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Now, Voyager (1942) More at IMDbPro »

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105 comments in total

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56 out of 67 people found the following comment useful :-
Beautiful Soap-Opera Filled with Subtext., 11 March 2005

Author: nycritic

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

How many people can relate to Charlotte Vale? Many, for I'd assume it'd be hard-pressed for anyone not to at one point in their life gone through a period of dejection, rejection, and evolve until finally the inner self comes out shining.

And what a character evolution this is. Charlotte Vale, played expertly and with fantastic repression hiding an enormous passion and will to live by the great Bette Davis as a woman who's life has been all but destroyed by her domineering, selfish mother (Gladys Cooper) until she meets kind Dr. Jasquith, a psychiatrist (Claude Rains) who makes her take the first steps to recovery. A physical transformation ensues from dowdy to chic, and on a cruise -- temporarily posing as Ms. Beauchamp -- she meets Jerry Durrance (elegant, smoldering Paul Henreid with sad eyes that virtually talk) with whom she begins a tentative acquaintance with that turns to love. Once home and deciding on an independent life away from her mother she takes on a younger version of herself, Tina, played poignantly by Janis Wilson, whom Charlotte learns is none other than Jerry's daughter. Nevertheless, Charlotte tutors Tina back to mental health, and even while she rejects the marriage of a certain convenience to Elliot Livingston (John Loder) since she cannot forget Jerry, she decides to remain independent despite of the hinted possibility of not fulfilling her affair with him at the end. The last scene, with Henreid and Davis gazing into each other's eyes as he lights up a cigarette for the both of them, and Davis' last line, "Don't let's ask for the moon -- we have the stars," is cinematic romance at its finest.

Irving Rapper, one of Hollywood's gay directors, could not have made a gayer film than this and my view is not controversial: Hollywood did not allow overt films about homosexuality back then, unless the man was a fop and a much secondary character meant to be the butt of fag jokes. Writers and directors alike decided to somehow incorporate a gay element without making it clear off the bat and devised stories that were strongly symbolic in nature. And while Olivia Higgins Prouty's novel was not intended to be interpreted as such, her quoting of Walt Whitman's "Now voyager, sail forth to seek and find" is interesting when Whitman himself was homosexual. Plus, the added element of Charlotte Vale's damaged persona by her mother who forced her into total repression -- something very close to many gay men and women -- and her ultimate transformation into a complete person due to her inner strength has also been a recurring gay theme.

But despite this view, the fact remains that NOW VOYAGER is a consummate woman's picture, a superior weepie that hasn't aged due to its themes of mental cruelty within family members and one person's quiet courage to take on the world and resume her own sense of identity despite years of baggage. Another version of parental abuse would re-surface as the Mexican drama LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE but aside from the mother-daughter relationship, the stories are completely different even in tone and cultural values.

Bette Davis received another Oscar nod for her role here as did Gladys Cooper, but the entire cast lends good support, from Ilka Chase and Bonita Granville as Charlotte's cousins down to Mary Wickes in a small yet funny role as a nurse tending to a bed-ridden Cooper and being a small agent in allowing Davis' Vale to go on with her life.

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49 out of 54 people found the following comment useful :-
Wonderful on DVD, 12 June 2004
Author: brit1955 from London, England

I first saw this wonderful film in the early 1960's on television - made in 1941 is seemed old fashioned, slightly stilted and truly from another time.

Later on in the seventies and eighties I'd watch the occasional late nite re-run on TV and it just seemed camp.

In the nineties I bought the video - something to keep. A little bit of cinema history.

Last week I bought "Now Voyager" on DVD and was completely blown away!

Perhaps it's because I know the story so well, but I was able to appreciate the movie on several different levels such as cinematography, direction and editing.

Bette Davis was always the prime reason for watching but I never realized what a fine naturalistic actor Claude Raines was. His scenes with Bette Davis exude intelligence and warmth.

I stopped to consider what a 2004 remake might look like - who could play the leads? Who would direct? What would the score be like?

With no disrespect to anyone in the movie industry, I don't think a remake would ever be possible.

The actors and technicians on this movie were truly masters of their craft.

I defy anyone who watches the first ten minutes not to be hooked until the closing credits.

