Bette Davis gives an excellent performance in this entertaining character study set in the Old South in the 1850's. She plays flighty, flirty, selfish Southern belle Julie Marsden who delights in shocking both her fiancée Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) and New Orleans society by wearing a scandalous red dress to a ball. Fonda leaves her, and comes back a year later with a Northerner wife (Margaret Lindsay). An outbreak of the dreaded yellow fever hits the city, and Davis, finally realising the damage she has caused after she has lost her lover and caused the death of old friend Buck Cantrell (George Brent), has a chance to atone and try to save the life of a stricken Fonda.
A very good film that still holds up well today. Wyler contributes some particularly well-directed scenes, with Davis' entry to the ball most memorable. The terror of the yellow fever is also excellently conveyed, and the images of countless bodies being carted away is still very powerful. Davis is wonderful as Julie, giving one of her best early performances, although I can't see what she sees in Fonda's Pres Dillard! Davis had far better chemistry with George Brent, and Fonda is just boring. Fay Bainter gives a great supporting performance. I found the ending good, but maybe a little unsatisfying. I like ambiguity, and I don't need thing spelled out to me, but is Davis heading towards certain death with her true love or is she going to nurse him, then give him up to Lindsay? Perhaps that is the film's enduring mystery.
A very good film that still holds up well today. Wyler contributes some particularly well-directed scenes, with Davis' entry to the ball most memorable. The terror of the yellow fever is also excellently conveyed, and the images of countless bodies being carted away is still very powerful. Davis is wonderful as Julie, giving one of her best early performances, although I can't see what she sees in Fonda's Pres Dillard! Davis had far better chemistry with George Brent, and Fonda is just boring. Fay Bainter gives a great supporting performance. I found the ending good, but maybe a little unsatisfying. I like ambiguity, and I don't need thing spelled out to me, but is Davis heading towards certain death with her true love or is she going to nurse him, then give him up to Lindsay? Perhaps that is the film's enduring mystery.