The Great Lie

A pilot played by George Brent marries Sandra, a concert pianist played by Mary Astor; the marriage then proves invalid and he marries Maggie, played by Bette Davis. When his plane goes down in the Amazon the two women are left together and Sandra discovers she is pregnant. They make an arrangement: Maggie will raise the child and nobody will know. The story behind it entered film history. Bette Davis considered the script worthless soap and brought Mary Astor in to rewrite it with her. They reworked scenes to add conflict and improvised dialogue, and the director Edmund Goulding was pleased with the intervention. The instruction Goulding gave Astor has survived as a summary of the character: a piano, brandy, and men, in that order. Astor won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and the film's real centre is hers. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Hollywood melodrama and the meeting of two formidable performers. Who it is not for: anyone seeking realism, since the plot runs on coincidence from beginning to end.