Stubs - Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage (1934) Starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Francis Dee, Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny. Directed by John Cromwell. Screenplay by Lester Cohen. Based on the novel Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (London, 1915). Produced by Pandro S. Berman. Run Time: 83 minutes. USA. Black and White. Drama

Bette Davis, like most Hollywood actresses, got her real start on the Broadway stage. She made her debut in 1929 in Broken Dishes, and followed it with Solid South. In 1930, she came out to Hollywood, with her mother, for a screen test at Universal. Though she failed a couple of screen tests and Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Studios, considered terminating Davis' employment, cinematographer Karl Freund saved her. He told Laemmle that Davis had "lovely eyes” and she made her film debut in Bad Sister (1931).

Universal renewed her contract for six months and gave her a small role in Waterloo Bridge (1931) and then lent her out to Columbia for The Menace (1932) and to Capital Films for Hell's House (1932). After one year and six unsuccessful films, Laemmle elected not to renew her.

Davis was ready to return to New York, when actor George Arliss chose her for the female lead in The Man Who Played God (1932), his film at Warner Bros. This was the break she needed. Originally signed to a five year contract, she would remain at Warner Bros for the next eighteen years.

She would appear in about 30 films in the next few years before The Cabin in Cotton (1932) brought her to the attention of John Cromwell, who wanted her for his film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1915 novel, Of Human Bondage. Not only did Cromwell think she was right for the role of Mildred, but so did producer Pando S. Berman at RKO, who owned the film rights to the novel. Even Maugham was said to approve of her being cast in the role.

But Jack L. Warner objected at first, instead casting her in Fashions of 1934, The Big Shakedown (1934), Jimmy the Gent (1934) and Fog Over Frisco (1934). Warner felt playing the role of Mildred would damage her glamorous image and pointed to Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, and Ann Harding already having declined to play it for that reason. The only reason Warner relented was that producer Mervyn LeRoy wanted RKO contract actress Irene Dunne for Sweet Adeline, the screen adaptation of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical, and the two studios agreed to trade actresses.

To prepare for her role as Mildred, Davis hired an English housekeeper with a Cockney accent that she secretly studied for two months. But this did not impress Leslie Howard, who resented an American actress being cast as a British woman. Howard let it be known to Davis, who recalled the production in her memoirs, “The first few days on the set were not too heartwarming. Mr. Howard and his English colleagues, as a clique, were disturbed by the casting of an American girl in the part. I really couldn't blame them. There was lots of whispering in little Druid circles whenever I appeared. Mr. Howard would read a book offstage, all the while throwing me his lines during my close-ups.”

Production began on February 19, 1934 and continued until April 7^th. Retakes were done April 30, May 7 and June 1-2 1934. The film was released July 20, to fairly positive reviews, especially for Davis.

The film opens in Paris, where British-born wannabe artist, Philip Carey (Leslie Howard) has been studying painting for the past four years. When his art teacher tells him that his work lacks talent, Philip returns to England and attends Medical school. There he is humiliated by his professor, Dr. Jacobs (Desmond Roberts), who uses Philp’s club-foot as a teaching moment for other students when the club-foot on a young patient isn’t very interesting.

Philip (Leslie Howard) is taken by Cyril (Reginald Sheffield) to help
make an impression on tea room waitress Mildred (Bette Davis).

Philip is taken to a tea room by another medical student, Cyril Dunsford (Reginald Sheffield), hoping to make an impression on a waitress, Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis), that the other student sort of fancies. Mildred is anemic and pale-faced and more interested in another customer, Emil Miller (Alan Hale), a loud but well-to-do womanizer. While Cyril has had enough, Philip is infatuated by her and falls passionately in love with her.

Philip is infatuated with Mildred and goes back to ask her out.

He comes back the next day and asks her out to dinner, to which she tells him "I don't mind," an expression so uninterested that it infuriates him – which only causes her to use it all the more. They go out a few times, but she continues her cold, bored behavior and refuses Philip a goodnight kiss. She even stands him up for a theater date in order to see Emil.

