...asks Millie Drake (Miriam Hopkins),but the answer she gets from the mirror, from the public, from her husband, from her own daughter seems to be "You are! But we just think Kit is a better and deeper person!" Millie and Kit Marlowe (Bette Davis) have been friends from girlhood, and Kit becomes, even in her 20's, a renowned author, a critical success but not a tremendously financial one. Millie, on the other hand, already married to a successful engineer and also pregnant, decides to compete with Kit and write too. However, she pounds out trashy romance novels that are a hit with the masses and therefore make her rich but not critically acclaimed. And that's really all that Millie has wanted since childhood - to be better at Kit at SOMETHING. And yet she keeps failing because Kit's strength is not in what she has but what she is.
Now Hopkins plays Millie so over the top and childish that it is hard to dislike her. She takes her husband, Preston, for granted and loses him - he grows to love Kit but she says that is a line friends simply do not cross, even if the break up of the marriage had nothing to do with their feelings. Millie spends so much time on her career that her daughter Deirdre comes to think of Kit as a mom just as much as Millie. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
I will tell you that the surprises are in the men, not in the women. Millie takes everything the way you would expect her to - throwing temper tantrums dressed in the finest fashions while Kit is the lighthouse, the rock of stability through everything. Now back to the men. For one thing Millie's ex-husband doesn't bother to see his daughter for over ten years! He wouldn't have seen her even then had it not been for Kit bringing them together. Preston is no bum, he's had a good career, but no time or place for his daughter in his life? Then there is Kit's beau during the war years who is ten years younger than her and is constantly nagging her to marry him. Their age means nothing he promises, she's all he's ever wanted ... BUT one walk with Deirdre, who is practically Kit's daughter, and he dumps his 42 year old fiancée for a 19 year old girl? Men! How did we win a world war with these weasels in charge?
I've given a great deal of the plot away, but the joy is in the execution, not the details. I will give this as a sign of how much it interested me. I was getting ready to exercise and this was on Turner Classic Movies. I usually like to listen to music when I exercise, but this film so interested me - it was not your standard 40's soap opera - that I actually watched the film during my workout and then dragged out one of my Bette Davis collections to see the entire thing.
Highly recommended. Just one thing. Do you think Miriam Hopkins did such a good job because maybe Millie actually WAS the real Miriam Hopkins? Just wondering.
Now Hopkins plays Millie so over the top and childish that it is hard to dislike her. She takes her husband, Preston, for granted and loses him - he grows to love Kit but she says that is a line friends simply do not cross, even if the break up of the marriage had nothing to do with their feelings. Millie spends so much time on her career that her daughter Deirdre comes to think of Kit as a mom just as much as Millie. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
I will tell you that the surprises are in the men, not in the women. Millie takes everything the way you would expect her to - throwing temper tantrums dressed in the finest fashions while Kit is the lighthouse, the rock of stability through everything. Now back to the men. For one thing Millie's ex-husband doesn't bother to see his daughter for over ten years! He wouldn't have seen her even then had it not been for Kit bringing them together. Preston is no bum, he's had a good career, but no time or place for his daughter in his life? Then there is Kit's beau during the war years who is ten years younger than her and is constantly nagging her to marry him. Their age means nothing he promises, she's all he's ever wanted ... BUT one walk with Deirdre, who is practically Kit's daughter, and he dumps his 42 year old fiancée for a 19 year old girl? Men! How did we win a world war with these weasels in charge?
I've given a great deal of the plot away, but the joy is in the execution, not the details. I will give this as a sign of how much it interested me. I was getting ready to exercise and this was on Turner Classic Movies. I usually like to listen to music when I exercise, but this film so interested me - it was not your standard 40's soap opera - that I actually watched the film during my workout and then dragged out one of my Bette Davis collections to see the entire thing.
Highly recommended. Just one thing. Do you think Miriam Hopkins did such a good job because maybe Millie actually WAS the real Miriam Hopkins? Just wondering.