now voyager oscars

Looking at Film from Every Angle

15th Academy Awards (1942): Nominees and Winners

Outstanding motion picture.

The Invaders – Ortus Kings Row – Warner Bros. The Magnificent Ambersons – Mercury Mrs. Miniver – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The Pied Piper – 20th Century-Fox The Pride of the Yankees – Samuel Goldwyn Productions Random Harvest – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The Talk of the Town – Columbia Wake Island – Paramount Yankee Doodle Dandy – Warner Bros.

Kings Row – Sam Wood Mrs. Miniver – William Wyler Random Harvest – Mervyn LeRoy Wake Island – John Farrow Yankee Doodle Dandy – Michael Curtiz

James Cagney – Yankee Doodle Dandy Ronald Colman – Random Harvest Gary Cooper – The Pride of the Yankees Walter Pidgeon – Mrs. Miniver Monty Woolley – The Pied Piper

Bette Davis – Now, Voyager Greer Garson – Mrs. Miniver Katharine Hepburn – Woman of the Year Rosalind Russell – My Sister Eileen Teresa Wright – The Pride of the Yankees

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

William Bendix – Wake Island Van Heflin – Johnny Eager Walter Huston – Yankee Doodle Dandy Frank Morgan – Tortilla Flat Henry Travers – Mrs. Miniver

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Gladys Cooper – Now, Voyager Agnes Moorehead – The Magnificent Ambersons Susan Peters – Random Harvest Dame May Whitty – Mrs. Miniver Teresa Wright – Mrs. Miniver

WRITING (Original Motion Picture Story)

Holiday Inn – Irving Berlin The Invaders – Emeric Pressburger The Pride of the Yankees – Paul Gallico The Talk of the Town – Sidney Harmon Yankee Doodle Dandy – Robert Buckner

WRITING (Original Screenplay)

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing – Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Road to Morocco – Frank Butler, Don Hartman Wake Island – W. R. Burnett, Frank Butler The War against Mrs. Hadley – George Oppenheimer Woman of the Year – Ring Lardner, Jr., Michael Kanin

WRITING (Screenplay)

The Invaders – Rodney Ackland, Emeric Pressburger Mrs. Miniver – Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West The Pride of the Yankees – Jo Swerling, Herman J. Mankiewicz Random Harvest – Claudine West, George Froeschel, Arthur Wimperis The Talk of the Town – Irwin Shaw, Sidney Buchman

MUSIC (Song)

“Always In My Heart” – Always in My Heart – Music by Ernesto Lecuona; Lyrics by Kim Gannon “Dearly Beloved” – You Were Never Lovelier – Music by Jerome Kern; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer “How About You?” – Babes on Broadway – Music by Burton Lane; Lyrics by Ralph Freed “It Seems I Heard That Song Before” – Youth on Parade – Music by Jule Styne; Lyrics by Sammy Cahn “I’ve Got A Gal In Kalamazoo” – Orchestra Wives – Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Mack Gordon “Love Is A Song” – Bambi – Music by Frank Churchill; Lyrics by Larry Morey “Pennies For Peppino” – Flying with Music – Music by Edward Ward; Lyrics by Chet Forrest, Bob Wright “Pig Foot Pete” – Hellzapoppin’ – Music by Gene de Paul; Lyrics by Don Raye [1] “There’s A Breeze On Lake Louise” – The Mayor of 44th Street – Music by Harry Revel; Lyrics by Mort Greene “White Christmas” – Holiday Inn – Music, Lyrics by Irving Berlin

MUSIC (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)

Arabian Nights – Frank Skinner Bambi – Frank Churchill, Edward Plumb The Black Swan – Alfred Newman The Corsican Brothers – Dimitri Tiomkin Flying Tigers – Victor Young The Gold Rush – Max Terr I Married a Witch – Roy Webb Joan of Paris – Roy Webb Jungle Book – Miklos Rozsa Klondike Fury – Edward Kay Now, Voyager – Max Steiner The Pride of the Yankees – Leigh Harline Random Harvest – Herbert Stothart The Shanghai Gesture – Richard Hageman Silver Queen – Victor Young Take a Letter, Darling – Victor Young The Talk of the Town – Frederick Hollander, Morris Stoloff To Be or Not to Be – Werner Heymann

MUSIC (Scoring of a Musical Picture)

Flying with Music – Edward Ward For Me and My Gal – Roger Edens, Georgie Stoll Holiday Inn – Robert Emmett Dolan It Started with Eve – Hans Salter, Charles Previn Johnny Doughboy – Walter Scharf My Gal Sal – Alfred Newman Yankee Doodle Dandy – Ray Heindorf, Heinz Roemheld You Were Never Lovelier – Leigh Harline

FILM EDITING

Mrs. Miniver – Harold F. Kress The Pride of the Yankees – Daniel Mandell The Talk of the Town – Otto Meyer This above All – Walter Thompson Yankee Doodle Dandy – George Amy

CINEMATOGRAPHY (Black-and-White)

Kings Row – James Wong Howe The Magnificent Ambersons – Stanley Cortez Mrs. Miniver – Joseph Ruttenberg Moontide – Charles Clarke The Pied Piper – Edward Cronjager The Pride of the Yankees – Rudolph Maté Take a Letter, Darling – John Mescall The Talk of the Town – Ted Tetzlaff Ten Gentlemen from West Point – Leon Shamroy This above All – Arthur Miller

CINEMATOGRAPHY (Color)

Arabian Nights – Milton Krasner, William V. Skall, W. Howard Greene The Black Swan – Leon Shamroy Captains of the Clouds – Sol Polito Jungle Book – W. Howard Greene Reap the Wild Wind – Victor Milner, William V. Skall To the Shores of Tripoli – Edward Cronjager, William V. Skall

ART DIRECTION (Black-and-White)

George Washington Slept Here – Art Direction: Max Parker, Mark-Lee Kirk; Interior Decoration: Casey Roberts The Magnificent Ambersons – Art Direction: Albert S. D’Agostino; Interior Decoration: Darrell Silvera, Al Fields The Pride of the Yankees – Art Direction: Perry Ferguson; Interior Decoration: Howard Bristol Random Harvest – Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell; Interior Decoration: Edwin B. Willis, Jack Moore The Shanghai Gesture – Art Direction: Boris Leven; Interior Decoration: Boris Leven Silver Queen – Art Direction: Ralph Berger; Interior Decoration: Emile Kuri The Spoilers – Art Direction: Jack Otterson, John B. Goodman; Interior Decoration: Russell A. Gausman, Edward R. Robinson Take a Letter, Darling – Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson; Interior Decoration: Sam Comer The Talk of the Town – Art Direction: Lionel Banks, Rudolph Sternad; Interior Decoration: Fay Babcock This above All – Art Direction: Richard Day, Joseph Wright; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little

ART DIRECTION (Color)

Arabian Nights – Art Direction: Jack Otterson, Alexander Golitzen; Interior Decoration: Russell A. Gausman, Ira S. Webb Captains of the Clouds – Art Direction: Ted Smith; Interior Decoration: Casey Roberts Jungle Book – Art Direction: Vincent Korda; Interior Decoration: Julia Heron My Gal Sal – Art Direction: Richard Day, Joseph Wright; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little Reap the Wild Wind – Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson; Interior Decoration: George Sawley

SOUND RECORDING

Arabian Nights – Universal Studio Sound Department, Bernard B. Brown, Sound Director Bambi – Walt Disney Studio Sound Department, Sam Slyfield, Sound Director Flying Tigers – Republic Studio Sound Department, Daniel Bloomberg, Sound Director Friendly Enemies – Sound Service, Inc., Jack Whitney, Sound Director The Gold Rush – RCA Sound, James Fields, Sound Director Mrs. Miniver – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio Sound Department, Douglas Shearer, Sound Director Once upon a Honeymoon – RKO Radio Studio Sound Department, Steve Dunn, Sound Director The Pride of the Yankees – Samuel Goldwyn Studio Sound Department, Thomas T. Moulton, Sound Director Road to Morocco – Paramount Studio Sound Department, Loren Ryder, Sound Director This above All – 20th Century-Fox Studio Sound Department, E. H. Hansen, Sound Director Yankee Doodle Dandy – Warner Bros. Studio Sound Department, Nathan Levinson, Sound Director You Were Never Lovelier – Columbia Studio Sound Department, John Livadary, Sound Director

