Bette Davis Filmography

Christmas Throughout the Years

Classic Bloopers

Memories of Hollywood

Synopsis: This fascinating program takes us on a star-studded trip down memory lane. Relive the Golden Age of Hollywood. Featuring memories of the stars from the great westerns, screen sweethearts, Shirley Temple, Bette Davis, James Stewart and many more. An added bonus is a chapter of original trailers Read More

Wicked Stepmother

Actors: Bette Davis, Barbara Carrera, Colleen Camp, David Rasche, Lionel Stander

Synopsis: In this film, Steve (David Rasche) and Jenny's (Colleen Camp) new stepmother, Miranda (Bette Davis), is truly a witch in every sense of the word. With their father (Lionel Stander) happily deceived by his new wife, it is up to the kids to stop Miranda's dastardly plans, before it is too late. This Read More

Hollywood's Golden Era: Leading Ladies

Synopsis: This documentary highlights the careers and lives of some of the most famous actresses of early cinema. Some of the ladies featured in this video are Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard, and Joan Crawford. These actresses from Hollywood's Golden Age were different in the types of films Read More

The Whales of August

Actors: Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Vincent Price, Ann Sothern, Harry Carey, Jr.

Synopsis: A once-in-a-lifetime cast of veterans performs David Berry's play about Libby Strong (Bette Davis) and Sarah Webber (Lillian Gish), widowed sisters vacationing on a Philadelphia island for their 60th consecutive summer. Libby is blind and embittered, while Sarah is healthy, supportive, and almost Read More

As Summers Die

Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Bette Davis, Scott Glenn

Synopsis: As Summers Die was produced as an "HBO Premiere" attraction. Set in the segregationist South of the 1950s, the film pits the wealthy but decadent members of a landed-gentry white family against a feisty old black woman, on whose property oil has been discovered. Idealistic attorney Scott Glenn Read More

Directed by William Wyler

Actors: William Wyler, Bette Davis, Laurence Olivier, Lillian Hellman, Gregory Peck, Terence Stamp

Synopsis: This excellent biographical documentary looks at the life and work of director William Wyler. The film is dominated by clips from many of Wyler's better-known works, such as Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, and Funny Girl. A long interview with the director himself (conducted a few days before he died) Read More

Murder with Mirrors

Actors: Dorothy Tutin, John Mills, Helen Hayes, Bette Davis, Leo McKern

Synopsis: Helen Hayes makes her second TV appearance as Agatha Christie's female sleuth Miss Marple in Murder with Mirrors. Marple has been summoned to the lavish country estate of her old friend Carrie Louise Serrocold (Bette Davis). Carrie's stepson has been killed, and she fears that his won't be the Read More

Little Gloria... Happy at Last

Actors: Lucy Gutteridge, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Plummer

Synopsis: Little Gloria...Happy at Last is the two-part TV adaptation of Barbara Goldsmith's 1980 best-seller. The film concerns the true-life custody battle over the daughter of millionaire Reggie Vanderbilt (Christopher Plummer) and his "child bride," Gloria Morgan (Lucy Gutteridge). When the Read More

Hollywood Outtakes and Rare Footage

Synopsis: Rather than a compilation of a series of hilarious bloopers, plus scenes of current stars never-before shown to the public, this collection of film clips focuses on a Hollywood of long ago. Stars from Warner Bros. in the 1930s and '40s are shown in out-takes that mainly illustrate their short Read More

Hotel

Actors: Bette Davis, Morgan Fairchild, Shirley Jones, Erin Moran, Mel Tormé

Synopsis: Arthur Hailey's novel Hotel had already served as the inspiration for a 1967 theatrical film when this TV pilot came along on September 21, 1983. Bette Davis stars as Laura Trent, the entrenched owner of the Hotel St. Gregory (moved from the novel's New Orleans to San Francisco, to allow for Read More

Right of Way

Actors: Bette Davis, James Stewart, Melinda Dillon, Priscilla Morrill, John Harkins

