Old Acquaintance

Plot synopsis:
In 1924, newly successful author Kit Marlowe returns to her home town to speak, as part of a lecture tour, and to visit her dear childhood friend Millie. Millie has married Preston Drake and is pregnant, and she surprises Kit when she discloses she has also written a book, a romance novel. Millie asks Kit to present her book to her publisher. Upon their meeting, Preston appears to be impressed by Kit Marlowe.
Eight years pass, and the childhood friends have each formed distinctly opposite personalities. Kit is witty, perceptive, wry and calmer in comparison to Millie who is intense, self-involved and histrionic. The two can be described as "frenemies". Millie becomes increasingly difficult and resentful of any diversion from full attention being focused upon herself. When Kit jokes and glowingly reports about her shopping trip with Preston and Millie's only child, Deirdre, Millie impudently retorts "Time you had one of your own!" as she swans out.
Preston immediately asks Kit why she has remained so loyal to Millie over the years. Kit confides in Preston despite Millie's often emotionally unstable and dysfunctional behaviour, she feels indebted as Millie was her first real friend. Kit feels a particular loyalty to Millie as orphaned Kit grew up with an aunt who died and found a sense of home and family through Millie's parents kindness and generosity towards Kit.
Millie has become a very successful writer, with a string of romance novels. This has made her very arrogant and condescending to those around her. Visiting New York, on the eve of the opening of a play written by Kit, the Drakes' marriage is slowly disintegrating. In an interview with a reporter, Preston, an architect and engineer, is shown to feel very much ‘second’ to his wife’s success. In a private moment with Kit, Preston professes his love for Kit. In another private moment, when Millie mentions Preston’s drinking habit to Kit, Kit replies “people drink for escape”. Millie and Preston clash with Kit playing referee. The response is complete ingratitude from self-absorbed Millie and growing romantic feelings from an increasingly frustrated Preston.
Moments later, as the three converse, Preston and Millie's argument escalates (with Millie displaying what some might interpret as ‘manic’ behavior) and Preston leaves Millie ‘for good’. Kit tracks down Preston and tries to convince him to return to Millie, but he tries to convince Kit that he is in love with her. Selflessly, Kit tells him she can not reciprocate, as she could not do that to Millie. They kiss goodbye and part.
Ten years pass, and World War Two is underway. Kit is on a radio show espousing the good of the American Red Cross, and Preston, now a major in the Army, hears her. He calls the radio station to suggest they meet for a drink. They do, but Kit also has her much-younger beau, Rudd Kendall, and Preston’s almost 18-year-old daughter, Deirdre, whom Preston has not seen in those ten years, join them. Preston tells Kit he is engaged, and Kit is happy for him. Preston and his daughter become reacquainted. The next morning Rudd (again) presses Kit to marry him, but she puts him off, promising an answer in a few days, and he leaves. Rudd, feeling reproached and rejected, then meets with Deirdre.
Millie treats Preston's return as a victory and sets the scene for a desperate reconciliation. Preston however dashes her hopes by revealing his engagement and asks for ‘joint custody’ of Deirdre. Preston incidentally discloses to Millie that he was once in love with Kit. An outraged Millie throws him out. Millie then rants and raves to Deirdre about how Kit is a Jezebel (the writer's tongue-in-cheek reference to Davis’s 1938 film Jezebel). Millie spitefully does her best to poison Deirdre against Kit and relishes in excessively establishing herself as the centre of attention and revelling in her self-indulgence, oblivious to Deirdre's clear distress.
Millie also discloses that Kit is to marry Rudd, causing Deirdre further distress, and Deirdre leaves. Kit and Millie have an all-out argument about all that hasn’t been said until now, where Millie plays the victim and Kit reveals a few brutal home truths to an in denial and melodramatic Millie. Millie even goes as far to discard to her own daughter to her love rival. Realising her words are falling on deafened ears, frustrated Kit physically shakes Millie to "knock some sense" into her self-obsessed drama queen friend, in arguably the film's most remembered scene.
That night, Kit, having decided to marry Rudd, finds out from him that he is now in love with Deirdre. Kit tracks down Deirdre at a handsome but incompatible beau's bachelor pad, calms her, and returns her to Rudd. Kit then returns home to find Millie, and they reconcile. Millie tells Kit about her new book, about the trials of two women friends, and Kit suggests that Millie title the book “Old Acquaintance”. Millie agrees, and the end credits roll.

Tags: romantic, melodrama

Review:
A classic woman's film in the best sense of the word, "Old Acquaintance" was remade by George Cukor as "Rich and Famous" and echoed in the final scenes of Pedro Almodovar's "La Flor de Mi Secreto." Such is the enduring appeal of this tale of a friendship between two women that continues throughout their lives despite rivalries, temperament, and love affairs.
Of course with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as the women, the film rises from melodramatic soap opera to a higher level.