SPECIAL EFFECTS

The Black Swan – Photographic Effects by Fred Sersen; Sound Effects by Roger Heman, George Leverett Desperate Journey – Photographic Effects by Byron Haskin; Sound Effects by Nathan Levinson Flying Tigers – Photographic Effects by Howard Lydecker; Sound Effects by Daniel J. Bloomberg Invisible Agent – Photographic Effects by John Fulton; Sound Effects by Bernard B. Brown Jungle Book – Photographic Effects by Lawrence Butler; Sound Effects by William H. Wilmarth Mrs. Miniver – Photographic Effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe; Sound Effects by Douglas Shearer The Navy Comes Through – Photographic Effects by Vernon L. Walker; Sound Effects by James G. Stewart One of Our Aircraft Is Missing – Photographic Effects by Ronald Neame; Sound Effects by C. C. Stevens The Pride of the Yankees – Photographic Effects by Jack Cosgrove, Ray Binger; Sound Effects by Thomas T. Moulton Reap the Wild Wind – Photographic Effects by Gordon Jennings, Farciot Edouart, William L. Pereira; Sound Effects by Louis Mesenkop

DOCUMENTARY

Africa, Prelude to Victory – The March of Time The Battle of Midway – United States Navy [2] Combat Report – United States Army Signal Corps Conquer by the Clock – Frederic Ullman, Jr. The Grain That Built a Hemisphere – Walt Disney Henry Browne, Farmer – United States Department of Agriculture High over the Borders – National Film Board of Canada High Stakes in the East – The Netherlands Information Bureau Inside Fighting China – National Film Board of Canada It’s Everybody’s War – United States Office of War Information Kokoda Front Line! – Australian News & Information Bureau [3] Listen to Britain – British Ministry of Information Little Belgium – Belgian Ministry of Information Little Isles of Freedom – Victor Stoloff, Edgar Loew Mr. Blabbermouth! – United States Office of War Information Mr. Gardenia Jones – United States Office of War Information Moscow Strikes Back – Artkino [4] The New Spirit – Walt Disney Prelude to War – United States Army Special Services [5] The Price of Victory – William H. Pine A Ship Is Born – United States Merchant Marine Twenty-One Miles – British Ministry of Information We Refuse to Die – William C. Thomas White Eagle – Concanen Films Winning Your Wings – United States Army Air Force

SHORT SUBJECT (Cartoon)

All Out for ‘V’ – 20th Century-Fox Blitz Wolf – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Der Fuehrer’s Face – Walt Disney Juke Box Jamboree – Walter Lantz Pigs in a Polka – Leon Schlesinger Tulips Shall Grow – George Pal

SHORT SUBJECT (One-reel)

Desert Wonderland – 20th Century-Fox Marines in the Making – Pete Smith Speaking of Animals and Their Families – Paramount United States Marine Band – Warner Bros.

SHORT SUBJECT (Two-reel)

Beyond the Line of Duty – Warner Bros. Don’t Talk – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Private Smith of the U.S.A. – RKO Radio

SPECIAL AWARD

To Charles Boyer for his progressive cultural achievement in establishing the French Research Foundation in Los Angeles as a source of reference for the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. To Noel Coward for his outstanding production achievement in In Which We Serve. To Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for its achievement in representing the American Way of Life in the production of the “Andy Hardy” series of films.

IRVING G. THALBERG MEMORIAL AWARD

Sidney Franklin

SCIENTIFIC OR TECHNICAL AWARD (Class II)

To CARROLL CLARK, F. THOMAS THOMPSON and the RKO RADIO STUDIO ART and MINIATURE DEPARTMENTS for the design and construction of a moving cloud and horizon machine. [Stage Operations] To DANIEL B. CLARK and the 20TH CENTURY-FOX FILM CORP. for the development of a lens calibration system and the application of this system to exposure control in cinematography. [Lenses and Filters]

SCIENTIFIC OR TECHNICAL AWARD (Class III)

To ROBERT HENDERSON and the PARAMOUNT STUDIO ENGINEERING and TRANSPARENCY DEPARTMENTS for the design and construction of adjustable light bridges and screen frames for transparency process photography. [Special Photographic] To DANIEL J. BLOOMBERG and the REPUBLIC STUDIO SOUND DEPARTMENT for the design and application to motion picture production of a device for marking action negative for pre-selection purposes. [Laboratory]

ACADEMY NOTES

• [NOTE: This nomination is a mystery. Both the nominations list and the program from the Awards dinner list the song as being from Hellzapoppin’, a 1942 release for Awards purposes. The song does not appear in that film, but did appear in Keep ‘Em Flying, a 1941 release from the same production company and studio, and was therefore ineligible for a 1942 nomination.]
• [NOTE: “A special award to Battle of Midway for the historical value of its achievement in offering a camera record of one of the decisive battles of the world – a record unique both for the courage of those who made it under fire, and for its magnificent portrayal of the gallantry of our armed forces in battle.”]
• [NOTE: “A special award to Kokoda Front Line! for its effectiveness in portraying, simply yet forcefully, the scene of war in New Guinea and for its moving presentation of the bravery and fortitude of our Australian comrades in arms.”]
• [NOTE: “A special award to Moscow Strikes Back for its vivid presentation of the heroism of the Russian Army and of the Russian people in the defense of Moscow, and for its achievement in so doing under conditions of extreme difficulty and danger.”]
• [NOTE: “A special award to Prelude to War for its trenchant conception and authentic and stirring dramatization of the events which forced our nation into the war and of the ideals for which we fight.”]

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75 Years Later, Now, Voyager Remains a Poignant Depiction of Mental Illness

About 23 minutes into Now, Voyager comes one of the most resplendent transformations in all of cinema.

Charlotte Vale (played with trademark intensity and brutal grace by Bette Davis) begins the film as an archetypal spinster figure. Her eyebrows are unruly, clothes dowdy, and a definitive air of anxiety cloaks her. She comes across as an exposed nerve. But at that 23-minute mark, Charlotte is transformed. When the camera tilts upward to her luminescent face, half-shrouded by her hat, she’s glamorous and beautiful in ways she hadn’t been before. The change isn’t just cosmetic. It’s a reflection of an interior transformation that’s still in progress — thanks to an extended stay in a sanitarium — from a mentally strained spinster to a woman charting her own path.

In the years since its release, the film has garnered a reputation as Davis’s best performance and a quintessential example of the women’s picture , a proto-feminist subgenre that took shape in 1930s Hollywood that made the interior lives of complex women its terrain. When I watched the 1942 film — which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year — for the first time as a teenager, it wasn’t the glamour or even the stirring romance that captured my imagination. It was the knotted story about Charlotte’s struggle with mental illness that I was drawn to because it offered something I hadn’t seen before or since in cinematic madwomen: hope.

Today, Now, Voyager remains a timeless portrait of a woman who pulls herself back from the edge of madness to create a life she’s proud to live, with the help of both psychiatry and her own willpower. The film is buttressed by sleek, highly efficient Hollywood production and the moving performances of the cast, notably Davis and Claude Rains as Dr. Jaquith, who helps usher Charlotte into this next phase of her life. Most poignantly, Now, Voyager is a curious outlier in the pantheon of American cinema that concerns itself with women living with mental illness. Few films offer the kind of blistering hope and empathy that has made Now, Voyager endure.

Films featuring mentally ill characters — consider Glenn Close’s maniacal portrayal in Fatal Attraction, Angelina Jolie’s charismatic turn in Girl, Interrupted , and the hothouse women of Tennessee Williams adaptations — often treat these women with emotional distance. Their contorting faces and bodies are a spectacle, while the particulars of their mind remain opaque. It would be difficult to cover all the permutations of madwomen, but they often fall into a few categories: cautionary true-life tales ( Sylvia; The Three Faces of Eve ), deliriously fun vixens who give way to toxicity and violence ( Girl, Interrupted; The Craft; Fatal Attraction ), vehicles for brutalization ( A Streetcar Named Desire ), and women in horror films ( Black Swan being a notable recent addition to the canon). Others slink through noir, like the overheated Technicolor Leave Her to Heaven and sharp The Dark Mirror . This is a pantheon of women whose aches and ailments, desires and downfalls I have been studying for years — partially out of need. Through most of my life grappling with mental illness, I have had no friends or family who, at least openly, dealt with similar issues. So I turned to the screen to find communion. While I personally love many of these films, and the performances that anchor them, I am acutely aware that in almost all of these cases, female madness is a tool, an archetype, a symbol. To be branded mad as a woman can sometimes feel like a black mark you can’t escape from that allows people to disregard your voice and personhood. This is a culture that film often perpetuates through its bloodthirsty femme fatales and treacly biopics offering saccharine endings in which madness is swept away by the love of a good man. Rarely are these women seen as people with interior lives.

Based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, Now, Voyager centers on Charlotte Vale (Davis), a repressed spinster and only daughter of a prominent Boston family, whose life is brutally controlled by her aristocratic mother, Mrs. Windie Vale (Gladys Cooper). Mrs. Vale heaps emotional abuse upon her daughter to such a degree, Charlotte is perpetually on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Her sister-in-law, Lisa (Ilka Chase), intervenes by introducing Charlotte to Dr. Jaquith (Rains), a wryly humorous and caring psychiatrist whose sanitarium becomes a haven for the young woman. The film’s legacy is often tied to its tender romanticism: the moving yet doomed relationship between Charlotte and the married Jeremiah “Jerry” Durrance (Paul Henreid). But what truly makes Now, Voyager memorable is how it centers on Charlotte’s interior life, including her mental illness, above all else, and how Davis capably brings this to life.