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43 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
Ugly duckling turns into a swan, 14 March 2004

Author: jotix100 from New York

At the height of WWII, Hollywood produced a lot of excellent melodramas. These were the vehicles the studios created for its stars of that era. It was either a Joan Crawford picture, or a Barbara Stanwyck, or a Bette Davis one, since their presence, bigger than life, was the only reason to bring these stories to the big screen.

Take this one, for instance, under the direction of Irving Rapper. It had all the right elements, yet it was chaste enough to pass the censor. Undoubtedly, this movie owes a lot to the fantastic score by the talented Max Steiner who was a genius. Mr. Steiner's music plays the haunting melodies with such flair, we feel we are listening to a great symphonic work.

The story, by today's standards wouldn't raise an eyebrow. At the time it came out, it was a different thing. After all, Jerry was a married man with a daughter and a situation that had no easy solution then. That makes Charlotte Vale suffer after she found her soul mate aboard the ship that served to free herself from a despotic mother.

Bette Davis plays Charlotte to perfection. Her scenes with Paul Hendried lighting the two cigarettes is something to cherish by film fans. The chemistry that Bette Davis shared with her leading men was no small accomplishment. She was an actress that knew how to pull the heart strings of the general public. She had such a charisma and power to lose herself in all those strong women she played through the years. The transformation of the plain Charlotte to the smart woman, who embarks on a tour to begin a new life, is something out of a fairy tale, but Ms. Davis pulls it with great panache.

The rest of the cast was excellent. Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville, Ilka Chase! They only come once in a lifetime. No one in present day Hollywood comes near to that. It was perfection.

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43 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
Now, Voyager -An Excellent Expedition, 5 January 2005

Author: edwagreen from United States

After seeing this great film, I realized that not every mother wants the best for her children.

Gladys Cooper gave a brilliant performance as the outrageously domineering mother. Her best supporting actress nomination was well deserved. It's a pity she lost the coveted award to Teresa Wright, the tragic daughter-in-law in "Mrs. Miniver." Obviously, Oscar voters could not bring themselves to vote for such a wicked mother that Cooper portrayed. (The following year Cooper gave another brilliant performance as the wretched nun in "Song of Bernadette." She lost the Oscar because who would vote for a vicious nun?)

No words are adequate to describe the outstanding Bette Davis performance in this film. Sorry, Greer Garson, Bette deserved this Oscar as she did so many. Her change from a hopelessly-drawn spinster to a ravishing beauty with all its torment can never be forgotten.

Thank you Claude Rains for your excellent portrayal of the psychiatrist.

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33 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
excellent film with excellent ensemble, 28 January 2005
Author: shule2000 from United States

In the 1942 screen adaptation of the 1941 bestseller by Olive Higgins-Prouty, Bette Davis and Paul Henreid provide excellent, subtle performances as Charlotte Vale (self-described Spinster Aunt) and J.D. (Jerry) Durrance, the married man she meets, befriends, and with whom she falls in love on a cruise following a transformative stay at the Vermont Sanatorium operated by Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains). Reviewers often speak of the themes of self-sacrifice and relate it to the war, which would have been an attractive reason to make the film, but the reality was that the novel was a popular best-seller, Higgins-Prouty's earlier novel, Stella Dallas, was also a popular film (and later a radio series), and the studio stood to do well financially if the movie turned out well. Hal Wallis' deft hand as producer is seen here, especially in his choice of Orry Kelly as costume designer for Bette Davis. He and the studio worked within the limits of censors' requirements, which indicated that there could be no intimation that the two main characters had sex (which was implicit in the novel but never explicitly stated, where the behavior between the two in the love scenes were generally glossed over most of the time), and that they could not share the same blanket in the scene where they are in a hut on a Brazilian mountain, stranded. They also had to change locales for the story, because the novel had the sea voyage set in and around Italy, Gibralter, etc. In spite of any restrictions placed on the filmmakers and actors, the film followed the novel very closely, especially with respect to dialogue. The big point of contention has always been: who invented the two-cigarette lighting gesture that Paul Henreid became famous for later? According to some, George Brent and Bette Davis did something similar earlier in another film, and according to Paul Henreid and Bette Davis, there was a cigarette exchange ritual in the script which was sort of awkward, so they improvised based on Paul Henreid's experience with his wife on car trips. The latter seems likely, as there was a cigarette-exchange ritual in the novel (Jerry would give Charlotte a cigarette, lighting hers and then his own on one match, and then they would exchange cigarettes with each other so that Charlotte smoked the one that had been in Jerry's mouth and vice versa), which would have been slightly awkward in practice.

