6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Abandoning artistic ambitions, sensitive and club-footed Philip Carey enrolls in medical school and falls in love with a waitress Mildred Rogers. She rejects him, runs off with a salesman and returns unmarried and pregnant. Philip gets her an apartment and they become engaged. Mildred runs off with another medical student. Philip takes her back again when she returns with her baby. She wrecks his apartment and burns the securities he needs to pay tuition. He gets a job as a salesman, has surgery on his foot, receives an inheritance, and returns to school where he learns Mildred is dying.
Starring: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Frances Dee, Kay Johnson, Reginald DennyRomance | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.32:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: LPCM Mono
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Bette Davis appeared in twenty-two films—most of them unremarkable, from Warner Bros., Universal, and a few "poverty row" studios—before getting her first big critical success in RKO's 1934 drama Of Human Bondage, the first of three screen versions of Somerset Maugham's loosely autobiographical 1915 novel. Her role as the cruel and manipulative Mildred Rogers made her, but could've just as easily broken her; this is the sort of unflattering part that most actresses of her day would've turned down immediately, and several did, including Katherine Hepburn and Irene Dunne. Though a bit cartoonish by today's realism-bound standards, Davis' wild-eyed performance is maliciously sexual and emotionally exploitive, all flirty indifference and indignant rage. While it didn't net her the Academy Award nomination many thought she deserved—a large contingency inside the Academy made her their "write-in" candidate of choice—it did give her the foundation for building a half-century career defined by tarty and/or terrifying roles in films like Jezebel and All About Eve and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Davis is definitely the reason Of Human Bondage is still watched and enjoyed today, because without her, the film would be just another rote and thematically dumbed- down literary adaptation, the novel's inherent seediness hampered by the Hays Code regulations just recently coming into effect.
As a film in the public domain, Of Human Bondage has seen some shoddy, careless home video releases in the past, so Kino's new 1080p/AVC- encoded Blu-ray transfer seems like a vast improvement, just on the merit of having a tighter, more refined high definition image. It's not perfect, though—that would require the kind of frame-by-frame digital cleanup that few studios/distributors could afford for a title like this—and the "as-is" picture displays an array of age and source-related damage. For starters, from the looks of it, the transfer was probably taken from a print a few generations removed from the original negative; grain is exceptionally pronounced, the dynamic range seems limited—sometimes with milky shadows and flattened highlights—and contrast fluctuates somewhat from scene to scene. There's also a near constant patina of specks, scratches, and baked-in hairs on the image, and the combination of the debris and heavy grain pattern—which, to be fair, is better than a DNR'd-to-death smooth-over—consequently affects the level of fine texture and detail. All that said, though, if you've ever seen Of Human Bondage on video before, it's undeniable how much better it looks here, free from many of the issues seen on past releases—horribly crushed shadows and blown-out highlights, aliasing, missing frames, etc.
The film's uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 mono track isn't exempt from age damage either—low hisses, splice pops, crackling, and peaking all show up to some extent—but this is often expected, and in some cases unavoidable, when it comes to early "talkies" from the 1930s. None of this is distracting, however, and for the most part, Of Human Bondage sounds just fine for a film of its particular vintage. Dialogue is relatively clean and easy to understand—which is important, since Kino has not included any subtitle options—and the lulling strings of Max Steiner's score are as rich and detailed as we could hope. No real issues here.
What would otherwise be a routine literary adaptation—entertaining, if less intelligent than the source novel—is elevated by the sensual and cruel presence of Bette Davis in her career-making turn as the manipulative Mildred Rogers. She's the main reason to watch Of Human Bondage, which, like many films in the public domain, has been subjected to numerous shoddy home video transfers over the years. Kino-Lorber means to give us something closer to a definite release, and they've largely succeeded; the film's Blu-ray release looks fantastic—barring some minor age-related damage —and the disc also includes a feature-length documentary on the fascinating life of author W. Somerset Maugham. Recommended!
Restored Edition | Warner Archive Collection
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