Davis’s reputation as an actress is that of unmatched intensity. She consistently played women who make shirking societal rules into an art form — martyrs, bold Southern belles, villainesses, city dwellers fueled by blinding anger. Charlotte Vale proves how deftly subtle and quiet Davis could be, despite her reputation for histrionics. Now, Voyager came relatively early in Davis’s five-decade-long career, but by this point, Davis already had a total of five Academy Award nominations and one win. Now, Voyager would be her sixth. She had also earned a reputation among directors, reportedly including Irving Rapper, who directed Now, Voyager , as being difficult, exerting her own vision to shape the films she worked on. These same traits that directors and studio heads despised in Davis — a dedication to her characters, an auteur-tinged streak, an interest in emotional and physical authenticity when bringing characters to life, no matter how repellent that may be — are the very reasons that her performance as Charlotte Vale remains so potent. What’s extraordinary about watching Davis in this role is her deft communication of Charlotte’s interior life through her physicality — the rigidity of her back as she walks, nervous hand-wringing, her wet saucer eyes darting across the room as if looking for an exit, and the startling grace and directness that comes after her transformation. She begins the film as taut as piano wire, ready to snap; by the end, she’s softened into a languid repose. There are still flashes of that intensity — like in the moving final scene — but now her energy is channeled gracefully and toward better targets. The rich emotional life Davis weaves for Charlotte, bringing nuance to even the smallest moments, is just one reason Now, Voyager is such a powerful narrative about mental illness. Ultimately, the empathy is woven into the story itself.

Now, Voyager was adapted for the screen by Casey Robinson and had a lot of material to work with, thanks to the original novel. Prouty was a pioneer for how she considered psychotherapy in her own work, eschewing the typical imagery of controlling, even malevolent doctors eager to perform lobotomies or circumscribe the lives of the women in their care, a trope that gets particular use in horror. What’s fascinating is how Dr. Jaquith forgoes the usual Freudian touches that defined cinematic representations of such doctors at the time, focusing instead on ideas of self-acceptance .

Prouty’s careful consideration of mental health and psychiatry, and the film’s portrayal of it, would feel stirring even if released today. But in the early 1940s, it was radical. As mental-health activist Darby Penney and psychiatrist Peter Stastny write about one victim of trauma in the 2009 book The Lives They Left Behind , which explores the stories of people institutionalized in the Willard Psychiatric Center during the 20th century: “Throughout history, violence and loss have sometimes driven women mad. Psychiatry has been generally complicit in this process. Today, a woman like Ethel Small who enters the system at least has a chance that she might be asked ‘What happened to you?’ rather than ‘What’s wrong with you?’ In certain places, she might even be referred to a specialist who has experience working with trauma survivors. But in the 1930s, a woman beaten by her husband and mourning her children would not have been considered a trauma survivor.” In real life and its cinematic reflections, women struggling with trauma and mental-health concerns were rarely granted the interiority and care they deserved. Now, Voyager is unique in that it understands the links between Charlotte’s mental duress and her mother’s abuse above all else; furthermore, it shows the possibility of overcoming traumas, not being consumed by them.

Charlotte may have a level of privilege and access that makes getting care for her illness easier. But how she navigates that care is strikingly familiar. In watching the film, I’m reminded of something a psychiatrist told me the second time I was institutionalized at 17: “For you, medication will only do 10 percent. The rest, the hard work, is up to you.” I didn’t truly understand what he meant at the time. But as I grew older and was forced to navigate tragedies without a support system, I came to understand how precarious mental health can be. Now, Voyager forces Charlotte to consistently reconsider how she wants to live, whether she’s navigating her mother’s attempts to manipulate her life or Dr. Jaquith’s tender probing into the sides of herself she keeps hidden. At every point, it’s Charlotte’s understanding of herself that informs its visual landscape, mood, and approach to mental illness. What Now, Voyager ultimately demonstrates is that mental-illness narratives need not be unerringly realistic but resolutely human to work.

Charlotte Vale and I are separated by race and class, culture and access. But in my late teens, shuffling between mental hospitals and new medications, Now, Voyager gave me what I couldn’t find in reality — the reality of chilly mental-hospital halls, the shameful gaze of my mother, the tender embrace of my brother trying to calm me down when I sought new ways to hurt myself: the ability to be seen and even understood.

Mental illness is complex. Hope is often withheld. Empathetic treatment can sometimes feel like a fantasy. For me, Now, Voyager offered a spark of motivation and hope, the ability to imagine a future for myself when I was too poor to get therapy and too depressed to leave my bed. It was a small joy I held on to in dark times, a salve, a form of self-care. This is how a film can save your life.

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Experience over nine decades of the Oscars from 1927 to 2024

Nathan Levinson

Joseph Ruttenberg

Max Steiner (Original Score) and Irving Berlin (Original Song)

Best Actress winner for Mrs. Miniver and Best Actor winner for Yankee Doodle Dandy

Supporting Actress winner for Mrs. Minver

• View by Category
• View by Film
• Documentary - The March of Time
• Short Subject (Cartoon) - 20th Century-Fox
• Music (Song) - Always In My Heart in "Always in My Heart" Music by Ernesto Lecuona; Lyrics by Kim Gannon
• Art Direction (Color) - Art Direction: Jack Otterson, Alexander Golitzen; Interior Decoration: Russell A. Gausman, Ira S. Webb
• Cinematography (Color) - Milton Krasner, William V. Skall, W. Howard Greene
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Frank Skinner
• Sound Recording - Universal Studio Sound Department, Bernard B. Brown, Sound Director
• Music (Song) - How About You? in "Babes on Broadway" Music by Burton Lane; Lyrics by Ralph Freed
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Frank Churchill, Edward Plumb
• Music (Song) - Love Is A Song in "Bambi" Music by Frank Churchill; Lyrics by Larry Morey
• Sound Recording - Walt Disney Studio Sound Department, Sam Slyfield, Sound Director
• * Documentary - United States Navy
• * Short Subject (Two-reel) - Warner Bros.
• * Cinematography (Color) - Leon Shamroy
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Alfred Newman
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by Fred Sersen; Sound Effects by Roger Heman, George Leverett
• Short Subject (Cartoon) - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Art Direction (Color) - Art Direction: Ted Smith; Interior Decoration: Casey Roberts
• Cinematography (Color) - Sol Polito
• Documentary - United States Army Signal Corps
• Documentary - Frederic Ullman, Jr., Producer
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Dimitri Tiomkin
• * Short Subject (Cartoon) - Walt Disney, Producer
• Short Subject (One-reel) - 20th Century-Fox
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by Byron Haskin; Sound Effects by Nathan Levinson
• Short Subject (Two-reel) - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Victor Young
• Sound Recording - Republic Studio Sound Department, Daniel Bloomberg, Sound Director
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by Howard Lydecker; Sound Effects by Daniel J. Bloomberg
• Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) - Edward Ward
• Music (Song) - Pennies For Peppino in "Flying with Music" Music by Edward Ward; Lyrics by Chet Forrest and Bob Wright
• Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) - Roger Edens, Georgie Stoll
• Sound Recording - Sound Service, Inc., Jack Whitney, Sound Director
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Max Parker, Mark-Lee Kirk; Interior Decoration: Casey Roberts
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Max Terr
• Sound Recording - RCA Sound, James Fields, Sound Director
• Documentary - Walt Disney, Producer
• Music (Song) - Pig Foot Pete in "Hellzapoppin'" Music by Gene de Paul; Lyrics by Don Raye
• Documentary - United States Department of Agriculture
• Documentary - National Film Board of Canada
• Documentary - The Netherlands Information Bureau
• * Music (Song) - White Christmas in "Holiday Inn" Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
• Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) - Robert Emmett Dolan
• Writing (Original Motion Picture Story) - Irving Berlin
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Roy Webb
• * Writing (Original Motion Picture Story) - Emeric Pressburger
• Outstanding Motion Picture - Ortus
• Writing (Screenplay) - Rodney Ackland, Emeric Pressburger
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by John Fulton; Sound Effects by Bernard B. Brown
• Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) - Hans Salter, Charles Previn
• Documentary - United States Office of War Information
• Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) - Walter Scharf
• * Actor in a Supporting Role - Van Heflin
• Short Subject (Cartoon) - Walter Lantz, Producer
• Art Direction (Color) - Art Direction: Vincent Korda; Interior Decoration: Julia Heron
• Cinematography (Color) - W. Howard Greene
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Miklos Rozsa
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by Lawrence Butler; Sound Effects by William H. Wilmarth
• Cinematography (Black-and-White) - James Wong Howe
• Directing - Sam Wood
• Outstanding Motion Picture - Warner Bros.
• Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Edward Kay
• * Documentary - Australian News & Information Bureau
• Documentary - British Ministry of Information
• Documentary - Belgian Ministry of Information
• Documentary - Victor Stoloff and Edgar Loew, Producers
• Actress in a Supporting Role - Agnes Moorehead
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Albert S. D'Agostino; Interior Decoration: Darrell Silvera, Al Fields
• Cinematography (Black-and-White) - Stanley Cortez
• Outstanding Motion Picture - Mercury
• Short Subject (One-reel) - Pete Smith, Producer
• Music (Song) - There's A Breeze On Lake Louise in "The Mayor of 44th Street" Music by Harry Revel; Lyrics by Mort Greene
• Cinematography (Black-and-White) - Charles Clarke
• * Documentary - Artkino
• * Actress - Greer Garson
• * Actress in a Supporting Role - Teresa Wright
• * Cinematography (Black-and-White) - Joseph Ruttenberg
• * Directing - William Wyler
• * Outstanding Motion Picture - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• * Writing (Screenplay) - Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West
• Actor - Walter Pidgeon
• Actor in a Supporting Role - Henry Travers
• Actress in a Supporting Role - Dame May Whitty
• Film Editing - Harold F. Kress
• Sound Recording - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio Sound Department, Douglas Shearer, Sound Director
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe; Sound Effects by Douglas Shearer
• * Art Direction (Color) - Art Direction: Richard Day, Joseph Wright; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little
• Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) - Alfred Newman
• Actress - Rosalind Russell
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by Vernon L. Walker; Sound Effects by James G. Stewart
• * Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - Max Steiner
• Actress - Bette Davis
• Actress in a Supporting Role - Gladys Cooper
• Sound Recording - RKO Radio Studio Sound Department, Steve Dunn, Sound Director
• Special Effects - Photographic Effects by Ronald Neame; Sound Effects by C. C. Stevens
• Writing (Original Screenplay) - Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
• Music (Song) - I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo in "Orchestra Wives" Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Mack Gordon
• Actor - Monty Woolley
• Cinematography (Black-and-White) - Edward Cronjager
• Outstanding Motion Picture - 20th Century-Fox
• Short Subject (Cartoon) - Leon Schlesinger, Producer
• * Documentary - United States Army Special Services
• Documentary - William H. Pine, Producer
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• Cinematography (Color) - Victor Milner, William V. Skall
• Sound Recording - Paramount Studio Sound Department, Loren Ryder, Sound Director
• Writing (Original Screenplay) - Frank Butler, Don Hartman
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Boris Leven; Interior Decoration: Boris Leven
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• Documentary - United States Merchant Marine
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Ralph Berger; Interior Decoration: Emile Kuri
• * Short Subject (One-reel) - Paramount
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Jack Otterson, John B. Goodman; Interior Decoration: Russell A. Gausman, Edward R. Robinson
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson; Interior Decoration: Sam Comer
• Cinematography (Black-and-White) - John Mescall
• Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Art Direction: Lionel Banks, Rudolph Sternad; Interior Decoration: Fay Babcock
• Cinematography (Black-and-White) - Ted Tetzlaff
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Now, Voyager