Mildred skips out on Philip to keep a date with Emil Miller (Alan Hale).

That doesn’t keep him from daydreaming about her, even seeing her in one of his medical school anatomy books. Philip is so distracted by her that he fails his medical exams.

Philip finds himself fantasing about Mildred.

But Mildred doesn’t change her mind about him. When Philip finally proposes to her, Mildred declines, informing him that she will be marrying Emil instead. She even goes so far as to berate him with insults about being romantically interested in her in the first place.

To help him forget, Philip is introduced to Norah (Kay Johnson), an attractive romance writer, who falls in love with him. With Norah, it seems that Philip finally seems to be getting over Mildred. But just when he is finding true happiness, Mildred reappears in his life. She is pregnant, having been abandoned by an already married Miller, and turns to Philip for help.

In order to take care of Mildred, Philip breaks off his relationship with Norah (Kay Johnson).

Philip provides Mildred with a flat and arranges to take care of her financially. He then breaks off his relationship with Norah, who loves him very much. Norah and Philip admit how bondages exist between people linking Norah to Philip and Philip to Mildred and Mildred to Miller.

Mildred is an uninterested mother and gives the baby to a nurse to take care of.

After Mildred gives birth, Philip intends to marry Mildred, but she is an uninterested mother and gives the child to a nurse to take care of. Mildred is easily bored and to celebrate their engagement, Philip invites another medical school classmate, Harry Griffiths (Reginald Denny). Griffiths is gregarious and flirts with Mildred and she reciprocates. After dinner, Philip makes a point to tell Harry to leave Mildred alone and Harry agrees, saying he has no interest in her at all.

Philip invites Harry (Reginald Denny) to dinner and he steals Mildred away.

But the next morning that has changed. Mildred delights in showing Philip a letter that Harry sent her, written overnight and delivered by special messenger, confessing his love for her. She informs Philip that she loves Harry too and the two run off to Paris.

Philip returns to his studies and makes a very positive impression on Thorpe Athelny (Reginald Owen), who takes a liking to the young doctor and invites him out to his house for Sunday dinner. Athelny has a large family with nine children. The eldest daughter, Sally (Frances Dee), serves them and Philip takes an interest in her. A romance blossoms as Philip returns over and over again as we’re shown a montage of Sally against the pages of a calendar.

Former patient Thorpe Athelny (Reginald Owen) invites Philip
to dinner, where he meets his daughter Sally (Frances Dee).

But like a bad penny, Mildred returns with her baby, expressing remorse for leaving Philip. He brings her and the baby into his apartment and lets her take his bedroom. Mildred objects to the paintings of nude models that Philip still has out as a reminder of his artistic past. She can’t believe that Philip isn’t interested in her and lashes out at him one night calling him a laughable, "gimpy-legged monster." He wants her out and she goes, but not before destroying everything in his place, including slashing his paintings and burning the bonds his Uncle had sent him to pay for his medical school.

Mildred does not take well to Philip's rejection.

Without money, Philip loses his apartment and is forced to drop out of medical school. But before he leaves, Dr. Jacobs insists that they take care of his club-foot first. Now Philip is able to walk normally, but has no job. The Athelnys take him in and Thorpe gets him a job working with him as a window dresser.

A note arrives from Mildred asking to see Philip, who reluctantly goes. Mildred has fallen on hard times. Now working as a prostitute, her baby now dead, Mildred is sickly and drawn. She asks Philip to examine her and he quickly diagnosis that she has tuberculosis. He leaves her what little money he has on him.

Philip gets dragged into Mildred's world and diagnoses her with tuberculosis.

The next letter Philip gets is a notification that his Uncle has died and has left him a small inheritance, which appears to be equal to the bonds that Mildred had destroyed. Philip returns to medical school and passes his tests. He signs up to be a doctor on a ship heading to Australia, much to the disappointment of Sally, who wants to marry him. He promises that he will if she still feels the same about him when he returns and she agrees as long as he still feels the same about her.

