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Bette Davis: the trashier, the better
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>Bette Davis plays another scum-of-the-earth character who this time steals her sister's (Olivia de Haviland's) doctor husband (played by Dennis Morgan), drives him to commit suicide, then tries to steal de Haviland's new male companion (George Brent), who also happens to be an old flame of her own. Inbetween all this Davis carries on incestuously with her degraded uncle (Charles Coburn), and then runs over a young girl, killing her, and blaming it on a young black man (Ernest Anderson). Only Bette Davis could get away with this kind of stuff, and she pulls it off marvelously. The script is tight and top-notch, and the direction by John Huston excellent. There is even a somewhat sympathetic acknowledgement of the raw deal blacks were getting in 1942. There's a wonderful cameo appearance of THE MALTESE FALCON cast, including Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, in a bar scene, with Walter Huston as the barkeep. Terrific trashy fun.

Dysfunctional When Dysfunctional Wasn't Cool
This family is a mess,complete with lying,spouse-stealing, and incest, and Bette Davis' character Stanley is the worst of the lot. StanleyTimberlake has to be one of the most repulsive characters ever to make it to the screen. Bette Davis makes her believable, though. Olivia deHavilland is the good sister, refreshingly calm and sane amidst the turmoil. Her family consistently ignores deHavilland's character, Roy, as they obsess over spoiled rotten sister Stanley's "happiness."
Through it all, Roy maintains a dignified composure, even when Stanley takes off with her husband. You wonder how she does it in the pre-Prozac era.
This movie is loads of fun to watch, if you can tolerate lots of melodrama. Surprisingly enough for a film made in this era, the Black characters areportrayed as some of the very few morally grounded, decent, rational people in the whole mess.
Perry and his mother are the only ones out of the whole lot whom I would care to know. Stanley is much too eager to try to pin a crime of which she is guilty on the upright Perry, and it is far too easy for her to almost suceed.I found myself wishing that Perry would reach through the prison bars and belt Stanley in the mouth. But he maintains his composure, in spite of the fact that Stanley seems perfectly willing to let him spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime of which she is guilty.
It is perversely amusing to watch the Timberlake family and their associates( all of whom ought to have wised up long ago) gasp, "But Stanley wouldn't LIE!"
You wonder where they've been all this time.
If you like Bette Davis melodrama, you will LOVE this movie. It doesn't get any more melodramatic than this.