All in all, this is a truly excellent film with great production values, true to the novel on which it was based, and a wonderful ensemble cast.

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32 out of 37 people found the following comment useful :-
Not A Fan Of Soaps, But I Like This!, 14 November 2005

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

This was surprisingly good. I say "surprising" because I am not a man who likes soap operas and that's what I expected here from everything I had read about this film. The only reason I obtained it was that it was part of a 3-pack Bette Davis collection and I wanted a DVD of "The Letter."

Well, this turned out to be a very interesting and gratifying story. No, I still didn't like the corny - and adulterous (which Hollywood loves to glamorize) - love affair between Davis and married man Paul Henreid. However, I did enjoy the ugly duckling-turned-beauty story that featured Davis tolerating her nasty mother and then using her experiences to help another young lady who was suffering from a similar inferiority complex.

Gladys Cooper was outstanding as the irritating, brutal mother. Janis Wilson was the young girl helped in the end by Davis. Wilson overacts something fierce but the message is so nice and the sentimentality so caring that you put up with the kid's performance.

Claude Raines also was likable as the psychologist. He had a number of good lines in this film. The movie was nicely filmed and looks particularly good on the DVD transfer with attractive grays completing the black-and-white.

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22 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
"You didn't want me to be born!...It's been nothing but a calamity on both sides.", 27 July 2001
Author: TJBNYC (limboultra@aol.com)

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

On paper, the plot of "Now, Voyager" sounds too ridiculous to be played straight. And yet, despite its soap opera origins, this is a work of beauty and artistry: largely because of the magnificent lead performance by Bette Davis, but also because of Irving Rapper's sensitive direction and the first class production values. Even just twenty years later, the same material would come out as hopelessly camp (imagine, if you will, what would have happened if this had been shot in lurid 1959 Technicolor, starring Susan Hayward or, worse yet, Lana Turner). POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN PLOT SUMMARY: Davis is Charlotte Vale, a repressed Boston spinster ("MISS Charlotte Vale," as her hellish mother would sneer) under the complete control of her iron-fisted mother (Gladys Cooper in an unforgettable performance). With the aid of a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Jacquith (Claude Rains), Charlotte transforms into a sophisticated-looking woman, but she remains insecure and shy. Jacquith sends her off on a restorative cruise to Brazil with an admonition from Walt Whitman: "Now, voyager...set ye forth to seek and find." What she finds is unconditional love in the form of a married man, Jerry (Paul Henreid), who is touched by Charlotte's plight and helps her to blossom even further. Knowing their love affair is impossible, Charlotte and Jerry vow to never see or speak to each other again once their vacation is over. At last having known what it is to love and be loved, Charlotte returns home and, for the first time, stands up to her mother and begins creating a new life for herself. Some time later, she accidentally meets Jerry's adolescent daughter Tina (the excellent Janis Wilson), who is the very picture of a 13-year-old, frightened, repressed Charlotte Vale. Charlotte then finds a new purpose in life: helping Tina out of her shell, just as Jerry had helped Charlotte. END SUMMARY/SPOILERS. Clearly, the plot teetered dangerously close to bathos. And, in today's quest for "realism," this film could never survive a contemporary telling. But the actors so believe in it, so does the audience. In spite of the properly lush Max Steiner score, in spite of the grand Hollywood style, in spite of the operatic silliness of some of the plot devices, the end result is never less than convincing. At the heart of it, of course, is Bette Davis, in perhaps her finest, most restrained performance ever. Never once does she "ham it up"; and the material practically invites overacting. Yes, the performances and dialogue are stylized, but this is what MOVIES are all about. It treads a fine line between fantasy and honesty; you never once forget that you're watching a movie (which is a high compliment in my book), and it's all so artfully done, you believe (wish?) that real life is truly like it. Even in 1942, that was a rare feat--and impossible today.

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17 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best, 22 September 2004

Author: BumpyRide from TCM's Basement

This is what great film making is all about. Everything comes together in this classic movie, and Bette never looked more beautiful decked out in fabulous 1940's clothes designed by Orry-Kelly. Most everyone can relate to the downtrodden Charlotte Vale under the viscous thumb of her selfish mother. And who doesn't stand up and cheer when Charlotte defies her mother, finds love and starts to live her own life? Bette's performance is subdued, and there's no chewing up the scenery here because it's a great script that needs little enhancement. Filled with great lines and classic scenes, this is one film that every true classic film lover needs in their collection.