Synopsis: This story about an elderly couple who start a large controversy when everyone learns they plan on committing suicide stars James Stewart as the retired Teddy Dwyer, and Betty Davis is his wife Mini Dwyer. When Mini learns she is terminally ill with a blood disease, the couple decide to end their Read More

A Piano for Mrs. Cimino

Actors: Bette Davis

Synopsis: Directed by George Schaefer, this light made-for-television drama is based upon the novel of the same name by Robert Oliphant. Starring Bette Davis as Esther Cimino, a 73-year-old widow, the film traces the events following Esther's son George's (George Hearn) decision that she is no longer Read More

AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Frank Capra

Synopsis: Hosted by the American Film Institute, this video is a tribute to career of Frank Capra. Included are excerpts from: It's a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It with You and It Happened One Night. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Family Reunion

Actors: Bette Davis, J. Ashley Hyman

Synopsis: Written for television by Allan Sloane, Family Reunion stars Bette Davis as an ageing New England schoolteacher who is given an "unlimited" bus ticket as a retirement present. She uses this gift to visit the farthest-flung members of her long-estranged family. In her absence, Davis' small town Read More

The Watcher in the Woods

Actors: Bette Davis, Carroll Baker, David McCallum, Ian Bannen, Lynn-Holly Johnson

Synopsis: This Disney Studios attempt at entering the horror genre is a British production based on the chilling novel by Florence Engel Randall. An American family, headed by composer Paul Curtis (David McCallum) and his wife Helen (Carroll Baker), is renting an old mansion in England. The mansion's owner Read More

White Mama

Actors: Bette Davis, Ernest Harden Jr.

Synopsis: Bette Davis is White Mama in this custom-made TV movie. Ms. Davis plays a poverty-stricken widow who is too proud to go on welfare. Aware that she can receive a steady income if she takes in a foster child, Davis becomes surrogate mother to tough black teenager Ernest Harden Jr. The relationship Read More

Skyward

Synopsis: Skyward is a 1980 GE Theatre presentation in the lofty tradition of TV's Golden Age. Bette Davis stars (what an inadequate word!) as a 60-year-old retired barnstorming airplane pilot. Real-life paraplegic Suzy Gilstrap portrays a wheelchair-bound team who is "tired of looking up all the time." It Read More

Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter

Synopsis: The made-for-television movie Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter concerns a bitter widow (Bette Davis) who is upset about the unexpected return of her estranged daughter (Gena Rowlands). Davis won an Emmy for her performance. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Return from Witch Mountain

Actors: Bette Davis, Christopher Lee, Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann, Jack Soo

Synopsis: The Fury meets The Misadventures of Merlin Jones in this comic-book sequel to Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain. Reprising their roles as the psychic siblings from another world are Kim Richards as Tia and Ike Eisenmann as Tony. Their Uncle Bene (Denver Pyle) gives the kids a treat by letting them Read More

The Dark Secret of Harvest Home

Actors: Rosanna Arquette, Bette Davis

Synopsis: This vapid television production is based on Thomas Tryon's complex and suspenseful occult thriller Harvest Home, delving into the forbidden rituals of the small New England township Cornwall Combe, whose residents offer annual human sacrifices to pagan gods in return for a bountiful corn harvest. Read More

Death on the Nile

Actors: Peter Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Lois Chiles, David Niven, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Peter Ustinov began his long association with the Hercule Poirot character of murder mystery novelist Agatha Christie with this lavish but financially disappointing follow-up to the popular Murder on the Orient Express (1974). During a luxurious pleasure cruise down the Nile aboard a lavish vessel Read More

Burnt Offerings

Actors: Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart, Lee Montgomery, Bette Davis

Synopsis: Dan Curtis, director of TV's Dark Shadows series, directed this eerie haunted-house thriller about a house which draws energy from its inhabitants and selects its own "keeper" from the family of Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed & Karen Black), who rent the strangely-affordable house one fateful Read More

