Jezebel: A Review (Review #2060)

JEZEBEL

There are all kinds of wicked women. There are the femme fatales, who lure men into a life of crime. Then there are the temptresses, who lure men into sins of the flesh. The lead character in Jezebel is a vixen, one who is set to get her way. With standout performances all around, Jezebel is a strong picture if perhaps a bit dated.

Fiery Southern belle Miss Julie Marsden (Bette Davis) rules 1852 New Orleans society. She is a firecracker who flaunts convention every time that she can. This distresses both her Aunt Belle (Fay Bainter) and her financial guardian, General Bogardus (Henry O'Neill). Both, however, are pleased that she will soon be someone else's problem. That someone is her fiancée, Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda). He is too busy dealing in business to accompany Miss Julie to a dress fitting for the Olympus Ball, the social event of the year. Furious at being rebuffed, Miss Julie decides that she will shock New Orleans by appearing in a fiery red gown.

This might appear to be a strange way to scandalize the Big Easy. However, despite it being 1852 and not the Dark Ages, no unmarried woman attends the Olympus Ball in anything other than a white gown. Despite promising not to wear scarlet red, Miss Julie decides to do so anyway. Preston is enraged. Aunt Belle and General Bogardus are deeply upset. Even Miss Julie's former beau and Pres' frenemy Buck Cantrell (George Brent) advises her not to. Buck, the finest sharpshooter in New Orleans, is like Julie in speaking his mind. However, he tells her that this will bring her nothing but misery.

At the Olympus Ball, her dress horrifies the elites. Realizing too late that she has, as Buck predicted, made a spectacle of herself, she begs Pres to take her out. Pres, however, is quietly enraged at her actions and sees to it that her humiliation is complete. With that, he breaks off the engagement and heads North. A year passes, and Miss Julie is now essentially a recluse. Fortunate, a yellow jack plague has taken hold in New Orleans, forcing her and Aunt Belle to take refuge in their plantation of Halcyon.

Good news seems to come their way when Preston returns to help deal with the growing health crisis. Miss Julie, now contrite for her scandalous behavior, hopes for a reconciliation. Everyone is in for a shock when Preston shows up with Amy Jenkins (Margaret Lindsay), the new Mrs. Dillard. With that, Miss Julie starts a chain reaction that leads to duels and unintended deaths. The new plague ravaging New Orleans may have met its match, but who will find death and who will find redemption?

Bette Davis had been in the running for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind for some time until Vivien Leigh was ultimately selected for the p art. While she may have lost out of that role, Jezebel gives us a glimpse of what might have been if Gone with the Wind had picked a Yankee over an English girl. Having the fortune of hindsight, I think that Bette Davis was right for Jezebel and wrong for Gone with the Wind. 

Bette Davis, winning her second and surprisingly final Best Actress Oscar of her career, is appropriately fiery and fierce as our antebellum queen. She has that haughty, fierce manner as Miss Julie. The film wisely holds back on presenting Davis until a good seven minutes into Jezebel. She is a tornado on screen, flinty and determined. We can see that those Bette Davis eyes are working overtime in displaying Julie's flinty flirtations and fierce fury. 

Yet, she is also able to communicate those little bits of regret when she learns of Pres' desperate condition. I think many people found Julie's sacrificial turn a bit fake. I thought it worked here. She was perhaps more contrite than repentant. However, she also may have taken her final actions as a way to atone as well as spend time with the man she lost.

Like Davis, Fay Bainter won an Oscar for her performance in Jezebel. As Aunt Belle, she did pretty much nothing but warn and worry. However, the emotions that cross Belle's face when she is greeting the new Mrs. Dillard reveal a mix of horror, fear and concern for all involve. 

Henry Fonda was solid as Pres, the much put-upon man who has to endure much. In a brilliant bit from director William Wyler, Pres has brought a walking stick to presumably discipline Julie. Preston and Julie negotiate their different stands, with the walking stick a visible threat. It shows both Preston's inability to fully stand up to her, and her ability to weasel her way out of situations. "Don't forget your stick," I think she tells him when she has won this round.

However, we also see his own anger and determination to rid himself of this antebellum tart. As they dance at the Olympus Ball, the crowd starts drifting away, not wanting to associate with this loose woman. The fear in Davis' eyes communicates Julie's realization of her disastrous choices. She begs Preston to go, but he forcibly continues her ritual humiliation by insisting on keeping to the dance. When they arrive back home, he tells her that he is leaving. "Evidently you've made up your mind," she tells Preston when she realizes that this is the end. "No Julie. You've made up my mind", he coldly replies.  

George Brent is equally strong as Buck Cantrell, the man whom Julie can manipulate to tragic results. Buck is not a fool. He sees things as they are and is not afraid to call them by their names. However, he also has an arrogance and a stubborn manner that leads to his own fall. 

Jezebel, as a song of the South, might startle people with a scene where the slaves come up to Halcyon and sing, We're Going to Raise a Ruckus Tonight. The sight of happy slaves singing might now raise eyebrows. I found it illogical that all these slaves would be up at such a late hour for a hoedown. It does not help that Davis as Miss Julie joins in and pronounces the word as "Roo-kus" versus "Ruck-us" that I am more familiar with. Is it a Southern version. Wyler also films the panic of the plague very effectively.

This adaptation by Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel and John Huston (the latter early in his career) of the Owen Davis, Sr. play is surprisingly free of stage trappings. This is a credit to everyone involved in Jezebel. This applies to Max Steiner's Southern tinged score as well, one of Jezebel's five Oscar nominations.

Bette Davis may never had been the ultimate Southern belle. However, Jezebel shows why she was a strong Scarlett contender. While Jezebel will never escape Gone with the Wind's shadow, it does show that Davis could be fiery when needed. 

DECISION: B+