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14 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Bette Davis Transforms into a Raving Beauty, 11 September 2007

Author: myrt98 from United States

"Now, Voyager" is arguably the best of all motion pictures by Bette Davis. As Charlotte Vale, a rich Bostonian smothered by a mother who had her late in life, Davis plays a frumpy, low-esteemed, near recluse of a woman. That is, until her cousin intervenes by bringing a psychiatrist into Miss Vale's life.

Miss Vale's cousin and shrink conspire to bring her out of the steel shell her domineering mother has encased her within. Their idea is to send her on a cruise with the doctor's advice to learn everything, do everything, engage everyone. The results are a remarkable transformation of a woman who believed she was an 'ugly duckling' into Miss Bette Davis as a sizzling hot beauty like she never was before or after in any other film.

How Miss Davis didn't view herself as or use her beauty to create her success as an actress is what "Now, Voyager," proves is most remarkable about her 66 year long acting career. If she had wanted to be a "bombshell," she could have, two snaps up. Davis didn't want to be a "movie star," or "glamor girl." She wanted to be a great actor and achieved her life's goal. Not only did she make her career using acting skill and shrewd business finesse, Bette Davis also made quite a few other people's acting careers work well for them by taking a back seat in films with weak scripts. Thus, as co-actors they could collaborate to make out of an average screenplay a screen hit and a new acting star. Davis was so unselfish an actor that she was in the acting business to benefit the art. That's why she's my favorite actor of all time: she was so self-assured as an actor in a man's world (in the 20th century), that her ego didn't get in the way of making truly great movies with co-actors with whom she worked with as a team player. "Now, Voyage," is one such film. Clearly, she steals the show, but she takes Paul Heinrick right next to her, conjoined at the hip. What a delight it must have been to work with a true artist who was a great expert at her craft.

Bogie & Bergman in "Casablanca," don't have one thing over Davis & Heinrick in "Now, Voyager," when it comes to the most intense, well acted, extremely well scripted romantic drama that has it all. Davis is glamorous beyond compare and Heinrick is a smooth, sensuous, suitor.

This is my favorite of all of her motion pictures (at least I believe I have seen them all). How anyone could say that Bette Davis wasn't a raving beauty after they saw her in this film is beyond me. Not only does "Jerry" fall madly in love with "Charlotte," so does the audience.

There's much more to this great story, but I'm not telling! Buy the DVD.

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9 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
The Great Quest, 22 May 2006
Author: Lechuguilla from Dallas, Texas

Bette Davis plays Charlotte Vale, an unmarried and very unhappy plain-Jane who lives with, and is under the emotional control of, her wealthy, domineering, matriarchal mother (Gladys Cooper). Help for Charlotte arrives in the person of Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), who suggests a different living environment, and eventually a new direction in life. Charlotte thus sets out on a voyage of discovery, or quest, to find herself and her potential for happiness and love.

The film starts off Gothic, but gradually translates to a love story with lots of twists and turns. The underlying premise is sound, but the plot is overwrought, drawn out, and talky. Small sections of the film's middle section could have been expunged, to tighten the plot. And the dialogue could have been reduced in places, which would have rendered a film of even greater impact. Nevertheless, the film still tells a great story.

The B&W cinematography ranges from good to excellent. In one scene, special effects create an image wherein Charlotte's eyes overlap her mother's face. It is a visually stunning image, and it wonderfully captures the film's timeless theme, the painful process whereby a grown child must confront an overbearing parent, if that child is to grow and gain adult independence.

The film's costumes are interesting. And Max Steiner's original score adds emotional texture to the story. But it is the acting that really makes this film a classic. Except for her work in "All About Eve", Bette Davis gives as good a performance here as in any film of hers that I have seen. Claude Rains and Paul Henreid are good in support roles. And the never smiling Gladys Cooper is stunningly effective as the matron saint of outdated Victorian Puritanism.

Despite its cryptic title, taken from a poem by Walt Whitman, this film presents viewers with a story that most people can identify with, in one way or another. "Now, Voyager" transcends its hyperbolic working script, and compels attention through its cinematography, its music, and especially the acting of Gladys Cooper and Bette Davis.

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