Hopkins plays Millie, a self-absorbed woman who envies her friend's success, but is determined to have everything: a writing career, a home, and a family.
However, Kit's warmth attracts the affections of not only Millie's increasingly estranged husband, but also her neglected daughter.Thus, the stage is set for emotional clashes between the two writers that provide Davis and Hopkins with some juicy material.
John Loder is all bland good looks as Millie's husband, and a handsome Gig Young does little besides look handsome and play the too-young romantic interest for Davis.With the exception of Deidre, Hopkins' daughter, the other major female roles also involve working women.
Her erotic gyrations to seduce Gig Young in a listening booth and her defiant dalliance with an older playboy are at odds with the character and image of Kit, who was supposedly Deidre's role model.Fast paced, lush, and romantic, "Old Acquaintance" is one of those movies that "they just don't make anymore." The dialog is delicious, the performances occasionally border on camp, and the direction is sure-handed.
Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, the stars of the classic 1939 film THE OLD MAID, reunite for this tale which spans twenty years in the love/hate relationship of two female friends who become competitive not only professionally, but in their personal lives as well.
Davis is her inimitably intense self, and she's matched all the way by the great Miriam Hopkins who was at her peak on-screen in the '30's.
"Old Acquaintance" begins with Kit (Davis), a writer who turns out books that appeal to female intellectuals, returns home to visit her old friend Millie (Hopkins).
The drama is further heightened when Kit finally agrees to marry Rudd (Young), her younger lover, right when he meets and falls in love with Didi, causing further conflict and heartache until Kit and Millie are left with the prospect of only being left with the other, despite their serious issues over the years.I really enjoyed "Old Acquaintance" because it had all of the elements of a great melodrama; back-stabbing, unrealized and tragic love, Bette Davis.
Whether she is playing the good soul or the evil one (most likely the latter), Davis does drama the best, and "Old Acquaintance" is a fine example of her work.
Coupled with good acting and a couple of great slaps courtesy of La Davis, "Old Acquaintance" was a good, meaty film that I watched with great relish, wondering where it had been for the last 20 years I have spent watching all things classic film, and in particular, Bette Davis.
Hollywood was still at the height of the "women's films" with stars like Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins sharing the screen in stories with romantic notions.
The two portray authors--one a sensitive, thoughtful woman (Bette Davis), the other a shrewish housewife who writes pulp fiction (Miriam Hopkins).
At the end, the two women are left facing middle-age together and, as they sit before a roaring fireplace, toast each other to the fadeout strains of Franz Waxman's music.All of this plays like a Cosmopolitan magazine story of the '40s but is made to seem intelligent and likeable by the sheer magnetism of Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, never better than here.
The lines are nearly as funny as those in "All About Eve" eg "Why do I always look like a ninety-year old hag when I want to look like Shirley Temple."And Bette and Miriam, who apparently hated each other, give stunning performances.
Bette Davis does a beautiful job playing writer Kit Marlowe and Miriam Hopkins, while a little overripe at times, does a fine job as her best friend and sometime nemesis, Millie Drake.
The supporting cast is first-rate: Gig Young is very appealing and handsome in one of his earliest film roles, Dolores Moran is both sensitive and cheeky as Hopkin's confused daughter, and Esther Dale is splendid as Ms Marlowe's maid.
On screen the film version stars Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins and in this instance it really helped to have two women who positively loathed each other in real life.
Helped enormously with their performances.The two are childhood friends and rival authors, Bette is a writer of seriously acclaimed classics that just don't sell and Miriam is the Jacqueline Susann of the pair, a writer of potboiler trash fiction that the public eats up.
For reasons never explained by the film, Miriam nurses a pent up jealousy over Bette which Davis patiently bears throughout most of the film which takes place over a twenty year period in their lives.
Chatty, entertaining and well-acted drama with comedic trimmings has lifelong friends Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins both becoming writers: Davis, the literary authoress who charms the critics but can't score a bestseller; Hopkins, the fluttery, popular novelist of romantic fiction.
Davis starts off very fresh and natural, but as her character ages and becomes glamorously middle-aged, Bette's affectations and mannerisms tread a self-parody; she's good throughout the film, yet one longs for more of that earthy quality she displays in the film's first hour.
As excellent as it is, it is unfortunately not available on VHS/DVD, nor does it get the recognition bestowed upon many of Davis' other, and dare I say, lesser movies.Davis plays writer Kit Marlowe, a woman who is unable to find true happiness as she selflessly puts the needs of her childhood friend, Milly(Miriam Hopkins), ahead of her own desires.
The battle between them even extends to Milly's teenage daughter(Dolores Moran)during the later years of their lives.Davis nails the cattiness, insecurity and self-effacing humor that embodies Kit. Hopkins also succeeds as Milly.
