Bette Davis never missed a chance to knock Errol Flynn in public--"He thought I was a fool to work so hard," she related to Dick Cavett. But in this well-produced period romance, he's much more interesting than she is, playing a rootless journalist who falls in love with Davis at first sight (and can you believe that, with Anita Louise in the room?) and proves an unreliable, alcoholic, ill-tempered spouse. Bette hasn't much to play, and does so quietly and realistically. But a parade of great character actors keeps turning up in the supporting cast--Beulah Bondi, Henry Travers, Alan Hale, Jane Bryan, Lee Patrick, Laura Hope Crews, Ian Hunter, the always-underrated Dick Foran--and the period details, including a short but spiffy 1906 San Francisco earthquake, are excellent. Max Steiner contributes one of his usual single-tuneful-theme-repeated-over-and-over scores, and Anatole Litvak keeps things moving fast. The happy ending is totally unconvincing, and, as others have suggested, it wouldn't have hurt to provide a little more detail on the lives of the two other sisters. But it's an exceedingly handsome film, with an exceedingly handsome leading man.
Review of The Sisters
