"The Old Maid" comes to us twice removed from the complicated but heartfelt Edith Wharton novella. First, Zoe Akins adapted it for the stage and then Casey Robinson adapted the Akins play for film. So many plot excisions and substitutions occur in the first half hour that one wonders if there will be anything left of Wharton's original. Even the setting is changed from the first to the last half of the 19th century for no apparent reason. Be that as it may, the film finds its footing through basic character dynamics.
In a nutshell, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins are cousins in the familiar Wharton turf of well-monied Old New York. When Davis bears the illegitimate child of the caddish man Hopkins loves but has rejected in favor of a marriage into the stable and wealthy Ralston family, the cousins agree after various plot convolutions that the child should be raised in the Ralston house in the guise of an orphan. Davis has had the baby "out West" (where she had gone for "health reasons") and covered it up on her return by opening an orphanage for foundlings including her illegitimate daughter. Through the years the daughter (Jane Bryan) grows up believing Davis is her strict and humorless spinster "Aunt Charlotte" and Hopkins is her loving and indulgent "Mommy," and treats each accordingly.
Davis ably expresses her character's inner pain and resentment with a bare minimum of finicky gesturing. She adopts the husky delivery she often used to portray repressed emotions or general maturity in movies such as "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex," "All This and Heaven Too" and "Now, Voyager," to name a few. She is also photographed in a flattering light and dressed to perfection; in fact, she looks so trim and fashionable in Orry Kelly's perfectly tailored, narrow-waisted gowns that it's hard to believe she could have been a spinster at all. Hopkins is looser and more expressive, but since her character lacks the tragic intensity of Davis's, she makes a softer impact. But as a conflicted pair, they're matchless (as they would be under 1940s circumstances in "Old Acquaintance" four years later).
For no good reason at all, George Brent is cast as the dashing but caddish free spirit who fathers the child. He looks and acts like a rather tired middle-aged man going to flab. This figure is not even physically present in the novel other than as a looming presence who is discussed but never seen. Supporting players include a character invented out of whole cloth who functions as a sort of sounding board for the leads--namely, the Ralston house maid, played flawlessly and unobtrusively by Louise Fazenda. William Lundigan appears briefly and beautifully as a young suitor near the end and Donald Crisp is effectively avuncular as the ever-present family doctor.
The last half hour is as emotionally intense as anything in the Davis canon, appropriately enhanced by a swelling Max Steiner score guaranteed to open the tear ducts. And the curved staircase of the Ralston house is the same one used in numerous Warner Bros. productions of the time.
In a nutshell, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins are cousins in the familiar Wharton turf of well-monied Old New York. When Davis bears the illegitimate child of the caddish man Hopkins loves but has rejected in favor of a marriage into the stable and wealthy Ralston family, the cousins agree after various plot convolutions that the child should be raised in the Ralston house in the guise of an orphan. Davis has had the baby "out West" (where she had gone for "health reasons") and covered it up on her return by opening an orphanage for foundlings including her illegitimate daughter. Through the years the daughter (Jane Bryan) grows up believing Davis is her strict and humorless spinster "Aunt Charlotte" and Hopkins is her loving and indulgent "Mommy," and treats each accordingly.
Davis ably expresses her character's inner pain and resentment with a bare minimum of finicky gesturing. She adopts the husky delivery she often used to portray repressed emotions or general maturity in movies such as "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex," "All This and Heaven Too" and "Now, Voyager," to name a few. She is also photographed in a flattering light and dressed to perfection; in fact, she looks so trim and fashionable in Orry Kelly's perfectly tailored, narrow-waisted gowns that it's hard to believe she could have been a spinster at all. Hopkins is looser and more expressive, but since her character lacks the tragic intensity of Davis's, she makes a softer impact. But as a conflicted pair, they're matchless (as they would be under 1940s circumstances in "Old Acquaintance" four years later).
For no good reason at all, George Brent is cast as the dashing but caddish free spirit who fathers the child. He looks and acts like a rather tired middle-aged man going to flab. This figure is not even physically present in the novel other than as a looming presence who is discussed but never seen. Supporting players include a character invented out of whole cloth who functions as a sort of sounding board for the leads--namely, the Ralston house maid, played flawlessly and unobtrusively by Louise Fazenda. William Lundigan appears briefly and beautifully as a young suitor near the end and Donald Crisp is effectively avuncular as the ever-present family doctor.
The last half hour is as emotionally intense as anything in the Davis canon, appropriately enhanced by a swelling Max Steiner score guaranteed to open the tear ducts. And the curved staircase of the Ralston house is the same one used in numerous Warner Bros. productions of the time.