Having costarred with Miriam Hopkins in The Old Maid several years previously and finding it a wearing situation Bette had no desire to do so again.
My favorite scene has to be when Davis shakes the snot out of Hopkins and since it has been reported that they didn't like each other, I'm sure it was Bette's favorite scene as well.If you like soap operas and sacrifice, then this film is for you.
Also involved is Preston Dake (John Loder) Mildred's husband, her high strung daughter Deirdre (Dolores Moran) and Rudd Kendall (a ridiculously young Gig Young) who wants to marry Kit.Next to "Now Voyager" this is my favorite Bette Davis film.
She liked this one, starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as two childhood friends who become competing authors.
"Old Acquaintance" Feels Old Hat. I didn't much like this Bette Davis women's picture from 1943.It starts out promisingly enough, with Davis as a successful writer paying a visit to childhood friend Miriam Hopkins.
Always competitive, Hopkins decides she wants to be a writer too, and finds tremendous success writing popular entertainments while Davis struggles to find an audience for her more artistic endeavors.
However, it instead goes off on a bunch of standard-issue romantic tangents, all of it the stuff of dull soap opera, none of it very interesting, that feels like a hundred other movies you've seen before from the same time period.Davis gives one of her best performances up to a point, until the material abandons her.
But seriously, both Davis and Hopkins are very good in this film.
This is a strange movie in several respects.First, perhaps, is the strong contrast between the understated acting of Bette Davis and the very over-the-top style of Myriam Hopkins.Second: I kept wondering why Hopkins would have accepted to play such an unsympathetic part.Third: The male lead, John Loder, though very suave and charming, also comes off as unsympathetic when we learn that he simply abandoned his wife and young daughter for 10 years with no contact.Fourth: I could not for the life of me understand why Davis' character maintained her so-called friendship with Hopkins' character.
Hopkins' character constantly put her down, derided her, was selfish, etc.There are, in short, a lot of unexplained holes in this movie.Davis does a good job acting.
Every Bette Davis performance is great, but that didn't save this film.
No wonder Bette supposedly didn't like Miriam Hopkins, who is way overboard from beginning to end.
The film follows the relationship between Kit (Bette Davis) and Millie (Miriam Hopkins) who are both friends and authors with different styles.
We span 20 or so years of their lives and their relationships with Millie's husband Preston (John Loder), Millie's daughter Deirdre (Dolores Moran) and Kit's partner Rudd (Gig Young).
Her role at Kit is noble and intellectual, playing the "real" writer whose serious books don't sell (though she still wears furs) while Millie is the wildly successful writer of romance novels, churning them out like "sausages" as a woman from the press makes the mistake of letting slip in front of her.
After having gone head-to-head in "The Old Maid" a few years prior, Davis and Hopkins teamed up for round two in this film.
The story is an intriguing one, though there are a few head-scratching elements (such as how Moran has no recollection of what her father looks like when they meet after a lengthy separation.) Also, due to U.S. involvement in WWII coming about after the source play's debut, a bit of patriotic sentiment was incorporated into Davis' role to help assuage the potential fluffiness of such a piece in a time of war.
Bette Davis must have been relieved to know that once she was done filming THE OLD MAID, chances were she didn't have to work with Miriam Hopkins again.
To the end of her life she stated that while she respected Hopkins as an actress and even went to say that Hopkins didn't have to take on supporting parts so quickly, she was a congenial person, but working with her was another story.It's not hard to see why: Hopkins tries insanely hard to steal every scene she's in from the moment the camera focuses on her back and she talks to Bette Davis' character over the phone in the opening scene.
It only adds to her insecurity that her shrill performance, while very good, is not the focus of the movie -- indeed, she's off screen for a good chunk of the movie later on -- as it is Davis' character's story.Still, it makes for great watching: at every turn there is a chance for one of them to try and out-act the other.
John Loder, playing Preston Drake, is clearly unhappy in his marriage to Millie but stays by her regardless until he meets the woman he should have married in Kit. He can't see how being so diametrically opposed women they could even be in the same room together -- Millie is just too needy, too over-the-top to the more sensible Kit. However, it's said that every person has his or her complement and the two women, more sisters than friends, seem to be just that.It's when Millie begins to succeed as a romance writer -- a Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts of her time -- that the friendship starts to show signs of fraying at the seams.
Where the movie goes into its only dramatic moment is the confrontation scene -- dragged out with takes upon takes since Hopkins was overacting, trying to make Davis' character more vicious but only succeeding in making herself look more the vicious woman caught -- and the reconciliation scene, which is highly unlikely.
Several years before this movie was made, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins also starred in "Old Maid".
Davis and Hopkins are able to patch things up--mostly because Davis (like she did throughout the film) made a lot of allowances for friend.
Eventually, the husband divulges to Davis that he loves her and asks her to marry him, but Davis is too good a person and sends him packing.Over time, Davis and Hopkins remain friends.
