Review: Now, Voyager

It remains a highly narcotic, swoon-inducing romance in the Bette Davis canon.

Now Voyager
Photo: Warner Bros.

Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager remains a highly narcotic, swoon-inducing romance in the Bette Davis canon. It’s an unabashed soap opera about how true love gets hindered by social conventions, and manages to squeeze in a moralistic tale of female self-empowerment to boot. Toss in a third-act bit of passive-aggressive wish fulfillment, where our high society heroine projects the love of a man she cannot have onto his unsuspecting, needy daughter, and there’s enough here to make one’s head spin. But that cloudy feeling isn’t a drawback; it’s more like floating with a film whose indulgences are reminiscent of foolishly falling in love. You ignore the flaws.

Boston heiress Charlotte Vale (Davis) is a walking disaster of sheltered neurosis, a slave to the domineering whims of her elderly mother (Gladys Cooper). Enter kindly psychiatrist Dr. Jasquith (a soft-spoken Claude Rains), who adores the messy art of pipe smoking and draws Charlotte in with his bedside manner and winning curiosity. As if following the lead of Pygmalion’s Henry Higgins, the doctor completely transforms Charlotte’s life: It seems that all that the poor, sweet young woman ever needed was a new hairdo, to dress in the latest fashions, and to take off those dowdy spectacles. And to test this new, improved Charlotte, Dr. Jasquith encourages her to take a pleasure cruise to Rio and take advantage of her rediscovered womanhood.

Now, Voyager’s extended prologue belongs to Rains as the ne plus ultra of the ideal therapist for any woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But rest assured, this is a Davis film, and she rightly takes her place as the repressed female coming into her own through a charming dalliance with suave, debonair Jerry (Paul Henreid). And the pleasure cruise grows all the more pleasurable as Charlotte takes courageous risks in meeting Jerry, struggling through conversations and gradually realizing she’s an interesting person, and that an interesting guy is into her. Henreid, best known for his stiff idealist in Casablanca, handles this role with easy, continental grace, and, of course, more than just girls will wish they were Bette when he casually lights two cigarettes at once and offers one to her. And by moonlight, I might add.

Advertisement

This is all ladled on with velvety, manipulative broad strokes, yet Now, Voyager somehow manages to transcend its particularly corny allegiance to the template of the woman’s picture. Much of that has to do with Davis, who always threw herself headlong into these parts, to women gripped by hysteria or the allure of a glamorous life. She gets to do both here, and because Charlotte is fighting against being a spinster and has picked the right Mr. Right, we actually give a damn beyond the camp antics that Davis is sometimes notorious for.

Naturally, these lovers are blocked because Jerry the brilliant architect is trapped in an unhappy marriage and struggling with a daughter, Tina (Janis Wilson), who’s as crazed and unhappy as the old Charlotte. They enjoy their ephemeral moments of happiness before parting, with Charlotte surviving the experience and becoming popular with a social set of celebrities and big shots. Though she continues to struggle to deal with her sinister mother, a few elaborate plot contrivances at least find her saving herself by saving the tormented Tina. Yes, a lot of ground gets covered across Now, Voyager’s two hours, and while it all feels like three or four different features have been crammed together, it’s never dull.

In true Old Hollywood fashion, the final scene ties it all together rather neatly and elegantly. Jerry and Charlotte draw together and move apart as if they were floating in orbit, so, of course, their final sequence together has them on her balcony—once again under the night sky. You will never forget Charlotte’s rapturous moment of awareness: “Don’t ask for the moon. We have the stars.” Now, Voyager is the stuff of young lovers and hare-brained idealists, and if it can feel pretty foolish at times, it’s unforgettable for how sincere and affectionate it is toward one particularly time-honored cliché: that only fools falls in love.

Advertisement
Score: 
 Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville, John Loder, Ilka Chase, Lee Patrick, Franklin Pangborn, Katherine Alexander, James Rennie, Mary Wickes  Director: Irving Rapper  Screenwriter: Casey Robinson  Distributor: Warner Bros.  Running Time: 117 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1942  Buy: Video

Jeremiah Kipp

Jeremiah Kipp is a New York City based writer, producer and director with over ten years experience creating narrative and commercial films.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.