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“Don’t let’s ask for the moon; we have the stars.” One of the great Bette Davis’ most iconic classics, the gorgeous, Oscar-winning  Now, Voyager  remains an emotionally-charged, swoon-inducing romance. Nervous spinster Charlotte Vale (Davis, in an unforgettable, Oscar-nominated performance) is stunted from growing up under the heel of her puritanical Boston Brahmin mother (Gladys Cooper), and remains convinced of her own unworthiness until a kindly psychiatrist (Claude Rains) gives her the confidence to venture out into the world on a South American cruise. On board, she finds her footing with the help of an unhappily married man (Paul Henreid). Their thwarted love affair may help Charlotte break free of her mother’s grip—but will she find fulfillment as well as independence? Made at the height of Davis’s reign as the queen of the “Woman’s Picture” and bolstered by an Oscar-winning Max Steiner score,  Now, Voyager  is a melodrama for the ages, both a rapturous Hollywood romance and a poignant saga of self-discovery. (Dir. by Irving Rapper, 1942, USA, 117 mins., Not Rated)

1 HR 57 MIN | NR

Released 1942.

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• Charlotte's bemoaning of her entirely-aborted life: "What man would ever look at me and say, 'I want you.'? I'm fat. My mother doesn't approve of dieting. Look at my shoes. My mother approves of sensible shoes. Look at the books on my shelves. My mother approves of good solid books. I'm my mother's well-loved daughter. I'm her companion. I am my mother's servant. My mother says! My mother. My mother! MY MOTHER!"
• after running from the living room with a nervous breakdown, Charlotte was invited to attend Jaquith's Vermont sanitarium known as Cascade; before returning home, Jaquith sent his recuperated patient forth on a long ocean voyage, urged by Lisa's suggestion and a typed up Walt Whitman poem: 'Untold Want, By Life and Land Ne'er Granted, Now, Voyager, Sail Thou Forth to Seek and Find'
• the first major transformation of Charlotte, seen on an ocean cruise, from a dowdy, 30-ish aging female to a vibrant beauty
• during a shore trip, her introduction to handsome and suave European, Jeremiah 'Jerry' D. Durrance (Paul Henreid); while dining together on an outdoor patio, in the first of many cigarette lightings in the film, Charlotte was impressed that he graciously lit her cigarette that she held to her mouth
• the sequence in Rio when Jerry and Charlotte hired a car and driver for sightseeing, but their vehicle ran off a windy, mountainous road, and the stranded couple were forced to seek overnight shelter in an abandoned cabin during a rainstorm (they kissed and presumably had sex after the fade-out); afterwards, as they began to fall in love, seen in a travelogue montage, they spent five amorous days together in Rio - sight-seeing, eating in restaurants, and dancing
• the balcony scene in Rio when Jerry for the first time lit two cigarettes simultaneously and gave one to Charlotte, who confessed: "I'm immune to happiness," but then shed tears of gratitude (she admitted: "I'm such a fool, such an old fool. These are only tears of gratitude - an old maid's gratitude for the crumbs offered...")
• their goodbye scene in South America at the airport - the two believed that they might never see each other again (Charlotte: "I hate goodbyes") - knowing that Jerry was lovelessly married to a dependent Isabel and wouldn't leave her; in the scene, Jerry lit two more cigarettes and passed one to Charlotte and then told her: "Would it help you to know I'll miss you every moment?" - she replied: "So will I, Jerry, so will I" before a few parting kisses
• the sequence of Charlotte's return to Boston for a dramatic confrontation with her waiting, tight-lipped, tyranically-hostile, disdainful mother, who wished to reestablish control over her daughter; although changed, Charlotte was still ridiculed and victimized, but this time, she asserted her independence: "I've come home to live with you again here in the same house. But it can't be in the same way. I've been living my own life, making my own decisions for a long while now. It's impossible to go back to being treated like a child again. I don't think I'll do anything of importance that will displease you, but Mother, from now on, you must give me complete freedom, including deciding what I wear, where I sleep, what I read"
• once she again encountered Jerry in Boston, Charlotte realized that she was still in love with him, although she had another suitor, attractive widower and eminent, wealthy Bostonian Elliot Livingston (John Loder) and they were engaged; however, she remained uncertain, indecisive and uncommitted to Elliot
• in a sensitive scene, she met with Jerry at the Back Bay Station as he prepared to board a train, and honestly confessed: "I thought I was getting over you, Jerry"; shortly later, she broke off the engagement with Elliot, realizing that she could only be happy with someone she was passionately in love with ("You ought to marry someone who would enjoy what you enjoy. Let's not linger over it, Elliot. (Elliot: "Well, I-I suppose you'll meet somebody sometime.") No, I don't think I'll ever marry. Some women just aren't the marrying kind. But you'll meet someone. Thank you for thinking it was me. I have that on my record anyway"); after she courteously said goodbye to him, to her inner self, in voice-over, she lamented the loss of a marriage prospect as she climbed her stairs: "It's like the time when my father died. His breathing just stopped. All over. Finished. Ended forever. You fool, oh you fool! Now you'll never have a home of your own, or a man of your own, or a child of your own"
• the scene of a bitter quarrel with her mother after informing her of the breakup with Elliot; her mother was cruelly incensed: "You've never done anything to make your mother proud, or to make yourself proud either. Why, I should think you'd be ashamed to be born and live all your life as Charlotte Vale. Miss Charlotte Vale"; when Charlotte disowned her mother ( If that's a mother's love, I want no part of it") - her independent actions contributed to her mother's fatal stroke and heart attack in her chair while Charlotte was on the other side of the room; afterwards, Charlotte blamed herself and suffered from deep feelings of guilt and insecurity - and experienced a relapse
• at the sanitarium, Charlotte met and befriended Jerry's twelve year-old daughter Christine ("Tina") (Janis Wilson), a shy, braces-wearing, paranoid, depressed and withdrawn young girl who had been at the sanitarium for almost two weeks - a kindred spirit; Charlotte restored her own condition by identifying with and growing close to Tina, becoming her adoptive mother and therapeutic counselor
• although Charlotte knew that Jerry would never leave his legal wife, Charlotte had found something far happier and more enduring in their present platonic arrangement - with his 12 year-old daughter Tina as "their" newly-restored, changed child
• the final famous tearjerking scene between them, including his cool question: "Shall we just have a cigarette on it?" - symbolizing his assent that Tina would be in Charlotte's charge; again, Jerry lit two cigarettes, as Charlotte delivered the final closing line; she gratefully looked up at the night sky while Max Steiner's score swelled, realizing that she would be happy taking care of Tina - "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon...we have the stars"

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Jay's Classic Movie Blog

• Jul 27, 2021
• 16 min read

67. NOW, VOYAGER, 1942

A stellar melodrama about personal transformation, filled with hollywood magic.

