Rent Of Human Bondage (1934)
3.5 of 5 from 86 ratings
1h 23min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Leslie Howard plays Philip Carey, a club-footed student of painting in Paris, who realises that his \wrk will only ever be second rate so returns to England to study medicine. In a restaurant he meets, and falls for Mildred, a blonde waitress (Bette Davis), who breaks a date with him to go out with an artless salesman.Carey meets, and is subsequently courted by, the sophisticated Norah but he cannot forget the waitress. Mildred visits his apartment explaining that she has been deserted and is pregnant. Although Carey suggests marriage, she desens him again, this time for Harry Griffiths, a fellow student. Mildred returns once more, this time with the child but, although giving her shelter, Carey refuses her sexual advances and she destroys his belongings while he is out. Bonds that he needs to finance his studies are among these items and he is forced to leave medical school and become a salesman - but he becomes depressed and his health suffers. He is nursed back to health by Sally Athelny and her father. Later, he inherits sufficient money from an uncle to allow him to complete his studies and have corrective surgery for his club foot. On qualifying, his application for a job as a medical officer on a steamship to Australia is accepted. He learns that Mildred has been admitted to the hospital with tuberculosis but she dies before he is able to see her. Released from his emotional bondpge, he turns down the job at sea and is now free to marry Sally. This original movie adaptation of the tragic tale by Somerset Maugham is an exceptionally high quality production; the remakes in 1946 and 1964 being very poor in comparison. Leslie Howard and Bette Davis give brilliant performances which are enhanced by John Cromwell's sensitive direction. The role of the vulgar waitress Mildred had already been turned down by Katharine Hepburn, Ann Harding and Irene Dunne but the talented Bette Davis adopting a Cockney accent (even off stage!) made this, her first major role, her own and she was rightly heralded as a star of the first order. - Actors:
- Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Frances Dee, Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Alan Hale, Reginald Sheffield, Reginald Owen, Desmond Roberts, Charles Coleman, Frank Mills, Pat Somerset, Harry Allen, Ray Atchley, Frank Baker, Evelyn Beresford, Jimmy Casey, Ma Curly, Byron Fitzpatrick, Douglas Gordon
- Directors:
- John Cromwell
- Producers:
- Pandro S. Berman
- Writers:
- W. Somerset Maugham, Lester Cohen, Ann Coleman
- Studio:
- Eureka
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- Award Winners, Holidays Film Collection, Romantic Film Pairings for Valentine's Day, The Biggest Oscar Snubs: Part 1
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Reviews (1) of Of Human Bondage
Cockney Melodrama.. - Of Human Bondage review by Steve
This is the role Bette Davis went to war with Warner Brothers to get, and which made her a star. She is a Cockney waitress who cruelly breaks the inoffensive student (Leslie Howard) who is in love with her. She doesn't care, but humiliates him because she has the power and it is in her nature
And he would rather have her spite than nothing. It's a psychosexual power game. The adaptation was compromised by censorship. So, Mildred dies of poverty and TB- in the book she is a sex worker who contracts syphilis. The difficulty of condensing an epic meditative novel into an 82m melodrama would have meant trade-offs anyway. It's still transgressive.
Howard is studying anatomy. His own physical injury (he has a deformed foot) has marked him as a victim and is a symbol of his emotional inferiority. She is inarticulate and ordinary but has a sexual charisma that prevails. There is nothing else quite as extreme as this in thirties Hollywood, even precode. Her death scene is phenomenal.
Davis is astonishing. Her accent is a disaster. She is raw and wild, but this is one of her stand out performances. Howard is fine, though too old. But Bette is dominant, as she should be. It's like watching a sadistic, predatory creature torment its victim. It's not a realistic portrayal, it's far more than that: it's horrifying and among the greatest performances of the decade.
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