Watch Now, Voyager For Free

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This film tugs on a few different heartstrings, with themes of a domineering mother, being an awkward, depressed young person, finding a deep connection and love with someone who can't be yours, and then personally evolving to the point of being able to transcend all of that, and finding one's path. It's really quite a touching film, and Bette Davis turns in another brilliant performance. The supporting cast around her is strong as well, and features Gladys Cooper (her mother), Paul Henreid (her lover), Claude Rains (her wise doctor). And, how fascinating is it that both Henreid and Rains began filming Casalanca immediately afterwards; clearly a great year for them.The film scores points for me for having its title come from a Walt Whitman line in 'Leaves of Grass': "The untold want by life and land ne'er granted; Now, Voyager sail thou forth, to seek and find," which is appropriate. The film speaks to being honest with oneself, to one's identity, as well as to the person you love, even if it's complicated. I loved the little touches of the inner voice that director Irving Rapper employs, which helps underscore this.It's heartwarming to see how those in love make each other better people. She begins to bloom, and radiate confidence after receiving simple acts of kindness and appreciation. He returns to his passion, architecture, and is more empathetic and understanding of his troubled daughter. The scene where they meet by chance again at a party, and have a conversation interlaced with whispered remarks of tenderness (such as her saying to him she could "cry with pride" over him following his dream) is lovely.At the same time, she's not defined by him, or dependent on him. In fact, the movie is a celebration of independence, and shows how it can be done gracefully and with class. Her strength come through in so many ways: in standing up to her mother, determining her path with another suitor, asserting herself with her old doctor, and ultimately deciding the terms she'll have her relationship with Henreid on. While she admits that "I've just been a big sentimental fool. It's a tendency I have," she also calmly says "Please let me go" when a big romantic moment threatens to sweep her away.The story about his child was touching, as we see Davis help her, as she was once helped, but I thought this part dragged on too long, and needed tightening up. It felt overly melodramatic and false; for one thing, where was the mother? There was a much earlier scene with a Brazilian taxi driver that got silly, and should have been left on the cutting room floor as well. On the other hand, I loved those last lines. He asks her, "And will you be happy, Charlotte?" And she responds "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." How brilliant that line is; there is something larger than ourselves, larger than what others consider happiness.

In Voyager, Bette Davis plays repressed, over weight, middle aged spinster Charlotte Vale, still living with her mother, and slowly being driven mad by her mother's thinly veiled loathing. A kindly sister-in-law and a savvy doctor (Claude Rains as Dr. Jacquith) begin to put things right, and slowly she emerges out of the darkness, a renewed and remade woman. For the first time in her life, she "isn't afraid". She goes on a long sea voyage immediately after having left the doctor's sanitarium, partly for reflection given "the new you" makeover inside and out that she has had, partly as recreation.On that voyage, she meets and falls in love with an unhappily and permanently married man (Paul Henreid as Jerry). Now this film is based on a book, and you'd think the kiss the two share in the film might actually be more, but it isn't. It actually is just a kiss, so the production code did not interfere in this one. Jerry and Charlotte realize they cannot be together - they go their separate ways.Now recognize the difference in the times - Charlotte is all of about 34 when people keep calling her a spinster. Charlotte comes home, and at first has to battle mom who does not seem to like Charlotte's new look which echoes her new attitude. Mom wants the doormat back that she had before, but does not get her way. Charlotte, in good old Boston Back Bay tradition, is courted by a widower with two half grown sons ...The film never says what that means. Age 11 and 13? Does this mean they are part time CPAs and engineers versus full time? I'm not quite sure why that part is there other than to perhaps insinuate that they have their own lives "sort of". Thus Charlotte would be free to marry and have a child at the tail end of her fertility with this likable respectable available man that she does not love. But that's the thing - she does not love him. Her breakup with this man is followed - most predictably - by her mother's searing criticism. Maybe not so predictably by mom's sudden death of heart failure. Charlotte feels responsible for killing her mom, for killing off her last chance of having a man and a child of her own, and she retreats to the place where she first felt safe in her life - to Dr. Jacquith and his sanitarium. While there she comes across a plain frightened and completely unconfident girl, approximately twelve, who is terrified of having to play ping pong with the other kids. Charlotte sees herself in this girl and makes it her business to win her trust, and allow her the respect that she was never afforded. She gives this girl both a friend and the mother that she herself never had. And then a surprise when she finds out exactly who the girl is. I'll let you watch and find out how this all works out. This film has a lot going for it such as the whole idea of a woman who is transformed and her self-actualization. She finds freedom from convention, and while its convenient she is wealthy, Charlotte's character grows in ways we don't expect. She does make an effort to be conventional, but she comes to the conclusion that she must remain true to herself, and so she takes the road less traveled. And the story is written so terrifically, I found myself cheering for Charlotte in the end. It is a story to open your eyes about people and how they see themselves inside. Don't let Charlotte's transformed outward beauty and allure fool you. It's just the outward manifestation of the way she changing on the inside.Just a few words about other major players in the film. First Claude Rains - as the psychiatrist he glides through his role effortlessly. In his polished depiction of the sympathetic therapist with an engaging bedside manner, he also engages us to the point that we are riveted on him whenever he is on screen. Next there is Max Steiner's score. It fits perfectly with every scene of the film. In fact, it seems that there were times when Queen Bette, in other films, found Max's scores to be an unwanted competitor of hers and actually complained! I'd highly recommend this one. Besides being a terrifically and well acted tale, it has so much to say about human dignity.

