Studio head jack Warner did not want to make 'Dark Victory', predicting that no audience would want to see "a story of a girl who dies". But Bette Davis changed his mind, and won her third Oscar nomination!
As Judy Traherne, the fast-moving Long Island socialite whose world skids to a stop when she discovers she has less than a year to live, Davis is thoroughly captivating. She progresses from belligerent drunken despair to exhilaration - determined to live her remaining months, in the words of her doctor/lover (George Brent), "beautifully and finely".
Geraldine Fitzgerald is her friend and sanctuary, Humphrey Bogart speaks with a brogue as her Irish horse trainer, and Ronald Reagan plays her high-living, heavy-drinking suitor. But it is Davis' beautifully compelling performance that drives the film. Reviews hailed it as her finest achievement. "Judy Traherne," Davis revealed, "is what I'm like: She was 98% me".
