Title: Jezebel
Director: William Wyler
Screenwriter(s): Owen Davis (play) & Clements Ripley (screenplay)
Producer: William Wyler
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Production Company: Warner Bros.
In Theaters: March 10th, 1938
Run Time: 103 minutes
Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, & George Brent
Genre(s): drama/romance
Storyline: Set in antebellum New Orleans during the early 1850’s, this film follows Julie Marsden through her quest for social redemption on her own terms. Julie is a beautiful and free spirited, rapacious Southern belle who is sure of herself and controlling of her fiancé Preston Dillard, a successful young banker. Julie’s sensitive but domineering personality—she does not want so much to hurt as to assert her independence—forces a wedge between Preston and herself. To win him back, she plays North against South amid a deadly epidemic of yellow fever which claims a surprising victim.
Movie Trailer:
My Review: This was Betty Davis’ second Academy award nomination and her second win. It stands to reason why this is so. This movie was brilliant. Any movie that can get me to talk back to the tv while watching it scores high in my book of great movies. Henry Fonda was surprisingly good as well. But before I start to peel away the many layers of this onion of a movie, I hope you have read the storyline above? Good. Now, the best parts, among the many I was easily able to commit to memory!
For starters, when Julie (Bette Davis) is upset that her fiance, Preston (Henry Fonda), wouldn’t go dress shopping with her, she decides to do the most ghastly thing any woman in the south can do, wear a red dress! In the South, women who are not yet married are required to wear only white. Julie does not agree with these traditions and knows how angry it will make her fiance. It makes him angry alright. He demands that she wear a white dress to the Olympus Ball he will be escorting her to. She refuses, of course. When the night arrives and she is still wearing that “saucy” red dress, he orders her to change, she counters by accusing him of being a coward, not realizing the consequences of her words. At the ball she does more than simply turn everyones head, she causes people to snicker and gossip and actually walk off the dance floor when her and her fiance begin to dance. No one wants to be associated with them. When she realizes how her red dress is doing more damage than she had intended she begs Preston to take her home immediately. The looks on their faces and their body movements while dancing tell a story better than I ever could. You can see her desire to leave and his insistance that she stay and suffer through this humiliation. I agreed with his decision 100%! And when it was all over and he took her home, the night ended with a subtle agreement that their engagement was ended, because of her actions, and she slapped him in the face.
This move plays great homage to the South and how men and women behave. From the way women are expected to dress, look after the men, and allow them to be men. To the way men cannot allow their honor be in any way shamed in public. So much so that a duel takes place during a time when the “yellow jack”, a fever that had previously made its way through the south, killing many. The Southerners feared this fever more than anything. So much so that they would flea their houses to get to higher ground where they knew it would not follow. And those who were sick? They sent to a remote island where the lepers reside, to live out their life and die there.
The duel happened because of Julie’s actions. She knows it. And the scene where she sings with the negroes she invites over to her house in order to drown out her guilt and the anger of the other women is iconic. When the duel is over and the underdog wins the battle by shooting his first victim and the man Julie used to make Preston jealous, it drives her completely over the edge. Her guests (who also fled from “yellow jack” to her estate) could no longer stay there after knowing what she has just caused to happen. This leads to the best moment, the best line delivery in the entire movie, when her sad aunt Belle, her only relative who actually loves her, sits silently with Julie, who’s busy fiddling with flowers. She can’t take her aunts silence any longer and demands she say what she’s thinking. Her reply? “I’m thinkin’ of a woman called Jezebel who did evil in the sight of God.”
When I think about it, the other amazing moment comes earlier in the movie, a year has passed since the engagement of Julie and Preston ended, and her aunt is talking with the town doctor who’s paying a house call, inquiring after Julie’s health. Her aunt is worried about her because she does not leave the house and she only looks after the house more than anyone has ever done in the history of looking after houses! The doctor says no one know what kind of person Julie is more than her aunt Belle. To which aunt Belle replies, and I’m paraphrasing, “I only know her when she’s bad, because when she’s bad she’s the best part of me.” Or something to that effect.
I won’t spoil the ending for you. But I can easily see why she won the Academy, if only for two key moments for her in the movie. The first, when she humbles herself and asks for Prestons forgiveness when he returns help during the “yellow jack” outbreak. And secondly, when she again humbles herself and begs Prestons wife to let her accompany him to the land of the lepers after he is infected by “yellow jack” and has to be taken there. She only gets her way in one instance. I leave you to guess which one…
My Rating: A+
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