Now that he has his license, Philip tells Sally that he's going to Australia onboard a ship.

Meanwhile, Cyril and Harry are dispatched to retrieve a sick woman from a rundown flat, which turns out to be Mildred. Later, Philip hears about the interesting case, but Cyril and Harry won’t let him into the room. They inform him that it was Mildred and that she has died.

Mildred near death.

Her death frees Philip from his obsession and he decides not to go to sea after all, but Sally still needs some convincing but she agrees to marry him.

Freed from Mildred, Philip convinces Sally to marry him.

While this film is sometimes referred to as Pre-Code, make no mistake the film was affected by the Production Code Administration, which apparently had many misgivings about the story and did demand some changes. As an example of this, Mildred’s illness was changed from syphilis in Maugham’s novel to tuberculous. It is therefore still a little surprising to see Philip’s paintings of topless women getting such prominent display.

This film made a true star out of Davis. Maybe she sensed its importance as well, as she was able to convince the director to let her design her own makeup for the scenes depicting the final stages of Mildred's illness. Even though she was not one of the three actresses nominated by the Academy for Best Actress, Warner instructed all employees with voting rights to write her in. So while not officially nominated she did receive votes. She would lose out to Claudette Colbert, who starred in It Happened One Night (1934), another role that Davis wanted, but that Warner wouldn’t loan her out to Columbia to play. He didn’t like the idea of lending her out for two consecutive films. The Academy would also change their rules and no longer allow for write-ins. Davis would have to wait a whole year to be officially nominated and win her first Academy Award for Dangerous (1935). It was said at the time that award was really recognition for her work in Of Human Bondage.

While Davis is very convincing as a cruel and manipulative Mildred, she is not enough to save the film for me. The film, which is now in the public domain, has not aged well. It suffers from several maladies, including slow pacing through the first half, quick transitions and the character of Philip, played by Leslie Howard.

While Howard is a bit stiff as an actor, the trouble is really the character of Philip. It is hard to have much sympathy for such a milquetoast. He keeps going back to help Mildred who shows him no love, only derision. We’ve all had people who we can’t shake in life, but it is unfathomable that after she destroys everything he owns and wrecks him financially that he would go to see her again. He doesn’t even grow a pair until after she’s dead. He doesn’t overcome her as much as he outlasts her. That doesn’t speak well of his future with Sally, since she is obviously second choice.

There is very little in the way of development of characters. Philip’s relationship with Dr. Jacobs, as an example, seems to turn on a dime. The first time we see him Jacobs is making an example out of Philip’s club-foot, but only when Philip is forced to leave school does he offer to cure his deformity. Where does this compassion suddenly come from?

And why as an example, would Philip have anything to do with Harry after he stole away the woman that he loves? The next time we see them together after the incident, they are civil to one another. Where is the punch in the face that Harry so desperately deserves?

Most of the supporting actors don’t really get to do much. Frances Dee as Sally gets to do little more than smile pretty when she’s on screen. Even actors like Alan Hale, Kay Johnson and Reginald Denny are saddled with one-dimensional characters who are usually the most active off-screen. We hear more about their antics than actually see them performed.

The editing in the first half seems rather uneven. The individual scenes can be rather stagy and slow, but the story moves in time jumps which can make it a little hard to follow.

The character of Thorpe Athelny as portrayed by Reginald Owen is almost enough to pull the film out of its nose dive. Thorpe is a breath of fresh air and Owens enthuses him with wit, humor and passion. His performance helps make the second half of the film much more watchable than the first. Owen would later go on to portray Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1938).

Of Human Bondage was a film that I wanted to see for a long time, but sadly it is not one that I can truly recommend. Bette Davis’ performance might be enough for some, but the film does not really draw you in and the central character’s passivity doesn’t really give you someone to identify with in the film. If you feel compelled to watch, then be sure to watch Reginald Owen as Thorpe. Too bad there isn’t more of him in this film.