“Now, Voyager” is not a landmark film, nor did it change the face of cinema. However, this delectable melodrama is a gripping textbook example of the magic that was Hollywood. This film earned three Academy Award nominations - including one for its dazzling performance by the grande dame of classic Hollywood, Bette Davis. A longtime audience favorite, it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the 23rd Greatest Love Story of All-Time and its cherished status is evident by the fact that more people have asked me if “Now, Voyager” will appear on my blog than any other film.

“Now, Voyager” is the Cinderella-ish story of “Charlotte Vale”, the repressed, ugly duckling daughter of a cruelly dictatorial mother. The emotional abuse caused by her tyrannical mom has put her on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the film opens as “Dr. Jaquith” (the country’s foremost psychiatrist) visits her home for a mental assessment. With his help (and a stay at his sanitarium), she transforms from matronly spinster into striking socialite. Along the way she falls for an unhappily married man named “Jerry" (who happens to have an ugly duckling daughter of his own) and the two struggle to not give in to their love for one another. All of this is the delicious candy-coating on a story of substantial depth about overcoming obstacles and feelings of inadequacy, and finding courage to make our own choices - all in the name of becoming oneself. The title was taken from a poem by Walt Whitman :

“The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,

Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find”

Its impeccably executed storytelling and unusual subject of inner growth turn this melodrama into enthralling entertainment to which everyone can relate.

It is often said that movies and movie stars from the Hollywood studio era were larger-than-life, and to a significant degree that is true. They require an ever so slight suspension of disbelief, presenting situations and characters that seem plausible, but under close inspection could only take place in a dream or on a screen. Majestic backdrops, elegant costumes, perfectly coiffed hairstyles, and dramatic performances all set to music create a romanticized version of life one can't help but covet. Such is the case with “Now, Voyager” , which contains a leading man just a bit too perfect for reality, and a leading lady whose life transforms from fearful recluse to completely confident sophisticate almost overnight. But the finely tuned skills of everyone involved make it all seem so possible. Davis’ performance in particular hits such notes of truth, she makes us believe everything presented is actually happening.

As with “Now, Voyager” , these movies set a high bar in love, glamour, and life, and gave audiences things to which to aspire - even if unattainable. Thus, the Hollywood studio era became fondly referred to as The Dream Factory. As the studio system dissolved and films became more “real”, the movie screen of dreams turned into a mirror in which that larger-than-life reflection was nowhere to be seen. Bette Davis inadvertently said it best in a 1971 interview on “The Dick Cavett Show” when she spoke about her approach to acting: “I think acting should look as if we were acting a little… which is a very old-fashioned theory today… [nowadays] we mustn’t have any idea that anybody knows the camera’s on them at all… it’s just life… we all have life twenty four, twelve hours a day. Sometimes we want to forget life, you know, and I think it should be a little larger than life. A little bit theatrical”.

“Now, Voyager” was based on a novel by New England novelist Olive Higgins Prouty . In coping with the separate losses of two infant children, she wrote the novel “Stella Dallas” (which was adapted into several films). A few years later she suffered from a nervous breakdown and began psychotherapy with a stay at a sanitarium. As part of her therapy, her doctor suggested she approach writing as a profession and she wrote a series of books about the “Vale” family, the most famous of which was “Now, Voyager” (considered a pioneering look a psychotherapy). Warner Brothers producer Hal Wallis bought the rights to the book and had Casey Robinson adapt the screenplay. Like many classic films, “Now, Voyager” started out a very different film. The first actresses in mind to star were Ginger Rogers and Irene Dunne . When Davis got wind of this she fought for the role, reminding Wallis that she was a New Englander like “Charlotte”, was already under contract to Warner Brothers (unlike Rogers and Dunne), and she was the best actress they had on the lot. She got the part.

Michael Curtiz had been chosen to direct but dropped out, either because he preferred to direct an action film or didn’t want to work again with Davis (the two had worked together on six films, furiously fighting on their last - 1939’s "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" ). No one seems certain which it was, though Curtiz never did work again with Davis. It’s been said that Davis learned of "Now, Voyager" from her friend Irving Rapper, who had just proved himself a solid director with the success of his first three films. When Curtiz left, Davis evidently requested Rapper to direct. From his previous job as a dialogue coach, Rapper formed a great instinct with actors and felt casting was vital in his films. He personally chose Gladys Cooper and Claude Rains for their roles in this film - both of whom are outstanding. Rapper’s superlative directing of “Now, Voyager” is a large reason the film is so mesmerizing. He keeps things moving along and utterly interesting, picking camera angles which entirely satisfy while keeping us glued to the screen. Even the simple way he introduces “Charlotte” via her shoes is intriguing enough to induce a gasp by the time we see her face (both pre and post make-over). “Now, Voyager” established Rapper as a top director of the 1940s with a flair for “women’s pictures” (films with a female protagonist). He directed Davis in a total of five films and though they got along, years later he said she was quite difficult to work with.

As a young boy, British born Irving Rapper moved to New York where he later became a theater actor, appearing on Broadway by the 1920s. In 1935 he was hired by Warner Brothers as a dialogue coach and assistant director, and worked on films which included "The Sisters" and "Juarez" , both starring Davis. His first film as director was 1941's "Shining Victory” (in which Davis appeared in a cameo). He was most at home in the cocoon of the studio system, so after it ended he directed only a handful of films. Other classics from his twenty-two directed films include "The Brave One", "The Corn Is Green", "The Glass Menagerie", "Marjorie Morningstar", and "Deception" (which reunited Davis, Henreid, and Rains). His final film was “Born Again” in 1978, in which he made his only screen appearance as an actor. He was gay and never married. Irving Rapper died in 1999 at the age of 101.

Just as “Now, Voyager” personifies Hollywood in top form, Bette (pronounced “Betty”) Davis as “Charlotte Vale” shows the best in screen acting. In a monumental performance as the repressed daughter trying to overcome her mother’s grip, Davis’ emotional honesty and vulnerability are hypnotizing. Being an actor I can’t help but be bedazzled by her work. Almost any decent actor can be highly dramatic, but a true test of skill can be found in the simple scenes. In her first scene, she greets her sister-in-law, mother, and “Dr. Jaquith” - each with distinct facial reactions, letting us know just how “Charlotte” feels about each of the characters. As she shows the doctor the upper floors of her house, she tries to hide a squirming uncomfortableness which begins to settle as she watches him look at the ivory boxes she’s carved. The subtle, shifting emotions seen on her face as she watches him elevate this scene into riveting drama. These little moments personify Davis’ ability, as she somehow combines just the right amount of theatricality with truth.

Movie stars rely on personality to capture hearts while great actors use talent. Nobody conquered being both a movie star and great actor better than Bette Davis. Her acting was deliberately mannered (with a trademark clipped speaking, pelvis driven way of walking, and often fidgeting hands), but her theatrics always stemmed from an emotional truth. She is the only actor I can think of that was able to successfully accomplish this complete balance of artifice and authenticity. Her astounding artistry and bold personality also contain an unexpected quality. One can’t take their eyes off her, as you can never guess what she will do next. No matter what emotional state she may inhabit, Davis is always exciting to watch.