It seems like over the past 20 years, every time I have seen a documentary on the golden age of Hollywood, they play the last scene from this movie where Paul Henreid lights two cigarettes at once and hands one to Bette Davis.I have always wanted to see the movie and recently I watched it. Bette Davis is superb in the role of Charlotte Vale, a woman under the thumb of an overbearing mother. Equally impressive are Claude Rains, as her doctor, Dr. Jaquith and Paul Henreid, as Jerry Durrance, a man who befriends her on an ocean voyage.The movie takes you along on her journey from an insecure spinster to that of a woman who has everything.If you are a fan of film, this is an essential.

Sometimes my choice of what movie to watch next is influenced by something I might have just seen. In "Summer of '42", a couple of sex-obsessed but inexperienced teenage boys take their summertime girlfriends to the theater and their choice of pictures is "Now, Voyager". As the boys try to cop a cheap feel, and as the girls swat away their advances, I don't know how much of the picture they actually got to see. But since this title was in a stack of unwatched movies, my own decision was an easy one to make.The title comes from an obscure line from the poet Walt Whitman in my summary above. The 'Voyager' of the film is the character portrayed by Bette Davis, an emotionally scarred young woman whose domineering mother has made her a cloistered wreck. With the help of a patient and understanding psychiatrist (Claude Rains), Charlotte Vail (Davis) discards the remnants of her abusive past and begins to grow as a self confident young woman, eventually catching the eye of a gentleman who shows interest in her aboard a cruise ship. As their romance blossoms, Jerry Durrance (Paul Henried) reveals the details of an unhappy marriage in which he's trapped, with a daughter suffering the consequences of a mother who like Miss Vail's own, is incapable of showing love or compassion.In sharp counterpoint to Mrs. Henry Vale's (Gladys Cooper) attitudes regarding wealth and societal status, Durrance offers one of the most compelling and effective arguments ever made in cinema when he speaks to Charlotte about finding happiness - two people having fun together, getting a kick out of simple, little things and finding beauty in them, and sharing confidences with a loved one you wouldn't share with anyone else in the world. It's the kind of advice that would make practitioners like Dr. Jaquith (Rains) obsolete if one would only take it to heart and follow it.Bette Davis had a way of tugging on viewer heartstrings in many of the roles she portrayed in her films. In this picture she quite literally transforms from an ugly duckling into an attractive young woman, while running a gamut of emotions coming to grips with love, losing it, and finding the way back again. As the viewer, one may find it beneficial to keep the tissues handy to deal with the emotional ups and downs of the story.