Of Human Bondage (1934)

She's a monster! He's an idiot! It's love at first sight! Well, on his part - she's just kind of a bitch to him. Directed by John Cromwell.

This is the film that made Bette Davis a star. It's not surprising, as she does a great job portraying a really awful woman, but there was real fear that doing this role would be career suicide for her.

Unfortunately, the movie left me cold. It's a fairly interesting film, especially for appearing so soon after the Production Code was enforced (hence Davis' character dying from tuberculosis rather than syphilis in the original novel), but it's still pretty scandalous. However, the story itself is not that engaging. You can only watch someone be another person's punching bag for so long, and the movie feels like a Cliff's Notes version of the novel - here's this scene, here's another scene, rather than really feeling like an organic whole. Although Leslie Howard turns in a decent performance, it's never really well developed why he keeps coming back to Davis' character for more and more abuse.