|
JezebelRating:
Release Date: 19 September, 2000 Retail Price: $19.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (11 total) |
Jezebel Reviews
Excellent Bette Davis award winner
JEZEBEL is the story of a saucy young woman in antebellum New Orleans who insisted on wearing a red dress to the Olympus Ball. Should have been in color, but it was 1938 and they weren't making a lot of color movies back then. Anyway, cinematographer Ernest Hall, who received an Academy Award nomination for this movie, imparts a sense of flow and space to the scene. The woman in the dress is Julie Marsden, a Jezebel who does evil in the sight of God. Like, for instance, wearing a scandalously colored dress to a ball. Fiancé Pres Dillard doesn't like it one bit, but men in this Jezebel's orbit have to learn to expect such things from the headstrong young coquette.
Bette Davis plays the Jezebel and Henry Fonda her embarrassed and enraged beau. Events intrude - yellow fever, talk of war and accusations of treasonous abolitionism are thrown about - but they simply are there to provide a backdrop against which Fonda's Pres and George Brent's Buck Cantrell can glare and glower at each other as their strings are pulled time and again by the remarkable Bette Davis.
I'm not naturally drawn to costume romances told from a woman's point of view. They're usually a little too lean on the action for my tastes, not to mention the sticky emotionalism they tend to wallow in. But... Bette Davis is a genius - she won the Academy Award for this one, as did Fay Bainter for Supporting Actress - and Davis has never let me down. Here, the actions of her self-centered and manipulating character wreak havoc on the lives of those around her. And yet, if you too reach for a hanky at the end of this movie - another reason I tend to avoid these `uns - the tear you're wiping up most likely was shed for her. Simply a remarkable, deservedly awarded performance by THE greatest movie star in Hollywood history.
Jezebel
"Davis is superb. An exceptional story and an excellent cast!"
The Hollywood Reporter
Southern belle Julia Marsden (Bette Davis) is the quintessential Dixie vixen-headstrong and reckless, she'll stop at nothing to have her own way. But when Julie's scandalous behavior at a prestigous New Orleans society ball disgusts Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) - her equally strong willed fiance - he breaks her engagement and moves to the North. Three years later, Preston finally returns home, but not alone...he's married. And to a Yankee! Enraged and dishonored, Julie jealously plans her revenge, putting into motion a selfish ploy that will only end in misery, tragedy...and death!
Bette Davis gives a tremendous, Oscar winning performance in this "compelling, emotional drama" (The Hollywood Reporter) of a woman scorned and the lenghts to which she'll go for revenge!
FACTS FROM THE VAULT
*The Jezebel score was so impressed David O. Selznick that he hired the composer to write the score for Gone With The Wind.
*Henry Fonda's contract stipulated that he finish work early as he could attend the birth of his first child (Jane), leaving Bette Davis to play the remaining scenes in close-up to compensate for the missing actor.
*Bette Davis took three days off after she injured herself by hitting her face too hard with a hairbrush she was using to redden her cheeks for her role to add southern glamour.
More Customer Reviews (21 total)
You like Jezebel?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Cash Loan Help, debt consolidation, and Payday Loan Advice
