The Old Maid

This melodrama with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins is adapted from Zoë Akins's Pulitzer-winning play, itself taken from Edith Wharton's novella. Charlotte, played by Davis, gives her illegitimate daughter to her cousin Delia, played by Hopkins, in order to raise her at all, and remains in her own child's life as an aunt. As the years pass the girl comes to hate her real mother. That is exactly where the tension lies: Charlotte cannot tell the truth, because the moment she does she loses the daughter as well. Set after the American Civil War, the story presents the moral order of the period as a prison. The production history is part of the film's reputation. The rivalry between Davis and Hopkins ran through the shoot; Hopkins's attempts to steal the frame and the two actresses working to overshadow each other made it one of the most discussed set feuds of its era, and it lends the on-screen hostility an odd authenticity. Edmund Goulding directed. Who it is for: viewers who love classic Hollywood melodrama and Bette Davis. Who it is not for: anyone wanting restrained emotion, since the film never once conceals what it is.