Reviews (46)

The Ultimate Woman's Picture
At a time when Hollywood paid more attention to its female audience and made films for them, this may be the best of the bunch. A padded Bette Davis stars as Charlotte Vale, an overweight, unattractive spinster bullied by the mother who never wanted her. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, her sister-in-law arranges for her to meet a psychiatrist played by Claude Rains, and after spending time at his "hospital", she emerges thinner, beautiful, and more prepared to face the world, a world which include Paul Henreid, a married man that she falls in love with while on a post-recovery cruise. It's the kind of role an actress must love, and Davis plays it with restraint and class. Rains is good as usual, and Henreid delivers one of his best performances. The supporting cast is excellent, with Gladys Cooper pulling out all the stops as the tough mother and Mary Wickes bringing a gentle humour to her role as a nurse. The musical score by Max Steiner is excellent, and of course, there are the famous moments of Henreid lighting two cigarettes at once, something that wouldn't work in today's movies, but is quite effective in this film. With it's Ugly Duckling/Cinderella angle and it's sense of romance, this has to be the ultimate woman's picture. It knows its audience and delivers.

One of Bette's Best
I can never decide whether VOYAGER is the best Bette Davis
movie or DARK VICTORY. She is fantastic as a spinster who
is dominated by her monster mother, beautifully played by Gladys
Cooper. After her nervous breakdown she begins a new life
and meets Paul Henried who of course is married but later she
is able to help Paul's child. This is the movie where he lights
two cigarettes and gives her one and ends with "Oh Jerry, let's
not ask for the moon, we have the stars" Fabulous score by
Max Steiner. Fine acting from Claude Rains, Bonita Granville,
Ilka Chase and in a very small role, Lee Patrick. They don't make 'em like this anymore so thank God for home video. The
DVD transfer is terrific.

Overwrought and Only Somewhat Convincing Melodrama
Davis plays nice with middling results. The acting is fine, to be sure, but I miss the feistyness of her better movies. A hapless neurotic woman breaks free of her tyrannical and hateful mother. She seeks therapy and begins to live her own life. She learns that life can't be perfect but it can always be better & happiness s not impossible. Could be seen as encouragement to wallflowers.

Now Voyager - Bette at Her Best
Bette made some terrific films.... this is my personal favorite along with "Mr. Skeffington"... the ONLY criticism is the biographies of the cast ONLY work with Ms. Davis.. the others on the menu do not function.... still.. the plus side is the stunning transfer of the film to DVD. It is fresh and few flaws are visible on this version. I saw the new version of "Sunset Blvd." just after seeing this film, and though "Voyager" is 8 years older, it looks far cleaner and crisper than "Sunset" does. Bravo to the restoration crew here! The film itself, is of course, a masterpiece and well worth the purchase price. A true gem!

A Classic for the Fans
'Now, Voyager' tells the story of hapless introvert Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis), her near-nervous breakdown machinated by her domineering Mother (Gladys Vale) and her subsequent recovery with the help of the dashing J.D. Durrance (Paul Henreid). Directed by Irving Rapper (Another Man's Poison), 'Now, Voyager' is another glorious slice of early forties melodrama, and a total Davis vehicle.

Not that that's a bad thing, actually. Her performance as Charlotte Vale is excellent, she's emotional and deep enough to be believable, and her private exchanges with JD and her Mother are excellent illustrations of the power of Ms. Davis as an actress. Henreid, too, is wonderful as the stiff and faithful JD, stern enough to cause Charlotte frustration yet likeable enough to generate sympathy from the audience.

The supporting cast are a credible bunch - Gladys Vale is an excellent Matriarch (where are the actresses of this calibre today?) and Ivisible Man Claude Rains is hugely charismatic as Dr. Jaquith, a Vermont-based psychologist who all-but saves Charlotte from herself. Comic relief is supplied in the shape of the always-entertaining Mary Wickes (the crotchety nun in the Sister Act movies) as Dora.

Direction is beautiful, with noir-esque interiors and excellent lighting techniques employed to best suggest the sense of Charlotte subsisting in a grim dictatorial household. Rapper's style is a strange contrast to the script, too - it's got a more organic flow about it than the sometimes-stilted dialogue. The score is provided by the genius Max Steiner and is, as one would expect from a man of this legendary reputation, exactly perfect for the tone of the piece.

DVD Quality is excellent, perhaps a little worn in places but on the whole, it's fantastic, and certainly better than a lot of other later DVD conversions. The extras are perfunctory (and indeed, as one reviewer pointed out below, half seem to be missing!) but they don;t make the picture.

