watching old movies at slumber parties.  With bowls of popcorn and boxes of tissues, we didn’t just watch Bette Davis films, we experienced them, everyone sobbing over the endless sacrifices of the Old Maid, or the troubled life of the governess in All This and Heaven Too. 

Astonishment at the perfidy of human beings in Deception and The Great Lie, kept us gasping that no one could really be that mean and selfish.  Finally strength of character and courage had us cheering the human spirit and left us uplifted by the nobility of the family in Watch on the Rhine. 

This is all good stuff!  If you are already a Bette Davis fan, or a fan of classic movies this is a dream set.  If you’ve never watched these classics, this is a great place to start!

The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.