At eighteen years old, Bette Davis saw a play featuring actress Peg Entwistle and decided to become an actress (several years later Entwistle infamously jumped to her death from atop the letter "H" on the Hollywoodland sign). Davis began in theater, making it to Broadway in 1929. She moved to Hollywood in 1930 and was signed by Universal Studios. Not bestowed with the typical beauty required of film actresses at the time, the studio didn’t know what to do with her. Her film debut came in 1931 with “Bad Sister” , in which the head of the studio famously said Davis had "about as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville ” (an old male actor also in the film). After a year of making several more films and being lent to other studios, Universal did not renew her contract. Just as she’s ready to leave Los Angeles, actor George Arliss requested her for the female lead in his 1932 film “The Man Who Played God” . She received good reviews for the film and Warner Brothers (who made the film) signed her to a five-year contract. Not exactly sure what to do with this oddity, Warners cast her in secondary and Ingénue roles, which after a while didn't gel with Davis' confidence and drive. She fought Warners to be lent to RKO Studios to play the evil "Mildred Rogers” in 1934’s “Of Human Bondage” . Against Warner's studio head Jack Warner’s wishes (he thought it would destroy her career), she got the role and her performance astonished people, earning her a Best Actress Oscar nomination. In her career Davis always sought good parts and often stated she had to fight to get every great role she ever played - the first being “Of Human Bondage" . The following year she appeared in “Dangerous” and won her first Best Actress Academy Award. The classic, “The Petrified Forrest” came next, but was followed by two second-rate films and parts.

Mediocre films were enough for Davis to be fearful her career would be permanently damaged, so she went to the UK where she was offered better roles. That was a breach of her Warner’s contract, which (like all Hollywood actor’s contracts at the time) forced her to appear in any film the studio wished, and if she refused, was put on unpaid suspension for the duration of the film. All suspension time was added to the end of her contract, further extending it. Davis famously went to court in England with Warner Brothers and lost (in 1943 Olivia de Havilland went to court with Warners and won - which I previously wrote about in “The Heiress” post). Davis returned to Hollywood and though she lost the battle, she gained the respect of the Hollywood bigwigs (it’s been said Davis was the only person to make Jack Warner nervous when she called for a meeting with him). In 1938 she played the lead in “Jezebel” , a film about a headstrong Southern belle (Warner Brothers’ answer to the much publicized, soon-to-be-made “Gone with the Wind” ), for which Davis earned her second Best Actress Academy Award. That film began the peak of her career, and was followed by four consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, including one for “Now, Voyager” . She was now getting meaty roles, and insisted on looking the part of her characters rather than like a movie star. In “Now, Voyager” she wanted to look as matronly and unappealing as possible, and in the film she is seen at both her ugliest and most beautiful.

This period in Davis' career includes films such as "Dark Victory", "The Little Foxes", "The Letter", "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex", "Watch on the Rhine", "Mr. Skeffington" , and "The Corn is Green” - all of which established her as one of the definitive actresses of her time. Davis had a reputation for not mincing words, being a disciplined professional workhorse, expecting the best from those around her, battling with her directors, and always fighting for better parts. She was a big box-office draw and became Warner Brothers’ most profitable actor (sometimes jokingly referred to as “the fifth Warner brother”). Her friend, Olivia de Havilland astutely summed up Davis’ career in her speech at the American Film Institute’s 1977 “Salute to Bette Davis” when she said: “Bette had the career I most admired. It was the career I wanted to have because she was a pioneer, a revolutionary in that she wanted to play real human beings - good and bad, lovely or ugly, whereas I fear most actresses wanted only to be beautiful and romantic. But not Bette. She was the only young actress to combine character work with stardom”.

Davis' career faltered in the late 1940s, though she appeared in perhaps her best role and film, “All About Eve” in 1950 (the first film on this blog). Although she worked continually until her swan song, “Wicked Stepmother” in 1989, the bulk of her later films (and TV shows) were generally of lesser quality. Exceptions include "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Dead Ringer", "Pocketful of Miracles", "The Virgin Queen", "The Star", "The Whales of August", "Death on the Nile", and “Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte” . She married and divorced four times, including her final marriage to actor Gary Merrill , whom while co-starring in “All About Eve” . You can read a bit more about Davis in that entry by clicking HERE . Bette Davis died in 1989 at the age of 81. Her sarcophagus reads: ”She did it the hard way”.

Paul Henreid co-stars as “Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Duvaux Durrance”, the man who falls in love with “Charlotte”. This Austrian actor brings his international charm to the role, and “Jerry’s” compassionate, sensitive, and chivalrous nature make it understandable why “Charlotte” would come out of her shell and open her heart. Henreid’s chemistry with Davis is superb, as the two seem to continually comfort one another. Not only is Henreid ideal in the role, but in the film he performs one of cinema’s most iconic gestures as he lights two cigarettes in his mouth at once, keeping one for himself and giving the other to “Charlotte”. He does this three times in the film and it became a sensation for lighting cigarettes. According to Henreid, the script called for a more convoluted approach so he simplified it by lighting them the way he did for himself and his wife when driving. After working in Germany, Austria, and the UK, “Now, Voyager” was Paul Henreid’s second American film, his first being "Joan of Paris” also in 1942. Davis saw him in that film, wanted him for this, and “Now, Voyager” made him a star - solidified by his next film, “Casablanca” , also in 1942. He and Davis became friends and appeared together again in 1946’s “Deception” (also with Rapper and Claude Rains), in an attempt to recapture the magic created by “Now, Voyager” , but to no avail. Henreid also became a director, and directed Davis in the classic 1964 thriller, “Dead Ringer” . You can read more about Paul Henreid’s life and career in my “Casablanca” post.

Claude Rains plays “Dr. Jaquith”, the country’s foremost psychiatrist. One of Hollywood’s most talented actors, in his few scenes he is able to project the authority, confidence, and wisdom of a celebrated doctor in an underplayed, believable manner. Nothing phases “Dr. Jaquith” as he witnesses emotional fits and withstands insults. He puts on no airs as he brings an appropriate amount of humanity, so that it’s conceivable anyone, even “Charlotte”, could open their mind and heart to him. The way Rains observes the other characters is in itself praiseworthy. Watch his face as he sizes-up “Charlotte’s” mother upon their meeting, how he looks with such genuine excitement at “Charlotte’s” boxes, or studies her with kindness as she gets angry after he asks her for a cigarette. He is simply fantastic.

The son of a stage actor, Claude Rains grew up in the slums of London with a speech impediment and thick Cockney accent. He first appeared onstage at ten years old, and continued to work odd jobs in the theater as well as act. After briefly moving to New York, he returned to England to serve in WWI where he became a captain, but not before suffering vocal cord damage and losing most of the vision from his right eye. After the war he returned to the theater, got rid of his speech impediment and Cockney accent (replacing it with a Mid-Atlantic accent), and soon became a leading British stage actor and popular acting teacher (with pupils such as Charles Laughton and John Gielgud ). He appeared in his one and only silent film in 1920, "Build Thy House” . In 1927 he returned to New York where he appeared in one Broadway show after another. His second film (and first in Hollywood) was as the title role in the classic 1933 horror film “The Invisible Man” , which began his hugely successful film career. He signed with Warner Brothers in 1935, and has since appeared in many classics, three of which are already on this blog ( “Notorious” , “Casablanca” , and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” ) where you can read more about his life and career. This Tony Award winning, four-time Academy Award nominated actor is one of a few character actors to become a full-fledged star, and he is one of my favorites.

Gladys Cooper plays “Mrs. Windle Vale”, the uncompromising mother of “Charlotte”. Even with the film's other outstanding performances, if it weren’t for Davis, Cooper would steal the film. This is a woman whose mothering is so appalling it is easy to see how it caused “Charlotte’s” compromised mental state. As awful as “Mrs. Vale” may be, Cooper paints her as a woman sticking to her old-fashioned ways with such conviction, we’re led to feel she doesn’t even realize her domineering behavior is damaging. When confronted by “Dr. Jaquith” about her treatment of “Charlotte”, she responds, “I’ve kept her close by me always. When she was young, foolish, I made decisions for her. Always the right decisions. One would think a child would wish to repay a mother’s love and kindness”. It is a riveting performance and her scenes opposite Davis are hair-raising. Merely in her mid forties, Cooper was made to look older for the role, accentuated by wearing 19th century styled clothing. For her work in “Now, Voyager” , Cooper earned a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination.

With her striking beauty, English born Gladys Cooper was a photographic model at six years old, a stage actress in her teens, and by 1914 became the most popular actress of the London stage - especially known for British musical comedies and operettas. During a theatrical postcard craze (which showcased actresses), her face was one of the most popular and she was considered the ideal English beauty (and was a sort of pin-up for the British military during WWI). Not wanting to be typecast as a glamour girl or musical comedy actress she began to branch out into other roles and ventured into silent films in 1913. Maintaining a full-time theater career, by the late 1920s she also co-managed London’s The Playhouse Theater, soon becoming the top actress-manager in English theater. In 1934 she began to appear on the New York stage, and in 1939 decided to move to Hollywood to begin a full-time film career. Her first film (at that point) was Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 Oscar winning “Rebecca” (already on this blog), and from then on Cooper worked steadily as a character actress in films through the early 1950s, switching mostly to television until her death (working on both sides of the Atlantic).

