Oscar Profiles: Bette Davis in Dangerous

Best Actress winner 1935

It's kind of hilarious that in Bette Davis's first major film after the Of Human Bondage debacle—everyone thought she should have been nominated, especially Bette Davis, but she was snubbed and even a write-in campaign didn't remedy that fact—she's playing the greatest actress in the world, a woman placed in the elite company of the doomed genius Jeanne Eagels, and no one else. Sure, she's washed up, but there's brilliance underneath if only it can escape from the "jinx" surrounding her, and her own manipulative nature. If the bit about how great she is sounds like a bit of ego-stroking, well, it probably is. In fact, it's impossible to see Dangerous as anything but a series of apologies to Davis: from her studio head, Jack Warner, for sticking her in mostly undistinguished programmers and then failing to campaign for that Oscar; and from Oscar itself, for the snub (although Claudette Colbert deserved the award more anyway, but that's another story). So this the first and perhaps most obvious "apology Oscars," where the Academy makes up for earlier snubs. Standing on its own... well, Dangerous can't stand on its own. It's undistinguished claptrap, and Davis's performance doesn't do much to raise it above that level. Davis was reportedly unappeased by the nomination because she didn't want to be honored for lesser work, and she's right: this is lesser work. She hardly deviates from the shrill opening in which she attempts to play Juliet in a dive bar while staggering under the weight of gallons of gin, but at least later scenes allow her to ditch the painful drunk act. But there's really nowhere to go with this character: I'll admit that the internal "something" she's supposed to possess, according to other characters, actually exists, but that's because she's Bette Davis, and even this crap script can't smother that. Performance rating: 2.5 goats