Of Human Bondage

As far as I can tell, I've never done a full-length post on Of Human Bondage before. With Leslie Howard being Star of the Month, TCM is showing all three of the movies he made with Bette Davis tonight, concluding with Of Human Bondage at 11:15 PM.

Howard stars as Philip Carey, a club-footed man who at the start of the movie is a struggling would-be artist in Paris. The only thing is, he's not a particularly good artist, so there's no way he's ever going to be able to make a living at it. Fortunately, he's got a place waiting for him in medical school back in London if he wants it. Bette Davis comes in not long after the scene shifts to London. She plays Mildred, a waitress at a café where Philip goes to eat one day, and for whatever reason, Philip is smitten by her even though she's all wrong for him.

How wrong is Mildred for him? Well, she runs off with another man only to get knocked up by him and abandoned, at which point Philip takes her back! This time, Mildred is even worse, as she starts taking up with Harry (Reginald Denny), who is one of Philip's fellow medical students. And still, our dumb hero keeps pining for Mildred. It's going to get even worse, as the next time Philip brings Mildred back into his life, she destroys the stock certificates which formed the trust fund that was funding Philip's medical school education. No money for tuition; no medical school.

There's something in Of Human Bondage that I should find terribly wrong. Philip and Mildred are so completely wrong for each other. She's so mean to him, and he doesn't seem to get it, to the point that you almost want to reach through the TV screen, grab Philip by the shoulders, and shake him violently to knock some sense into him. And yet, all that aside, Of Human Bondage is an excellent movie. One of my first posts back at the end of January 2008 discussed how Leslie Howard seemed to play a lot of weak characters. For whatever reason, it's something he does well, and Of Human Bondage is one more example of this. Bette Davis, before this, had been in quite a few supporting roles, and unappealing Mildred was a huge break for her career. Sure, she gets a scene where she gets to show of her histrionics, when she talks about how she used to wipe her mouth every time she kissed Philip. But Davis is just as good at that sort of scenery-chewing as Howard was at playing the Philip Careys of the world, and the pairing of them is dynamite.

All three of tonights Howard/Davis films are available on DVD.