User Reviews

The context for this film makes it a lot more interesting to watch. Several years before this movie was made, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins also starred in "Old Maid". During this filming, the two volatile actresses fought like dogs. It got so bad that Davis even ended up sleeping with Hopkins' husband--and they truly hated each other. In fact, the acrimony between them was far worse than the much publicized feud between Davis and Joan Crawford. How they got these two together for another film is curious, but Davis must have enjoyed it immensely, as she played a woman who was practically a saint and Hopkins was forces to play someone who is thoroughly despicable.

The film begins in the 1920s. Davis is returning to her old home town after man years' absence. In the interim, she's become a well-respected author and the town is gearing up for her return. However, of all the people anticipating, the one who has put the most energy into it is Hopkins. It seems she and Davis grew up together and Hopkins has grand plans about their reunion. However, it soon becomes obvious that Hopkins really wants to be the center of attention and when others intrude on her plans, she becomes furious and behaves like a child. Davis and Hopkins are able to patch things up--mostly because Davis (like she did throughout the film) made a lot of allowances for friend. In other words, she bit her tongue and remembered how much she cared for her.

During this tempestuous reunion, the very shallow Hopkins announces that she thinks it must not be that difficult to become a famous author and she's decided to become one, too! A normal friend would have been annoyed, but Davis takes this in a good-natured way. Amazingly, after a few more years, Hopkins IS a famous author. While not as well-respected as Davis, her books are smash successes. Unfortunately, while she is now rich and famous, her immaturity and selfishness have been allowed to blossom. Though in love with herself, he daughter is more like a household object and her husband can't stand her. Eventually, the husband divulges to Davis that he loves her and asks her to marry him, but Davis is too good a person and sends him packing.

Over time, Davis and Hopkins remain friends. However, as throughout the entire film you wonder why! After all, Hopkins is thoughtless and self-centered. But, Davis is always her friend--helping her raise her daughter (since the husband had long since left). Hopkins' horridly selfish life gets more and more difficult for those around her and the viewer is left to wonder how much longer this will go until Davis kills her. Well, this does lead to one of the best showdowns in film--the scene between them is a true classic. However, by the end, even after this big showdown, the two are reunited as friends--a very dissatisfying ending for an otherwise perfect film.

While there is a lot more to the film than this (including a subplot involving Gig Young and the grown daughter of Hopkins), but this is really not all that important--the fireworks between Hopkins and Davis are. That is THE reason to watch this film. And, despite the DVD having a short entitled "Old Acquaintance: A Classic Woman's Picture" and having commentary by a gay man throughout the commentary track, I hate when films are seen as a 'woman's film'--"Old Acquaintance" is a wonderful film regardless who watches it! This is one straight man who had a thoroughly wonderful time watching!

By the way, I have read quite a bit about both actresses and can say that both had enormous egos and many around them hated them (though there were many exceptions as well). But, at least in the case of Davis, despite being a rather nasty person, she was a heck of a terrific actress. As for Hopkins, her temperamental nature appears to have led to her once-promising career to have fizzled soon after "Old Acquaintance".

As powerful as Bette Davis was in Hollywood in the early 1940's, the biggest female star of her era wasn't above giving less so another performer could have more. Her subtlety in "The Great Lie" lead to Mary Astor winning an Oscar; She graciously took second fiddle to the outrageous Monty Woolley in "The Man Who Came to Dinner", and allowed Paul Lukas front burner in "Watch on the Rhine" to lead him to his own Oscar as well. For her second pairing with Miriam Hopkins, she simply reacted while Hopkins overacted, and the result was Davis stealing away the film without really trying.

Like her character in "The Old Maid" (her first pairing with Hopkins), sympathy ended up being on her side, not Hopkins. At least in "The Old Maid", Hopkins allowed subtly fake charm to dominate her performance. But here, she chews the scenery with so much venom, the meat of her performance never reaches her digestive system. She makes the character of the selfish and silly housewife and mother-to-be so resentful of Davis that it seems that she actually hates every aspect of the character that Davis plays, fictional or not. Whether or not the truth of the rivalry between these two ladies off screen was true or not, Davis acts like it is non-existent, while Hopkins seems determined to upstage her co-star every chance she gets.

