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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Best movie ever!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A conniving woman (Bette Davis) and her loathsome brothers try to force her estranged dying husband (Herbert Marshall) into a business scheme that will exploit the poor people of their town. A tale of greed and corruption in the Deep South at the turn of the last century. Lillian Hellman adapted her own stage play. Well directed by William Wyler. Bette naturally owns the movie. Also fine performances from Herbert Marshall and Teresa Wright. Nice support, particularly from Charles Dingle and Patricia Collinge. Not a lot of likable characters in this one. It's a powerful drama, well crafted for sure, but you'll probably need antidepressants after.

By all my usual standards, this film ought to be sitting on my DVD shelf. It has who I feel is the finest American actress of all time -- Bette Davis. It has an actor whom I have always had deep admiration for -- Herbert Marshall. It has another actress I admire, in her debut film for which she earned an Oscar nomination -- Teresa Wright. It has an unusually good performance by Dan Duryea, perhaps so good because it was beyond his norm. And there's a fine performance by actress Patricia Collinge, also her film debut, and also a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination...another stunning actress. Not to mention a number of other fine supporting performances, a story by the wonderful Lillian Hellman (another Oscar nominee here), and direction by the esteemed William Wyler.But this film is not on my DVD shelf, and while watching it this time around on TCM I was wondering why. I think what it comes down to in this film is that -- particularly in the early stages of the movie -- it talks you to death. Yack, yack, yack, yack, yack. I'm not saying it's not good acting; it's very fine acting. But acting feels claustrophobic when it's constantly yacking in a parlor. Another thing that bothers me -- I never noticed Bette Davis having huge bazooms before. I'm not joking. She doesn't even walk right in this film.So there you have it. A fine movie, but something short of a great movie.

This movie would not be my first choice if I was to pick a movie to watch on a Friday night. I think for what it was about, content wise, the movie was pretty interesting. It started getting old though, and movies that just shine light on how greedy people can be gets disappointing after a while. I think the camera work was ordinary, nothing too special happening. I think the actors and actresses did a good job though, and credit should be given to the leading actress for being so cold and evil. I think this movie has a very important deep message that it was trying to convey, which in the end love triumphs all. This movie pertained to social-cultural issues of that time, but those issues still apply to today.

I was sort of expecting a period piece. The film's IMDb poster certainly makes it look like one. But what we have here is a film about power struggles between power-hungry people, and it's definitely not a film that would be a great example of the shining spots of human beings. The entire cast does some great work, but it's Davis who shines the brightest. By this point she's already established herself as a force to be reckoned with, but by this point I think she's surprised many to the depths she was willing to go, seeing as how this is probably one of her absolutely most despicable characters, if not the most (well, discounting Baby Jane of course). She's amazing here and it's definitely an all-time great performance.