On the whole, 'Now, Voyager' is definitely one for the fans. It seems to have established all of the trademark Davis moves (cigarette, EYES, clipped accent, constantly jiggling arm) and is very stilted in some scenes, approaching Camp (see Charlotte's exchanges with the dreadfully annoying Tina Durrance for proof of this!). While it is an endearing and oftentimes emotionally-involving story, one can't help but feel that it will win no new fans to the genre.

Still, if you're fan, you can't go wrong with this. ... Read more

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Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly make a cute (if not exactly convincing)couple in this Hollywood soap-opera version of Herman Wouk's coming-of-ageromance. French/Russian Natalie Wood is decidedly non-ethnic as MarjorieMorgenstern, the starry-eyed Jewish college girl who falls in love with summerresort small-timer Gene Kelly (who never quite sells himself as a show-bizdreamer with limited talent). A stolid mix of modern, clear-eyed romance andold-fashioned melodrama, it nonetheless manages to slip in some frank (for 1958)discussions of sex and the single girl and sketch out an intriguing portrait ofJewish life in New York's upper crust between the romantic complications.Everett Sloane and Claire Trevor are excellent as Marjorie's success-obsessedparents, pre-Adam 12 Martin (Marty) Milner offers his boy-next-door charmas the former flunky turned Broadway success, and Ed Wynn is delightful as hereccentric uncle. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

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In this 1942 melodrama, founded on the novel by Olivia Higgins Prouty (who also wrote the novel on whichStella Dallas was based), Bette Davis stars as Charlotte Vale, a dowdy, repressed woman who, overwhelmed by her domineering mother, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She finds help at a sanitarium from a kind psychiatrist (Claude Rains), who turns her into a beautiful, confident woman. As a new person, she takes a pleasure cruise, where she meets Jerry (Paul Henreid), an architect trapped in an unhappy marriage, saddled with a troubled daughter. The two fall in love, but, of course, the romance is doomed. Yet their paths cross on occasion, and, despite their feelings, Charlotte finds satisfaction in helping Jerry's depressed child. The film will seem familiar to new viewers--the campy style was the pattern for many tearjerkers to come, and its most famous line has been oft repeated ("Don't ask for the moon--we have the stars"). But the heartstrings are tugged, and as Paul Henreid chivalrously lights two cigarettes and hands one over to the doleful-eyed Davis, pull out the box of tissues--you're gonna need 'em.--Jenny Brown ... Read more

Reviews (56)

"To Seek and Find"
Sister #3:

"The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted
Now, Voyager sail thou forth to seek and find."- Walt Whitman

This was my favorite Bette Davis movie when I was growing up.I saw it many, many times.I loved her character - she was the "good Bette Davis" - I loved her clothes, and I loved the story: the transformation of an ugly, insecure duckling into the beautiful, graceful swan. I see the Charlotte Vale character as a women who must overcome herself in order find happiness.As the good Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), says, she "has come to a fork in the road and must decide which road to take."Ultimately, she decides that she can express her love by helping others overcome what she had to overcome.She makes a graceful, lovely decision.Charlotte Vale was my role model when I was growing up in the late 1960's and 70's.

"No one ever called me darling before."
A great melodrama, a tearjerker about love and sacrifice that grabs you by the throat and won't let go. Bette Davis is Charlotte Vale, a supressed spinster who gets help from her psychiatrist (Claude Rains). Breaking out of her shell, she goes on a voyage to Brazil where she meets Jerry (Paul Henreid), who is married. They fall in love and then must part. Davis later becomes the surrogate mother to Jerry's daughter Tina, who is suffering from a lack of love just as Charlotte did as a girl. In a famous scene at the end, Davis and Henreid reconfirm their love and its continuation through Tina: "Don't ask for the moon - we have the stars" Davis tells him. Max Steiner's music score is lush anddesigned to make the tears flow even more. At first, when the part about Tina begins, it seems like a tag-on for affect (the scene just before it with Davis on a train pleading for the absent Jerry when she needs him most seems like the logical conclusion to the picture), but it starts to grow on you, thanks to Rains's light touches at the right moments. It's a story of impossible, idealized love and the sacrifices attendant to that love - if it was an opera there'd be a double suicide. But it's moving and touching just the same. Davis was famous for this kind of role, and she is excellent. And Henreid and that famous bit of lighting two cigarettes at once - gotta love it. Definitely worth a watch.

Now,Voyager-First rate quality DVD.
Warner Bros of old would be proud of the quality of this DVD from a technical point,the crispiness of the black & white print is sheer outstanding-compare that with the trailer which is also enclosed.Over the years this was typical of the results you would expect from a VHS print.

Dolby have done an excellent job of cleaning up the sound track also.I've worked in the film industry/photography for many years so I can see quality when it comes along.This DVD lives up to expectation,not only to the contents but picture perfect as well.

