Some people's favorite villains are the ones with the biggest gadgets, the deepest vendettas, or the loopiest plans for world domination. I get it. Who doesn't want to see a hero prevail over crotch-splitting lasers, flying monkeys, or Satan's minions? That kind of victory is exciting, high-stakes, splashy stuff. But for me, the more terrifying evil is the quiet, intimate kind that goes on right under everyone's nose: the mean girl spreading life-destroying rumors (These Three), a seemingly doting husband carefully driving his wife mad (Gaslight), and of course, any number of domineering mothers.

If Freud had been a girl, Mrs. Henry Vale (Gladys Cooper) in the 1942 romantic drama, Now, Voyager, would have been his worst nightmare. Mrs. Vale is the matriarch of one of Boston's oldest families, with a couple of grown sons we don't see much of and a 30-something daughter, Charlotte (Bette Davis), who lives at home. Since the day the child was born -- unwanted and late in life -- Mrs. Vale has told her what to do, where to go, whom to see, what to wear, what to eat, and when to talk. As a result, Charlotte is a thick-set, hand-wringing bundle of nerves, whom everyone in the family treats as an object of either pity or fun. 

We meet Charlotte on the day her kindly sister-in-law, Lisa (Ilka Chase), decides to help the poor girl by introducing her to Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), a friendly psychiatrist who runs a sanitarium in the country. Mrs. Vale thinks the whole idea is preposterous. Why, Charlotte isn't having a nervous breakdown, she's just seeking attention; simply one of her latest peculiarities. No one in the history of the Vale family has EVER had a nervous breakdown. The idea! Charlotte, stop that blubbering at once!

Bette Davis does a grand job of it, tricked out in a padded suit under an awful dress, insanely sensible shoes, and one big eyebrow. She walks like a person whose every move is scrutinized (because it is) and reads insult and contempt in every word she hears (because it's there). Dr. Jaquith manages to get Charlotte away from her mother for a quiet talk up in her room. She is skeptical and mistrusting, but when Jaquith shows a genuine interest in her artwork (Charlotte, in sublimating her intense frustrations, has turned naturally to the old whaler's craft of scrimshaw), she opens up slightly with a tale of mother-thwarted romance on the high seas. She gives Jaquith a box of tightly carved ivory in thanks for his kindness and attention.

When Charlotte's niece, June (Bonita Granville, see evil child above), spies the gift in Jaquith's hand she teases her aunt about it in that casually cruel way pretty girls sometimes have with their plainer acquaintances; it is certainly the way her family has taught her to talk to Charlotte. Dr. Jaquith has seen enough. He insists that Charlotte check into the sanitarium immediately, giving old lady Vale a piece of his mind in the process.
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After several months of weaving and eyebrow therapy, Charlotte is a new woman. Almost. Dr. Jaquith and Lisa give her a recovery gift of a pleasure cruise to South America, with the instruction to live a little and to try new things. One of the new things she tries is hanging out with handsome hard-starer, Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid), an unhappily married man with great clothes and a sexy way of lighting cigarettes. The two get stranded on shore after a car wreck and fall in love. As you do.

Alas, it can never be; he is married, if unhappily, with two children to consider. Charlotte reunites with her cruise with a good deal more confidence and Jerry goes off to build stuff in the jungle or whatever. Once back in Boston, everyone is amazed, if not entirely delighted, by Charlotte's transformation. Even the loathsome June is nicer and apologetic. Charlotte 2.0 charms the entire family, with one notable exception: her mother.

​It seems the Mrs. Vale developed a heart problem (you think?) while Charlotte was away and has needed a nurse (the wonderful Mary Wickes) day and night since. But now that she's back, the old battleaxe expects Charlotte to take up her former position as unpaid, browbeatable servant. Bolstered by her shipboard romance, or more likely months and months of therapy, Charlotte politely but firmly refuses to return to the way things were. Mrs. Vale, not liking this newfound independence one bit, promptly throws herself down the stairs, but Charlotte holds her ground. Time passes, and the two women reach an uneasy truce. Charlotte gets engaged to a nice enough man and all seems to be working out.

