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A sweeping costume drama in the best Warner Brothers style, All This
and Heaven Too (1940) tells
the story of governess Henriette Deluzy (Bette Davis) who takes a position in
the home of the elegant Duc de Praslin (Boyer).
Henriette soon finds that this is not a happy home; the Duc's wife is a jealous
neurotic whose frantic love for her husband is unrequited; the more maniacal
her behavior becomes, the more the Duc turns to the quietly sympathetic governess
for solace. The situation escalates with disastrous results for all concerned.
(The Duchess is played to the hilt by Barbara O'Neil, in a role as far away
as possible from the one she essayed a year previously -- Scarlett O'Hara's
paragon of a mother in Gone With the Wind.)
Boyer
and Davis - the governess attempts to soothe the distraught Duc |
The Duc
is not pleased when his leave-taking is spied upon by one of his wife's
minions. |
Although at the time of its release All
This was not the success that Warner Bros. hoped for (director Anatole
Litvak later said it was "...overproduced. You couldn't see the actors for the
candelabra"), it holds up well today. The doom-and-gloom atmosophere is
in keeping with the tragic storyline, and the performances of the two stars are
top-notch. Davis is unusually gentle and restrained, whereas Boyer's interpretation
of the distraught Duc is many-faceted and close to faultless. It could be
referred to as The Movie of The Eyes -- were there ever two pairs of eyes larger
or more expressive than those of Charles Boyer and Bette Davis?
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