It looks as though it's just arrived off the Warner lot only yesterday.

Abosultely Marvellous!!!
This is a MARVELLOUS film of which displays the true character of a young lady burdnened down by her mother. Throughout the film, a man on a cruise encourages her true character embeded within heart to be shown.I encourage every person who finds classic movies to his or her enjoyment to please view this movie.

Now, Voyager
With the help of her psychologist, Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) breaks lose from the iron grip of her stern and domineering mother (Gladys Cooper).Charlotte loses weight, trims her eyebrows, and finds love with the handsome Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid) while on a cruise to Rio.
NOW, VOYAGER is full of that thick, gooey stuff of which impossible melodramas are made - the cruel parent, the ugly duckling child who must wrest herself out from under the suffocating maternal wing so she may blossom into a beautiful swan, etc., etc., etc.Tear-jerking muck is a toxin to my system, and my thumb hung heavy over the `eject' button, ready to zap this one into oblivion.
But Davis, who must be the greatest movie star ever, plays her character free of artifice and false sentimentality.By the time she meets (unhappily) married Henreid on the cruise ship I was totally involved in her story.By the time they parted at the railroad station and she asked "Shall I tell you what you've given me...?" I was reaching for the hankies.
What a remarkable actress was Bette Davis.
... Read more

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This family favorite, a south-of-the-border variation of the classic boy-and-his dog story, stars Michel Ray as Leonardo, a young Mexican boy who appeals to the president of Mexico to spare his beloved bull from death in the bullfighting ring. Does the bull meet a grisly fate at the hands of a sombrero-topped matador? We're not telling, but charming performances and some gentle tear jerking make The Brave One an agreeable movie for kids. The film is also known for an interesting footnote of Hollywood history: When it won the Academy Award in the now-defunct category of best original story, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (using the pseudonym "Robert Rich") was unable to accept the Oscar due to the infamous Hollywood blacklist. He officially claimed the award in 1975. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A BOY AND HIS BULL
Earnest, Disney-like film about a boy who tries to save his bull from the matador's ring in Mexico City. The ride atop an old farm truck into Mexico City is a beautiful scene suggesting a "Wizard of Oz" affection and the only drawback is the kid's unremarkable ability to show expressions of joy, sadness, excitement, etc., as the camera focuses in on his face. The bull makes for a unique, likeable hero. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay of 1956.

A family adventure for all
This is a beautiful movie of a little boy in Mexico, his pet bull and the adventures that bonds them both. This movie has a great sound track that compliments the scenery, the story and the people. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A BOY AND HIS BULL
Earnest, Disney-like film about a boy who tries to save his bull from the matador's ring in Mexico City. The ride atop an old farm truck into Mexico City is a beautiful scene suggesting a "Wizard of Oz" affection and the only drawback is the kid's unremarkable ability to show expressions of joy, sadness, excitement, etc., as the camera focuses in on his face. The bull makes for a unique, likeable hero. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay of 1956.

A family adventure for all
This is a beautiful movie of a little boy in Mexico, his pet bull and the adventures that bonds them both. This movie has a great sound track that compliments the scenery, the story and the people. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Mediocre, disappointing
Bette Davis, as we all know, is an American icon, a legendary American movie star, a great American movie actress, winner of multiple Academy Awards and many Academy Award nominations. But this doesn't mean that the acting of the feisty, volatile, tempestuous screen star was always good. She was at her best in the 1930s and 1940s (and in 1950's All About Eve). In some of her work in the 1950s, she lapsed into Bette Davis playing caricatures of Bette Davis, and this is one of those unfortunate occasions (an earlier one is her performance in Beyond the Forest, 1949).

The vehicle here is a dated, stagy melodrama which must have looked tired even in 1951, and must have appealed only as a showy vehicle for Davis. She stars here with her recent husband Gary Merrill, after their successful collaboration in All About Eve. Davis still seems to be playing the part of Margo Channing here; it's a very actressy performance. In addition to being over the top, she's over the hill for the part; she looks overweight and overripe (after all, she'd been making movies for 20 years at this point), hardly the femme fatale who could lure handsome young Anthony Steel away from his much more attractive young fiancee Barbara Murray.

Bette's overdone, actressy performance, replete with lots of eyeball rolling, cigarette lighting and smoking, and cocktail pouring and drinking, combined with a conventional performance from Merrill and the dated, stagy melodrama, cardboard characters, and obvious contrivances of this play, makes for an undistinguished film that is no credit to the Davis filmography. Even the cinematography (this is an independent British production) is bad; it's too dark and has the grainy look of an early TV kinescope. The only memorable feature is the polished performance of Emlyn Williams as an annoying busybody veterinarian constantly sticking his nose into his neighbors' business.