For her second pairing with Miriam Hopkins, she simply reacted while Hopkins overacted, and the result was Davis stealing away the film without really trying.Like her character in "The Old Maid" (her first pairing with Hopkins), sympathy ended up being on her side, not Hopkins.
Whether or not the truth of the rivalry between these two ladies off screen was true or not, Davis acts like it is non-existent, while Hopkins seems determined to upstage her co-star every chance she gets.Even when they are having meaningful heart-to-hearts, Hopkins acts entirely too grand, as if she was the diva in an opera, and the sympathy that should be there for her character (abandoned by her husband after she achieves success as a writer of trashy romantic novels) simply vanishes.
Gig Young is handsome as the younger man who proposes to Davis, all the while unknowingly in love with Hopkins and Loder's grown-up daughter (Donna Moran).
Hopkins really does well in this one scene with her reaction to Revere's embarrassment after insulting typical romantic trash novels like herself.In spite of the film's short-comings, this soap opera is fascinating to watch, and one longs to have been an extra or crew member to have witnessed what really went on.
Davis makes her acting look so easy, but at times, you begin to feel sorry for everybody in the film and on the set (even Hopkins) because it seems that everybody (including her) must have had a terrible headache because of her constant ranting..
...asks Millie Drake (Miriam Hopkins),but the answer she gets from the mirror, from the public, from her husband, from her own daughter seems to be "You are!
But we just think Kit is a better and deeper person!" Millie and Kit Marlowe (Bette Davis) have been friends from girlhood, and Kit becomes, even in her 20's, a renowned author, a critical success but not a tremendously financial one.
I usually like to listen to music when I exercise, but this film so interested me - it was not your standard 40's soap opera - that I actually watched the film during my workout and then dragged out one of my Bette Davis collections to see the entire thing.Highly recommended.
She meets up again with childhood friend, Millie Drake played by Miriam Hopkins.
When Millie finds out Preston was attracted to Kit long ago, she sets this scene up which is one of the funniest I've seen from Bette Davis.
Davis admitted to enjoying very much a scene in "Old Acquaintance" in which she shakes Hopkins hard.(Wikipedia).She also wrote that her co-star (with whom she also made "the old maid") felt insecure and that there was a good dose of rivalry between her and "Millie" .As the story is thoroughly the depiction of a rivalry (as writers,as lovers and even as mothers -Kit is also Deirdre's mom in her heart ),everything works out fine.The first sequences may be deceptive :Kit appears as the superstar with a fan club in her friend's home town and people are led to believe that she's got an inflated ego and that good housewife Millicent has done the right choice.But actually the desperate housewife is eaten with envy and she too wrote a book (Harlequin romance style).Time will show the wiser although the last sequence tends to show that,all in all,friendship survives everything ...
I think the reason I like this film so much is Bette Davis doesn't play "herself" in this.
She's just steady as she goes throughout the whole film...and that was a rarity in her career.The basic outline of this one is that Bette Davis has a lifelong friend and one year she goes and visits her back home.
But Davis doesn't live/see life like that.The whole film you realize that Davis is just a really good person.
Bette Davis gets my vote for all-time best female actress.
And so the film takes off in a different direction than you expect, and continues to do so throughout.I enjoyed Bette Davis here, and most of the rest of the cast, but Mariam Hopkins is so awful it's entertaining...but for all the wrong reasons.
She returns to her hometown to visit her childhood friend, played by Miriam Hopkins, who's married to John Loder.
Hopkins's character yearns for a life of her own, outside of the trappings of her husband and daughter, and is inspired by her friend's visit to try and get her trashy romance novel published.
Davis helps her out and, of course, Hopkins becomes a big success, much to the chagrin of Davis and her now neglected husband Loder.Years later, Davis is dating Gig Young, whom she thinks is about to propose to her but who has actually now fallen for Hopkins's daughter Dolores Moran.
Even though Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis were constantly feuding off-screen, they sure made one great gem of a movie in 1942-"Old Acquaintance."It's essentially a story of a haughty woman (Hopkins) who really ruined Davis's life, her best friend, for after splitting with her husband of 9 years, Davis would not go with him (John Loder) out of respect for her dear friend.The movie starts out with comic overtones with everything going wrong when Davis visits Hopkins.I could have seen Hopkins and Davis reverse their roles and the film would have been fine.If that isn't enough, imagine years later, when Davis's fiancé, Gig Young, 10 years younger than her, changes his mind about marrying Davis since he falls for Hopkins's daughter, Deidre.The film concludes with the two women apologizing to each other and basically settling down to their work and lives alone.Hopkins is bitter and abusive whereas Davis is kind and understanding..
In this thematic sequel to OLD MAID (1939), Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis reprise their roles from the earlier film, with even a JEZEBEL reference thrown into the mix.