Last week my lady and I went on a Warner Bros lot tour and Bette Davis kept coming up and we found this movie and checked it out. The premise sounded super simple like a woman steals her sisters man...for starters. I was like tell me more. Oh lord did they tell me more. This movie had a lot of stuff happening and from the way it began I did not expect it to end with a fiery car crash!
This is gonna sound confusing because this family got weird names and the girls have typically dude names. The father Asa used to run a company but now just works at it. He is walking home with Parry. Parry's mother works as a housekeeper for the family and he helps with driving and washing cars along with at a shop. Black people used to be too busy. So Asa comes home and his wife Lavinia is in bed and sick for no reason. She is like on those Hitchcock episodes where an old lady is just in bed but not coughing or anything. Just...unhealthy. But they always have the energy to fuss.
His daughter Roy is married is a decorator married to Peter who is a doctor. The other daughter Stankey aka The Devil is engaged to an attorney named Craig. Stanley is a wicked city woman who everyone fawns over and takes care of no matter what she does and she does way too much. In the evening Peter is packing up and pretty much ketting Roy know he is leaving her. Turns out he is leaving her for Stanley! They both hoes.
Roy becomes full emo and bumps into Craig one day. He is just sitting on a bench with his clothes all wrinkled and hasn't shaved in days whic back then was the ultimate sign that a white man had given up. She gets mad saying that she just talked to Parry and he wants to be a lawyer even though he is Black and knows how hard it will be for him. Craig is like "Well...shit." Craig hires Parry to work at his law office. It's great.
I forgot to mention the loud mouth uncle named William Fitzroy. In his eyes and pants Stanley is perfect and can do no wrong. He is suffering from some medical issue but perks up around Stanley tickle fighting and shit. It's gross. He gave her a car, money, and says no man is good enough for her. He also a piece of trash for letting her father's business fail while he made more money.
Now in Baltimore Stanley and Peter marry and shits rocky the first night. He is mad she is wasting the money her uncle gave her and his. She don't care. She Stanley. He bitch slaps her at one point. I think. I may have made that up. Back at home Roy and Craig begin dating and plan to marry. Their lives are going great. Uncle tries to hire Craig to represent him but Craig got morals which baffles uncle and makes Roy want to marry him.
Peter kills himself. Stanley was just way too much for any one man it seems. Roy goes to comfort her which is far more than I would have done. Stanley comes back home and wants to get back in the streets. But first she wants to check Craig's temperature. She also wants her dead husband's life insurance money immediately. Yeah. She don't like seeing her sister happy and wants to ruin it. She invites Craig out for a drink but he doesn't meet with her. She drunkenly drives off and ends up running over a mother and child killing the kid. She leaves. It's the 1940s. That's what they did.
Police show up saying they found her car with blood on it and she says Parry took the car. Parry is arrested and Stanley is like " So that's handled!" She is perfectly okay with letting an innocent man go to prison or killed. Roy meets with Parry's mother who says that Stanley is lying about this cause Parry was home reading law books. Craig takes Stanley to talk to Parry and says he needs to just admit he killed the kid with her car and they will help him. Parry is dejected and knows his Black is will be in prison for life. Stanley don't care.
Oh I forgot to mention when Stanley heads to her uncle's place for some cash to escape. He is damn near comatose and tells her he has months to live. She like "Sounds rough. Anyway, can you give me the monies?" He said he took her out as a beneficiary once she left and married Peter cause he is a gross old man. Seriously, all their scenes made my asshole itch with how outwardly inappropriate it was. She tells him it's fine he gonna die cause he old and she not and she just wants that sweet, sweet cash. She leaves him to be old, perverted and dying.
Craig confronts her again about the timelines and shows her the note she left him saying where she would be meeting him as well as him talking to the bartender who served her obnoxious ass. Stanley is like "Oh ya got me. I will turn myself in." Next thing you know she peeling off in her car. Police start chasing her and she ends up driving off the road flipping her car. The shit bursts into flames. Craig answers the phone telling Roy that Stanley is now beyond help.
I really enjoyed this movie. I hadn't hated a character as much as I hated Stanley in a minute. There was nothing likable about her and they didn't try to give her a single redeeming quality. I also like the side story of Parry and him trying to improve himself as a Black man in American 1940s but knowing that even with the truth his word meant nothing against a white woman's tears. I also like how Roy and Craig got together. It didn't feel forced and wasn't creepy. I couldn't do it though. Wouldn't be me trying to smooch on someone one of my brothers kissed.
Bette Davis as Stanley Timberlake Kingsmill
Olivia de Havilland as Roy Timberlake Fleming
George Brent as Craig Fleming
Dennis Morgan as Peter Kingsmill
Frank Craven as Asa Timberlake
Billie Burke as Lavinia Timberlake
Charles Coburn as William Fitzroy
Ernest Anderson as Parry Clay
Hattie McDaniel as Minerva Clay
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