DULL DAVIS? I'M AFRAID SO.....
Dreary Davis vehicle which should never have been made. She's a famous authoress living in England who murders an inconvenient ex-husband. She's having it off with her secretary's boyfriend (who's much younger) and thinks she's pulled off the perfect crime (she's a mystery writer) until a former partner of the husband's shows up. He offers to cover for her but things get ridiculously out of hand and he kills her prize horse. This is not good. Then begins a game of wills that ends most ironically as Davis falls prey to her own schemes. She hams it up in this one and leaves no co-star unscathed. Murky b&w photography doesn't help either. It's slow and very stagy throughout. Her then husband Gary Merrill plays the partner and even he seems at a loss over how to cope with the script. If a Davis film can be called a total waste then this is it. Even she can't save it from sinking into tedious boredom. Stick with her other films instead and forget this turkey.

THIS MOVIE IS POISON...BUT BETTE DAVIS MAKES IT PALATABLE...
This film, based upon the play "Deadlock" by Leslie Sands, is not one of those films that will make the viewer stand up and cheer. Were it not for Bette Davis, it would probably not even merit a viewing, so improbable is the script with which she has to work. The other cast members, as well, have thankless roles.

Davis lights up the screen as mystery novelist, Janet Frobisher, who lives in isolated splendor on the Yorkshire moors in England. Her nearest neighbor is the local busy body and veterinarian, Dr. Henderson, a role gamely played by Emlyn Williams. Frobisher, a selfish, amoral vixen, falls in love with her secretary's fiance, Larry (Anthony Steele). One little problem stands in her way of eternal bliss. She, herself, is married to a man with a criminal past, one with whom she has had little contact in recent years. In the first few minutes of the film, it is revealed that she has single handedly and cold bloodedly dispatched her husband, who has had the misfortune to show up unexpectedly, to the great beyond. Unfortunately for her, she gets an unwelcome, surprise visitor on the heels of her murderous act, when her husband's partner in crime, George Bates, shows up looking for him.

The improbable storyline that follows is kept afloat by Ms. Davis alone. Gary Merrill, the real life husband of Bette Davis at the time, stoically and woodenly plays the thankless role of George Bates. He, as well as the rest of the cast, fades into the background, when on screen with Ms. Davis. Even Ms. Davis, however, is unable to keep this clunker totally afloat. Stagey, with leaden dialogue and a ridiculous premise, this film would have immediately tanked, were it not for the Ms. Davis. Struggling valiantly with this turkey, Ms. Davis smokes, drinks, kills, and loves, as only Ms. Davis can, with over the top acting that manages to make the viewer stay with the film. Davis devotees will, undoubtedly, enjoy this film, despite its many flaws.

This no frills DVD offers little more than an extensive list of Ms. Davis' films by way of special features. The sound and picture quality of this ninety minute, black and white film, however, is good.

Bette is only the sweet thing in this poison.
To the point : There is no doubt that Bette Davis is the greatest actress in the world. She was at the right time and the right place, and above all she was talented. Meryl Streep have the same kind of success that Bette had,unfortunately we don't have too many great roles today for great actress like Streep. For you fans, I think you won't find any meat to sink your teeth in Another Man's Posion. If you really want to see Bette's best performance apart from the obvious like All about Eve, Dark Victory, Now Voyager, etc Maybe you should see Mr Skeffington, Dead Ringer, The Anniversary or even Beyond Forest Bette's last film with Warner which she thought was really bad.But, apart form miscasting Joseph Cotten, Bette can turned a bad film to a watch-able one. ...

HIGH CAMP DAVIS
Celebrated mystery writer Janet Frobisher (Davis) - who lives in a secluded mansion on the Yorkshire moors - is in love with Larry (Anthony Steele), a young engineer engaged to marry her secretary (Barbara Murray)..........It is fascinating watching Bette Davis, a superb screen actress if ever there was one, play everything in a blaze of breathtaking absurdity. The melodramatic gamut seldom has experienced the workout it is given in ANOTHER MAN'S POISON, a wild and fanciful saga where Davis, queen of the vixens, combs her hair, lights cartons of cigarettes, snaps her fingers and bites her consonants! No one has ever accused Davis of failing to rise to a good script; what this shows is how far she could go to meet a bad one. It's obvious that director Irving Rapper let Bette basically direct herself, for the same zealous overplaying isn't evident among the other cast members. Not to be missed by Davis fans! - it's safe to say that there are few things in the cinema quite like it. Based upon the play DEADLOCK by Leslie Sands, this little flick from 1952 was made in England and was, interestingly enough, produced by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. ... Read more