Cooper also worked sporadically in theater, and was nominated for two Tony Awards - “The Chalk Garden” in 1956 and “A Passage to India” in 1962. In films, Cooper often played some sort of society woman, and was nominated for three Best Supporting Actress Oscars ( “Now, Voyager”,"The Song of Bernadette” and "My Fair Lady” ). Though best remembered for “Now, Voyager” , Cooper appeared in many classic films, and others include "Separate Tables", "The Bishop's Wife", "The Black Cat", "Kitty Foyle" , and "That Hamilton Woman" . She was also nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on the 1960s TV series, “The Rogues” . In 1967 she was she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her accomplishments in acting. She was married three times and became the mother-in-law of actor Robert Morley . Dame Gladys Cooper died in 1971 at the age of 82.

As I do on occasion, I feel I should mention one glaring scene of political incorrectness. As I’ve said before, these films are a product of the time in which they were made and however awful it may seem now, what we deem as inappropriate was acceptable in their day. There's a scene in “Now, Voyager” when “Charlotte” and “Jerry” are in a taxi in Rio de Janeiro and their Brazilian driver “Giuseppe" is played by Italian character actor Frank Puglia . Maybe because this era was before commercial flying took-off (so to speak), and other than newspapers, radio, and films, most people didn't have first-hand knowledge or experience with foreign lands - it was "anything goes" when it came to portraying foreigners in many of these films. Though “Giuseppe" is supposed to be speaking Portuguese, he actually speaks a strange, somewhat unintelligible mix of English, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish, along with what sometimes sounds like improvised gibberish. Between that and his bumbling, not-too-bright ineptness, the scene becomes stereotypically insulting. Obviously done to add humor, instead of making me laugh, it makes me cringe. That said, this out-of-place scene becomes necessary plot wise.

As mentioned before, the technical aspects of “Now, Voyager” are all letter perfect and there are two additional names you might recognize if you are reading this blog consistently. First is costume designer Orry-Kelly , whom I wrote about in my “Some Like It Hot” post (where you can read more about his life and career). Masterful at creating costumes of simple elegance, he worked on some 300 or so films - many with Bette Davis, and the two had a great working relationship. They both knew how clothes could inform a character, and one can’t help but notice how “Charlotte’s” clothes change depending on her mental state, enhancing Davis’ looks and performance. Another name you should recognize is that of composer Max Steiner . His memorably stunning, emotional and romantic score for “Now, Voyager” is largely considered among cinema's best, and for it he won his second of three Academy Awards (the other two were for “The Informer” and "Since You Went Away” ) out of twenty-four career nominations. Often called the Father of Film Music, he composed music for countless classics, including six films already on this blog, and you can read more about him in my posts on “Mildred Pierce” and “King Kong” .

This week’s recommended film is a popcorn eating, nail-biting melodrama that is as fiercely entertaining as it is emotional, and gives a clear glimpse at the marvelous escapism and inspiration films once had. You might want to keep a tissue or two in arm’s reach, just in case! Enjoy “Now, Voyager” !

This blog is a weekly series on all types of classic films from the silent era through the 1970s. It is designed to entertain and inform movie novices and lovers through watching one recommended classic film a week. The intent is that a love and deepened knowledge of cinema will evolve, along with a familiarity of important stars, directors, writers, the studio system, and a deeper understanding of cinema. I highly recommend visiting (or revisiting) the HOME page, which explains it all and provides a place where you can subscribe and get email notifications each Tuesday of every subsequently recommended film. At the bottom of the Home page you can also find a list of all films currently on this site. Please leave comments, share this blog, and subscribe so you can see which classic films will be revealed each week. Thanks so much for reading!

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TO READ AFTER VIEWING (contains spoilers):

As mentioned above, “Jerry” lights a lot of cigarettes for “Charlotte”, but none as famous as the one at the film's end, which precedes the line, “Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars”. That line of dialogue has become iconic, and is ranked by the American Film Institute as the 46th Greatest Movie Quote of All-Time .

Recent Posts

158. THE PALM BEACH STORY, 1942

157. SHANE, 1953

156. PATHER PANCHALI, 1955

Great movie, Gladys Cooper should have won an Oscar for her performance

Thanks so much Maggie! I truly appreciate you kind words, they mean a lot to me.

Wishing you the very best holidays, and happy movie watching!

Now, Voyager

Selected by the Costume Designers Branch. Introduction by Costume Designer & Historian, Professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis PhD Director, UCLA/David C. Copley Center for Costume Design

Selected by the Costume Designers Branch. 

Bette Davis gave one of her most iconic performances as Charlotte Vale, the unhappy daughter of an emotionally abusive mother (Gladys Cooper), who is able to come out of her shell with the help of two men—a sympathetic therapist (Claude Rains) and a handsome married man (Paul Henreid). Davis’s transformation was helped greatly by the costume designs of three-time Oscar winner Orry-Kelly ( An American in Paris , Some Like It Hot ). The film was nominated for Davis and Cooper’s performances, and won for Max Steiner’s romantic score.

DIRECTED BY: Irving Rapper. WRITTEN BY: Casey Robinson. WITH: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper. 1942. 119 min. USA. B&W. English. 35mm. Print courtesy of the Packard Humanities Institute Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

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• #85 Best Movies of the '40s
• #138 Best Romantic Movies in the history of film
• "Rapper has screened it with frequent effectiveness. But 'Now, Voyager' (...) endlessly complicates an essentially simple theme. For all its emotional hair-splitting, it fails to resolve its problems as truthfully as it pretends"  The New York Times
• "It’s unforgettable for how sincere and affectionate it is toward one particularly time-honored cliché: that only fools falls in love (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"  Jeremiah Kipp : Slant
• "Not great filmmaking, but indispensable to students of 40s pop culture."  Dave Kehr : Chicago Reader
• "The women's weepie angle gets to be a bit of a slog later on, but it is all wrapped up as a mesmerically glittering package by Rapper's direction, Sol Polito's camerawork, and Max Steiner's lushly romantic score"  Tom Milne : Time Out
• "Director Irving Rapper and screenwriter Casey Robinson exploited generic convention to produce a solid piece of studio art (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"  David Parkinson : Empire

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Now, Voyager

• 70   Metascore
• 2 hr 0 mins
• Drama, Comedy

A neurotic, unmarried woman chafing under a domineering mother is helped by an eminent psychiatrist, who instills self-confidence in her, which is put to the test when she falls in love with an unhappily married man. Bette Davis was nominated for Best Actress as the daughter and Gladys Cooper got a Best Supporting Actress nod as her mother. The film's title is from a line in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

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2:39 Now, Voyager

• 1942 - Oscar - Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - nominated
• 1942 - Oscar - Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - nominated
• 1942 - Oscar - Best Achievement in Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) - winner

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Bette Davis

Charlotte vale.

Paul Henreid

Jerry durrance.

Claude Rains

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Where to Watch the 2024 Oscar Nominees for Best Picture

Barbie and Oppenheimer may be the most talked-about movies of 2023 —and among the highest-grossing —but there are still eight other films vying for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, which this year take place on March 10 in Los Angeles . In Maestro , Bradley Cooper explores the sexuality of conductor Leonard Bernstein, while in Poor Things, Emma Stone plays a grown woman with a baby's brain who is discovering her sexuality.

History buffs can check out Zone of Interest , about a family living by Auschwitz, and Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon , about the mysterious deaths in an Osage Indian family.

Ahead of the 2024 Oscars, here's where to watch or stream all 10 nominees for Best Picture. To help you decide which ones to watch and which to skip, we’ve included insights from reviews by TIME’s film critic, Stephanie Zacharek .

American Fiction

In theaters. Buy via Amazon Prime , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , YouTube

Our critic says

"Everett’s Erasure is bitterly funny, as well as both angry and searching; the film that writer-director Cord Jefferson has made from it is breezier, and its punches don’t land as hard. Even so, American Fiction mostly works, largely because its star, Jeffrey Wright, channels the fighting spirit of Everett’s book even in this more audience-friendly context. This isn’t a case of 'the book is better than the movie'; it’s more an instance of a filmmaker figuring out how to address complicated, controversial ideas while balancing tonal nuances." (Click here to read the full review.)

Anatomy of a Fall

Where to watch

In select theaters. Rent or buy via Amazon Prime , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , YouTube

" Anatomy of a Fall —which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last May—is both a murder mystery and a courtroom procedural, a muted, elegantly constructed thriller that gives nothing away easily; even at the end, you may not feel 100 percent certain you know what happened, but that seems to be by design." (Click here to read the full review.)

Stream it on Max ; rent or buy via Google Play , Apple TV+ , and Vudu

TIME's cover story

"If you are wondering whether Barbie is a satire of a toy company’s capitalist ambitions, a searing indictment of the current fraught state of gender relations, a heartwarming if occasionally clichéd tribute to girl power, or a musical spectacle filled with earworms from Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa , the answer is yes. All of the above. And then some." (Click here to read the full story.)