Until one night, she runs into Jerry at a party. The two must pretend they've only just met and have a silly non-conversation along the lines of "(Louder than necessary) Architecture, that must be very interesting -- (slightly quieter) Oh Jerry, how I've longed to see you." "(also louder than required) Yes, building a hospital...(lighting two cigarettes) darling, how I love you." They say goodbye again and Charlotte realizes that she can't marry the new nice guy because she doesn't love him. Back home, exhausted, she tells her mother that the engagement is off and the two quarrel. The ONE TIME Charlotte says something remotely mean to her mother, the old lady's heart gives out and she DIES. 

Now that's commitment to the villain project.
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Wracked with guilt, Charlotte checks herself back into the sanitarium. It doesn't take as long to bounce back, partly because she has tweezers now and other therapeutic tools, but also because she meets an awkward young girl with self-esteem issues there; a girl who reminds her of herself at that age. Turns out the child is none other than Jerry's daughter, Tina, and Charlotte takes her under her wing. It gets a little weird after that, boundary-wise, but in the end, Charlotte finds a calling, Dr. Jaquith gets to build a new wing at the sanitarium, and Jerry, one supposes, finds some other ladies to share cigarettes with.

​I'd always imagined -- in the world beyond the movie -- that Charlotte wound up with Dr. Jaquith somehow. He's infinitely more suitable than Smoky McTwoCigs. Or how about she just chooses not to be with anybody. Why not? This is one of the few films where the heroine saves herself in the end: she gets some much-needed romance on the high seas; gets out from under her mother's toxic control; develops a relationship with her remaining family; declines to marry a guy she doesn't love; and uses her Boston money to help others. 

I don't know why they call this a romance; this is a success story.

This post is my contribution to the 2016 Great Villain Blogathon, hosted by Speakeasy, Silver Screenings, and Shadows and Satin.

SO much evil in the world -- get reading!

To be honest, I was looking for My Bill, because I was thinking fondly of Kay Francis today and wanted to feature a movie starring Bonita Granville, our recent "Wednesday's Child," and that would have been a two-fer. Instead, I found that Hitler's Children was available for viewing in full on YouTube. 
Imagine! A crew-cutted Tim Holt as a Nazi student at the Horst Wessel Schule, Berlin c. 1933, and Bonita in pigtails at the American Colony School across the way. You know, before things go south.

It never ceases to amaze me that a person could walk into an American movie house any day between 1939 and 1945 and see a pretty thorough excoriation of the German government and general enemy evilness (without managing to convey the depth of that evil) even before we declared war. Do we do this now? I mean apart from action pictures, which I tend not to see? I like propaganda as much as the next person (which I hope is not much), and Hitler's Children, one of RKO's top money-makers, really delivers.

This particular film is one of those "out of the mouths of babes" types where, in one scene, the American kids are enjoying an outdoor social studies class and each one happens to express an opinion about the European war that reflected public opinions of the day: appeasement, isolationism, America should get involved and help the world. The teacher looks on happily while the students demonstrate for us the superiority of democracy. The boys next door, of course, are getting lectured about Germany needing to take its rightful place on top of the food chain and avenge the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. Those kids are sad and quiet. And indoors.

That's the setting. Here's the set up: Anna Müller/Miller (Granville) is an American born in Germany and Karl Bruner (Holt) is a German, born in America. They become friends. Until five years later, that is, when Karl goes Gestapo and removes Anna (now a teacher) from the school, informing her that she is now German. They also take away the Jewish, Polish, and Lithuanian kids...ssssomeplace.

These crazy kids fall in love, even though Anna is sent to a sort of Labor Camp to have babies and Karl keeps telling her to play nice. 

It doesn't end well.

If you have 80 minutes to spare and are feeling a little Red-Dawn (1984)-y, give Hitler's Children a try. It is  kind of a conversation starter.

Fun Fact: This low-budget, financially successful propaganda piece was directed by Edward Dmytryk, one of the Hollywood Ten, who served time in prison for contempt of Congress, but who later denounced former friends and colleagues as Communists to HUAC.

USA!!

