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The First Lady of the American Screen began her film career unspectacularly in the same 1931 motion picture melodrama that would also be the first movie for fellow Broadway actor and future co-legend at Warner Bros., Humphrey Bogart. The film was called The Bad Sister, and Davis would later refer to it in one of her autobiographies as a wicked thing. Despite co-starring Sidney Fox, Conrad Nagel, and Slim Summerville, The Bad Sister would otherwise be an inconsequential early talkie if it did not feature two of the four signature stars of Warner Bros.—working under what would be an abbreviated contract at a rival studio. Despite its primary significance being as a historical document, it does contain one truly fine sequence, which I have excerpted here. Perhaps this manifestation of unrequited love at its most painful was the scene that prompted legendary gossip columnist Hedda Hopper to take notice of Bette one year before her first film at Warner Bros.
Happy Valentines Day 2010 & VIVA LA BETTE!
