This is the second film version of Somerset Maugham's classic novel. The first was the 1934 film adaptation, starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis, [2] [3] and the third was the 1964 film adaptation, starring Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak. A story of compulsion on the one hand and control on the other, the story still has much resonance today even if it’s dressed up as a bad woman dragging down a good man, although the more traditional positions in such a relationship are reversed here. a b c d e Davis, Bette, A Lonely Life. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1962. ISBN 0-425-12350-2, pp. 173–76, 179–80

Nervous about audience reaction to her performance, Davis opted not to attend a preview of the film in Santa Barbara, although her mother Ruth and husband Harmon O. Nelson went. Ruth later related, "For one hour and a half of horrible realism, we sat riveted without speaking a word, with only a fleeting glance now and then at each other. We left the theater in absolute silence. Neither of us knew what to think, for we felt the picture would make or break her, but would the public like the unpleasant story as well as the people at the preview seemed to?" Upon arriving home, her husband told Davis he thought her performance, while "painfully sincere", might harm her career. [3] The story seems a bit hoary now as it’s hard to credit anyone meekly accepting the cruel treatment Davis’s selfish and heartless waitress doles out to the sensitive and besotted Howard. Crippled physically as well as emotionally, until that is, his clubbed foot condition is miraculously cured near the end, he spurns the love of two other pleasanter and indeed prettier young women as Davis’s parasitic Mildred sponges off him every time her latest boyfriend shows her the door. The first of three Hollywood adaptations of Maugham’s renowned novel of unrequited carnal obsession, 1934’s Of Human Bondage has gone down in cinematic history as the film that made Bette Davis a star, transforming her from a Warner Brothers contract player relegated to mediocre parts in decidedly B-pictures to a well-respected actress whose name alone was capable of driving moviegoers to the movies. Of course, that transformation didn’t happen overnight — Warners still treated her shabbily, even after the release of this critically-acclaimed film and the “consolation prize” Academy Award she won the next year for Dangerous— and it wasn’t until she took the studio to court in search of better parts (the result of which netted her another Oscar-winning role in 1938’s Jezebel) that her true commercial value became clear and capitalized upon readily by the Powers That Be… But the seeds of her worth were sown and first legitimized here, via a surprisingly straightforward, unglamorous performance that would come to typify her idea of acting — an outward-in method that pulled no figurative emotional punches and relished in expressive, external “tells” of a character’s inner workings. It was a revelation at the time and it remains so to this day — not because it’s as novel or realistic as it once seemed; on the contrary, some might even find it histrionic or hammy — but because it’s the metaphorical birth of an indelible screen persona. A star, here she is. Henreid wrote in his memoirs that he felt the original script "was very well written" but that Goulding rewrote it throughout the shoot. He did not get along with Goulding, disagreeing as to how scenes should be played and taking too many long takes. [4] Although her nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress was considered a sure thing by many, [ who?] she was ignored in favor of Grace Moore for One Night of Love, Norma Shearer for The Barretts of Wimpole Street, and eventual winner Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night. Angry voters ignored the nominees on their ballots and wrote in Davis's name, [3] and it was later announced that she had come in third, after Colbert and Shearer. Price Waterhouse was hired to count the votes and initiated the custom of keeping the results a secret the following year, [5] [7] when Davis was named Best Actress for Dangerous. Entertainment Weekly called Davis's Oscar snub one of the worst ever. [11] Reception [ edit ]

Through Philip, Maugham broaches the question of his own loss of religious faith. Young Philip hears that if one prays fervently enough, all one’s prayers will be answered. When he puts this guarantee to the test by praying as fervently as he can that his club foot will be made whole, his prayers are not answered. This disappointment unleashes a doubt that finally causes Philip to reject the religion in which he has been reared. Now, no longer willing to tolerate the brutality of his schoolmasters, Philip goes to Heidelberg to study. It is there, in his close association with two intelligent friends and his immersion in the study of philosophy, that Philip disabuses himself of the notion that there is a God. He finds this revelation liberating. On his return to England, he meets Gertrude, his aunt’s German friend, and with her has his first sexual experience.

One reaction RKO executives never expected to hear at the preview was laughter. After watching the film several times, they felt the Max Steiner score was to blame, and the composer wrote a new one that included a motif for each of the principal characters. [3] Maugham brings a lot of issues in his novel concerning every single aspect of human lives. Among these are the dangerous games people are playing, the place of cruelty and compassion, and how people create their own bondages in and their tries to become free. In this novel Maugham shows himself more than a writer; we see how deeply he reaches the psychological and philosophical aspects of human nature. Brown, Gene (1995). Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywood and the Movie Industry from Its Beginnings to the Present (1sted.). New York City: Wiley. p. 119. ISBN 0-02-860429-6.Finally, almost by default, Philip falls into an affair with Sally, the daughter of his friends, the Athelnys. After a scare that Sally might be pregnant proves to be groundless, Philip decides that he wants to marry her even though he does not love her. He needs the pattern that such a marriage will provide, just as Maugham apparently sought a similar pattern in his abortive marriage to Syrie Wellcome. The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months earlier. Now orphaned, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, Louisa and William Carey. The main character of the novel, Philip Carey, is partially based on the life of the author, there are many autobiographic facts. Philip at the age of nine lost his parents and lived with his uncle and aunt, who had no children of their own, and had no idea what to do and how to treat a child. Philip was a cripple, he had a clubfoot, and this deformity made him feel uncomfortable and in some way even undesirable during his life, but it did became an obstacle for him to become an intelligent young man with a broad mental outlook.