My copy of Bonita Granville and the Mystery of Star Island
By Kathryn Heisenfelt
Whitman Publishing, 1942

What my sister wrote on the front endpaper of a gift copy:

And by all accounts a very nice person in real life.

I'm always glad to see Bonita Granville when she shows up in a picture. Some of her earlier work was uncredited (Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Westward Passage) and her later work was eminently supporting (The Mortal Storm, Now Voyager) so there's ample opportunity to be pleasantly surprised. Thanks to her breakout role as Mary Tilford, the manipulative sociopath of a girl who ruins the lives of two teachers in These Three  (the movie version of Lillian Hellman's play, "The Children's Hour"), Granville became the go-to brat/crumbum child in the late 1930s. 

She was the daughter of actor Bernard "Bunny" Granville, who before pictures worked in a traveling minstrel show, the circus, and vaudeville, ultimately headlining in the Ziegfield Follies. The family moved from New York to Hollywood where "Bunny" appeared in a handful of pictures, and Bonita began her long career in 1932 at the ripe old age of eight. Her father died a few years later, but I can't seem to find out how or why; he was only 50. (Note to aspiring biographers: I would very much like to read The Bunny Granville Story; transient youth, three wives, WWI aviator, died young...writes itself.)

Bonita Granville made 50 movies by the time she was 23 years old and left the business when she married oil millionaire Jack Wrather, also a producer. Granville became a successful businesswoman in her own right, producing the very popular Lassie TV series and running Wrather Corp. after the death of her husband. She was the fifth chair of the American Film Institute, although she didn't care to see many modern movies, because of the "indecency" and general explicitness therein: "It destroyed romance and imagination that goes along with sex. And that's pretty important because, otherwise, sex becomes mechanical. Don't get me wrong. I'm a great believer in sex. But that's not the way to go about it." 

One cannot argue. 

I admit, I enjoy her better when she's playing a meanie or a schemer, but I do have a special fondness for her Nancy Drew: all bright-eyed and plucky and smart.

Bonita Granville Wrather died in Santa Monica in 1988 of cancer at the age of 65. She was a peach.

Haven't seen this one, but it looks good, don't you think? 

Interviewed in Growing Up on the Set,
By Tom Goldrup and Jim Goldrup, McFarland & Company, 2002

Who knows? If it weren't for Shirley Temple, Bonita Granville, or Jane Withers, Marcia Mae Jones might have been better known today or would at least have had meatier roles. She did seem to get the choice second part to a bigger box office child actor, however, and always turned in an admirable, and often excellent, performance.

I first came to know her as the mean Lavinia in The Little Princess (1939), and since (sorry) I'm not the biggest Shirley Temple fan, I was kind of rooting for the brat. By that time, 15-year-old Jones had already been in about 25 pictures, pushed into show business by one of those mothers, who pushed her siblings into movies as well, Like Baby Peggy, Marcia Mae Jones was the family breadwinner at an early age and also had to contend with the professional jealousies of her brothers and sister when her career outpaced theirs.

Perhaps her best and most famous performance was as the tormented Rosalie Wells in the 1936 adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play, "The Children's Hour." Retitled These Three, the film starred Merle Oberon, Joel MacCrea, and Miriam Hopkins, with Bonita Granville as the evil child, Mary. The film was remade in 1961 under the play's original title, with Veronica Cartwright (also excellent and not as famous as she should be) in the part played by Jones.

By the 1940s, Marcia Mae Jones had gone from playing decent secondary roles to kind of crummy teenage starring roles with titles like Lady in the Death House * (1944) and Street Corner **(1948). She made a number of appearances on television comedies and dramas throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. She also had a part in the 1973 film The Way We Were, but I honestly can't remember her in it.

As an adult, Jones was plagued by personal and emotional problems, which she attributed in part to her stage mother. Her second husband, television writer Bill Davenport (Hogan's Heroes, I Dream of Jeannie, All in the Family, Maude), struggled with drugs and alcohol and eventually committed suicide. Jones herself fought alcohol addiction, overcoming her dependency later in life. 

She remained lifelong friends with Jane Withers since they appeared together in the film Gentle Julia (1936).

Marcia Mae Jones died September 2, 2007 of pneumonia at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community at the age of 83.