Even when they are having meaningful heart-to-hearts, Hopkins acts entirely too grand, as if she was the diva in an opera, and the sympathy that should be there for her character (abandoned by her husband after she achieves success as a writer of trashy romantic novels) simply vanishes. After one confrontation, it is obvious that Davis's character (and perhaps Bette herself) has just had enough, quietly shuts the door, walks back to Hopkins after changing her mind about leaving, and you can hear yourself shouting, "Knock her lights out!"

Hopkins, so good in her early romantic dramas, sinks to a new low here, and thus after this, was reduced to touring mostly in stock and supporting parts in films where she often bellowed her lines. The one film of her later career that somehow lacked this was a sympathetic role in "The Heiress" where she simply played the role as written. John Loder wins sympathy as Hopkins' husband who smartly walks out after simply having had enough, leaving her with barely a word. Gig Young is handsome as the younger man who proposes to Davis, all the while unknowingly in love with Hopkins and Loder's grown-up daughter (Donna Moran).

If you want to see the difference between a braying performance and one with similar selfishness played with realistic acting, watch Moran's initially spoiled brat have her tantrum then slowly return to reality with a glow as she begins to see things beyond her own ego. Esther Dale gets some good moments as Davis's housekeeper, and Anne Revere has a memorable one-scene cameo as a reporter interviewing Davis. Hopkins really does well in this one scene with her reaction to Revere's embarrassment after insulting typical romantic trash novels like herself.

In spite of the film's short-comings, this soap opera is fascinating to watch, and one longs to have been an extra or crew member to have witnessed what really went on. Davis makes her acting look so easy, but at times, you begin to feel sorry for everybody in the film and on the set (even Hopkins) because it seems that everybody (including her) must have had a terrible headache because of her constant ranting.

Bette Davis must have been relieved to know that once she was done filming THE OLD MAID, chances were she didn't have to work with Miriam Hopkins again. I can only imagine her expression in having to deal with Hopkins for one more movie after suggestions to re-team with pal Mary Astor didn't fall through. She must have thought it was some kind of sick joke. Or karma. Who knows. To the end of her life she stated that while she respected Hopkins as an actress and even went to say that Hopkins didn't have to take on supporting parts so quickly, she was a congenial person, but working with her was another story.

It's not hard to see why: Hopkins tries insanely hard to steal every scene she's in from the moment the camera focuses on her back and she talks to Bette Davis' character over the phone in the opening scene. It's as if she were constantly aware of being under the camera lights and she needed to make sure that the viewer would see her as well. It only adds to her insecurity that her shrill performance, while very good, is not the focus of the movie -- indeed, she's off screen for a good chunk of the movie later on -- as it is Davis' character's story.

Still, it makes for great watching: at every turn there is a chance for one of them to try and out-act the other. However, you wouldn't know that they couldn't stand each other here, just like in THE OLD MAID. The opening scenes are quite funny in establishing who Kit Marlowe and Millie Drake are as friends. Kit is the more understanding, the more tolerant of the two: she knows how to deal with her flighty friend and has come to see her quirks as basically that. Millie, while a drama queen who wants to give her friend the biggest reception ever, ever so slightly suggests an envy of Kit's career, but really has no malice towards her. You could tell they're really friends that have since fallen into the rut of duty.

It's an outsider that begins to see the real nature of this friendship. John Loder, playing Preston Drake, is clearly unhappy in his marriage to Millie but stays by her regardless until he meets the woman he should have married in Kit. He can't see how being so diametrically opposed women they could even be in the same room together -- Millie is just too needy, too over-the-top to the more sensible Kit. However, it's said that every person has his or her complement and the two women, more sisters than friends, seem to be just that.

It's when Millie begins to succeed as a romance writer -- a Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts of her time -- that the friendship starts to show signs of fraying at the seams. Millie shows her claws in hints, and Kit moves on, serving the war and doing more relevant things with her life. But for a movie that has two such stars, it's only fitting that somehow they remain together because after all... they're "friends", and this is a soap opera about longtime "friends" after all.

OLD ACQUAINTANCE is a good woman's picture. It has good pacing and despite covering over twenty-odd years between the lives of these two women, it doesn't feel slow or repetitive. Interesting is the relationship that develops between Kit and Deirdre (Dolores Moran), Millie's daughter, who at times reacts to Kit as if she were her own mother and not Millie. Of note, as well, is how Davis looks in her role -- one only has to see how she'd look ten years later to see how accurate the make-up department got it. Where the movie goes into its only dramatic moment is the confrontation scene -- dragged out with takes upon takes since Hopkins was overacting, trying to make Davis' character more vicious but only succeeding in making herself look more the vicious woman caught -- and the reconciliation scene, which is highly unlikely. But in ending the movie on this note, it's a striking irony that for the second and last time both actresses who detested each other and had major demands on set gave their best performances. The result is the movie that became OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

...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.

Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins reunite after being together in "The Old Maid!" It sets practical but lonely Bette against flighty but happy Miriam. Bette plays Kit Marlowe..a single, successful author coming home to the small town she grew up in. She meets up again with childhood friend, Millie Drake played by Miriam Hopkins. There's always been a bit of a rivalry between the two, even though they've been friends. Millie has a daughter, a husband and love. Kit has a successful career but no one really to love in her life. Kit's visit triggers jealously in Millie, so she decides to become a successful author like Kit. She writes a steamy, sexy book and Kit helps it along with her connections. Lo and behold, the book becomes a best seller, starting Millie on a career eclipsing her old friend's career, but she loses her husband along the way when she lets success go to her head.

The subplots swirl around these two women...Millie's envy of Kit and then Kit's help turns Millie into a success but she loses her husband who becomes infatuated with Kit. Preston professes his love for Kit, but she in turn tells him no because of Millie and her daughter. Kit falls in love with a younger man, but she finds herself unwilling to commit because of his age. He in turn falls in love with Millie's daughter. When Kit finally realizes what she has and wants to be with him, he admits to her how he has fallen for another woman..the daughter Kit never had..the daughter of her best friend. The threads weave in and out of these two women keeping them bound together.

When Millie finds out Preston was attracted to Kit long ago, she sets this scene up which is one of the funniest I've seen from Bette Davis. Millie admits to Kit that she told her daughter Kit and Preston were having an affair. She goes off on a self-pitying tirade at Kit. Kit tries to reason with her to no avail. Finally, Kit leaves the apartment only to come right back again. She walks over to Millie and then shakes the life out of her and throws her down on the couch.

After reading interviews by Ms. Davis about some of her frustration at some roles she has endured, it was a revealing look at how she wanted to shake the life out of some producers and directors. Ms. Hopkin's hair and shoulders were just shaking with it, and you have to wonder how many takes it took for this one.

The end finds them there in Kit's apartment drinking champagne and watching the fire. They've shared more than just a friendship now. They're shared the loss of love but have kept their friendship intact.

This is a delightful movie, and one worth watching. It reminds us how friends alway stick no matter what. No one is perfect and each have faults and good qualities. It is true "old acquaintances" can accept both good and bad and stick to the end!

Bette Davis gets my vote for all-time best female actress. I have many of her films on DVD...but I'm not tempted to purchase this one. But, it's not because of Bette Davis.

One reason is that, in my view, the film sort of wanders. I got to thinking that if someone asked me what the film was about in ONE sentence, I couldn't tell them. It would take a paragraph...or more.

But importantly, this film finally answered a question I have long had. Was Miriam Hopkins a really good actress? After watching this film a couple of times, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is NO! NO! A thousand times NO! I think she is horrible and over-the-top in this film, and frankly I have grown tired of her frequent performances as a foolish ninny. Perhaps some others agreed, since after this film she didn't make another movie for 6 long years. If you want to watch a horrid performance, perhaps this is a good reason for you to watch this film. And the famous scene where Bette Davis violently shakes her (which even Davis claims she enjoyed doing in a realistic manner)...shaking her was not enough. She should have slapped her a few times, as well.

Davis' performance her is quite good. Isn't it always? This is the "good Davis" you'd probably enjoy knowing.

Gig Young has a supporting role here, and it's nice to see another of his early films where he showed a flair for drama, rather than his later films where he seemed to always show up as the lead male actor's best pal. John Loder, as Hopkin's husband, is very pleasant here, and he's in a role that is very sympathetic. And, Esther Dale is wonderful, as always, playing the maid.

In terms of plot, in my view it wanders. You're unlikely to be able to get a grasp of where the story is going. At first this is refreshing when you assume Mariam Hopkins book is going to be awful and she will hate Bette Davis for telling her so. Instead, Hopkins goes on to write pop books that sell, while Davis writes deeper books that don't sell, but impress the critics. And so the film takes off in a different direction than you expect, and continues to do so throughout.

I enjoyed Bette Davis here, and most of the rest of the cast, but Mariam Hopkins is so awful it's entertaining...but for all the wrong reasons. Still, it's worth watching at least once.