The Holdovers

In select theaters. Stream on Peacock ; rent or buy via Amazon Prime , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , YouTube

"The problem isn’t what happens in The Holdovers; it’s how Payne, often lauded as a filmmaker of sharp, dry wit, with a keen eye for the spiky side of human nature, comes at the material. Like most of Payne’s movies (Sideways, The Descendants , Nebraska), The Holdovers is merely coated with a thin veneer of misanthropy that Payne methodically buffs off to reveal actual human feelings. It's the mechanism that works for him, but that doesn’t make it a good one." (Click here to read the full review)

Killers of the Flower Moon

In select theaters. Stream on Apple TV+ ; buy via Amazon Prime , Google Play , Vudu , YouTube ,

"It’s about a different kind of violence, born of greed, racism, and a sense of entitlement. But it’s also about a marriage, between the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and the extraordinary Lily Gladstone. DiCaprio is the sometimes sweet, sometimes wily World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart , in thrall to his seemingly magnanimous uncle, big-shot cattleman William K. Hale (Robert De Niro). Gladstone plays the Osage woman he marries and builds a life with, the former Mollie Kyle . The oil rights on her land have made her rich, but she watches in anguish as members of her family begin to mysteriously die off; her own health deteriorates as well, at an alarming rate." (Click here to read the full story.)

Stream on Netflix

"There’s the older Bernstein, roughly in his sixties, who’s being filmed by a television crew, his voice weathered and adenoidal as he expresses autumnal sorrow over the then-recent loss of his wife. And there’s the younger one, his limbs seemingly connected by springs, who leaps naked out of bed like a golden god, so full of erotic energy he can barely contain himself—he beats a flirtatious drum tattoo on the bare butt of the sleepy guy he’s just spent the night with. Both of these Bernsteins are the real deal; the movie signals early on that there’s nothing tidy about this fireball of a life." (Click here to read the full review.)

Oppenheimer

Stream it on Peacock ; rent or buy via Amazon Prime , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu

"Nolan shapes Oppenheimer’s story into something like an epic poem, focusing not just on his most famous achievement, but on everything that happened to him afterward; Nolan is maybe even more interested in Oppenheimer as a complicated, questioning patriot." (Click here to read the full review.)

In select theaters. Stream on Paramount+ ; rent or buy at Google Play , Vudu

"There are always those people who advertise loudly that they’ve found their soul mate, holding their good fortune high like a victory flag. But is it possible that there are different kinds of right for any one human being? Is it normal to wonder what might have been—to ponder what your life might be like if you’d chosen another partner—or is it a betrayal of the person who sleeps beside you every night? Those are questions writer-director Celine Song’s extraordinary debut film Past Lives doesn’t so much answer as brush against, like the flutter of moth wings." (Click here to read the full review.)

Poor Things

In select theaters and streaming on Hulu ; Buy via Amazon Prime , Apple TV+ , Google Play , YouTube ,

"In Yorgos Lanthimos ’ twisted gothic fairytale Poor Things —playing in competition at the Venice Film Festival—Emma Stone is Bella Baxter, an ungainly, childlike woman under the care of a mad surgeon, Willem Dafoe’s Dr. Godwin Baxter. Dr. Baxter—whom Bella calls God, because to her, he is one—keeps her sheltered in his rambling Victorian house on the outskirts of London. The mad doctor has, quite literally, made Bella what she is, a Frankengirl with the brain of a just-learning-to-speak toddler." (Click here to read the full review.)

Zone of Interest

In theaters. Buy via Amazon Prime , Google Play , Vudu , YouTube

" The Zone of Interest is possibly the least overtly traumatic film about the Holocaust ever made, yet it’s devastating in the quietest way. The camera watches, mouselike and still, as this little family goes about their daily business, the older kids skipping off to school, Hedwig bustling around the house. Their dialogue is muted, almost as if we shouldn’t be hearing it. Most of it is so mundane we might wonder why we’re eavesdropping, but every so often we pick up a detail that meshes with historical details we know, as when Höss and a colleague discuss a design for a new, improved crematorium, nodding approvingly as they outline its ease of use: 'Burn, cool, unload, reload.'" (Click here to read the full review)

More Must-Reads from TIME

• The Rise of a New Kind of Parenting Guru
• The 50 Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now
• Mark Kelly and the History of Astronauts Making the Jump to Politics
• The Young Women Challenging Iran’s Regime
• How to Be More Spontaneous As a Busy Adult
• Can Food Really Change Your Hormones?
• Column: Why Watching Simone Biles Makes Me Cry
• Get Our Paris Olympics Newsletter in Your Inbox

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at [email protected]

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Oscars: inside the search for a host.

In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel and John Mulaney turning down the gig, the Academy has limited options and could veer away from the comedian model.

By Scott Feinberg

Scott Feinberg

Executive Editor of Awards

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Shawn levy says henry cavill was "sick to his stomach" after smoking cigars for 'deadpool & wolverine' cameo, 'deadpool & wolverine' box office: all the records broken (so far).

The Academy and ABC, being risk-averse, will often re-approach people who have hosted before, but most who hosted in recent years are never going to be invited back. Forget about James Franco and Anne Hathaway , who hosted together in 2011, and Neil Patrick Harris , who had the job in 2015 — they all bombed. Many found the 2013 host, Seth MacFarlane , too undignified (see: his “We Saw Your Boobs” song). And the show helmed by Regina Hall , Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes was generally regarded as unspectacular.

Ellen DeGeneres was well received when she hosted in 2007 and 2014, but her public image has since taken a beating — even she refers to herself as having been “kicked out of show business.” Alec Baldwin , who co-hosted in 2010, became politically polarizing by mocking Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live , and then was caught up in the Rust tragedy . And Billy Crystal , who hosted nine times between 1990 and 2012, and Whoopi Goldberg , who hosted in 1999 and 2002, are now 76 and 68, respectively, and would not help the Academy and ABC in their efforts to attract younger viewers to the telecast.

Four past hosts, however, may remain viable.

Jon Stewart , who hosted in 2006 and 2008, would certainly be a “get,” and he probably has more time on his hands than he has had at any other point in many years, given that he now only hosts The Daily Show one night a week. That said, he is politically outspoken, which may give the Academy and ABC pause as they make every effort to keep politics out of the Oscars ceremony, having seen undeniable evidence in tracking data that it impacts viewership.

Chris Rock , who hosted in 2005 and 2016, is as popular as ever, and it would be a big deal to get him to return to the Oscars for the first time since he was shockingly slapped by Will Smith while presenting an award in 2022. That said, when he previously hosted the show he offended a lot of people with a skit featuring Asian children, for which the Academy — but not Rock — ultimately felt compelled to apologize. I suspect that many, including Janet Yang , the Academy’s first president of Asian descent, might want to go in another direction.

Then, there’s Hugh Jackman , who hosted the tremendously acclaimed 2009 ceremony —  he sang, he danced and he even got Beyoncé to perform with him — and who happens to be one of the two stars of the biggest blockbuster of this year, Deadpool & Wolverine . Heck, I could even see Wolverine (Jackman) enlisting Deadpool ( Ryan Reynolds , Jackman’s close friend) to share the gig with him.

Other options along those lines include Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson , who has never shied away from the limelight; Glen Powell , the breakthrough star of the year and someone who would certainly draw young people to the telecast; John Legend , possibly with his wife Chrissy Teigen ; Emily Blunt , possibly with her The Fall Guy co-star Ryan Gosling (they were great together as co-presenters at the ceremony earlier this year); and Tom Hanks , who has served on the Academy’s board of governors, remains very involved with its museum and would probably help it out if it really finds itself in a bind.

If the Academy and ABC do end up sticking with a comedian, they could go to former late night host and current podcaster and travel show host Conan O’Brien , who seems like a pretty unobjectionable choice; Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig , separate or together, who were a hit when they co-presented on the 2020 show; Chelsea Handler , who has honed her hosting skills while emceeing the lower-stakes Critics Choice Awards in 2023 and 2024; Ali Wong and/or Bill Hader , two halves of a very funny couple; or Tiffany Haddish , although she has become a bit controversial.

Trevor Noah is now out of the late night game and would probably do a wonderful job, but he has become the Grammys’ go-to guy (he’s anchored their last four telecasts), so it seems unlikely he’d be asked to also take on another of the EGOT-level award shows.

As much as fans might like to see what Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle would do as host, the Academy and ABC would almost certainly avoid them like the plague, given how anarchic and unpredictable they both are.

Finally, unless they’ve had a major change of heart, you can count out a handful of high-profile folks who might seem like good hosting candidates, but who have been asked — in several cases by me — and explicitly stated that, for one reason or another, they will never take the job: Justin Timberlake , Melissa McCarthy , Jerry Seinfeld , Julia Louis-Dreyfus , John Krasinski , Tina Fey and Amy Poehler .

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