The Disappearance of Aimee

Synopsis: In 1926, flamboyant evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared for six weeks. At first feared drowned (she'd been vacationing on a California beach at the time she vanished), Aimee finally showed up, wandering barefoot in the Mexican desert. For the benefit of the press, Aimee related a Read More

Scream, Pretty Peggy

Actors: Bette Davis

Synopsis: Bette Davis stars in the TV movie Scream, Pretty Peggy. She isn't Peggy, but instead the secretive matriarch of a spooky household. Peggy, played by Sian Barbara Allen, is a goggle-eyed college student hired by Davis as a housekeeper. Ted Bessell plays Davis's son, a crazed sculptor; but no one Read More

Lo Scopone Scientifico

Synopsis: In this drama, a wealthy US heiress and her partner embark upon their annual journey to Rome to play scopa, an Italian card game, with a financially struggling couple. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Judge and Jake Wyler

Actors: Bette Davis

Synopsis: Even Bette Davis showed up in a TV-movie pilot from time to time. The Judge and Jake Wyler stars the indestructible Davis as a hypochondriac former judge who becomes a private detective. Davis puts paroled ex-con Doug McClure to work as her "leg man," searching for clues in the supposed suicide of Read More

Madame Sin

Actors: Bette Davis, Robert Wagner

Synopsis: The first appearance of Bette Davis in a made-for-television film has an evil mastermind (Davis) plotting against a CIA agent (Robert Wagner) for control of a deadly submarine. Aired in 1971, Madame Sin was the most expensive TV movie of the time. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Bunny O'Hare

Actors: Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Cassidy

Synopsis: Would you believe Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine as a pair of free-spirited hippies on a crime spree? That's the premise of this unlikely comedy starring the two Oscar-winning veterans. Bunny O'Hare (Bette Davis) is an elderly woman living in New Mexico who is trying to keep herself afloat Read More

Connecting Rooms

Synopsis: This melodrama explores the relationship between tenants in a boarding house. Included are a street musician, an ex-school teacher, and an angry young man who brings chaos to their quiet lives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Anniversary

Actors: Bette Davis, Sheila Hancock, Jack Hedley, James Cossins, Elaine Taylor

Synopsis: Bette Davis plays a wealthy one-eyed widow (complete with designer eye patch) who gathers her sons together once a year to celebrate the death of the husband she detested. Mama Davis couldn't be more castrating if her last name was Bobbitt: Her grown sons (it's been 10 years since daddy died) are Read More

The Nanny

Actors: Bette Davis, Wendy Craig, Jill Bennett, James Villiers, William Dix

Synopsis: In this thriller (which represented something of a departure for Hammer Films, noted for their gothic period pieces), Joey Fane (William Dix) has returned home after two years in an institution for mentally ill children. His sister drowned, and his family believes that Joey was to blame, despite Read More

Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Actors: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: An unusually long pre-credits sequence establishes the roots of faded Southern belle Charlotte's (Bette Davis) insanity; she'd been witness to the dismemberment murder of her fiance (Bruce Dern) and the suicide of the murderer, her own father (Victor Buono). Years later, Charlotte remains a Read More

Dead Ringer

Actors: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford, Philip Carey, Jean Hagen

Synopsis: Though he's most famous for his portrayal of Victor Laszlo in 1942's Casablanca, actor Paul Henreid took a few turns behind the camera as evidenced by this 1964 thriller starring Bette Davis as twins Margaret DeLorca and Edith Phillips. After landing the beau they both sought after by falsely Read More

Where Love Has Gone

Actors: Susan Hayward, Bette Davis, Michael Connors, Joey Heatherton, Jane Greer

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Harold Robbins, comes this family drama from director Edward Dmytryk. Adapted for the the screen by John Michael Hayes, the film follows the events that befall Luke Miller (Michael Connors) when he discovers that his daughter, Danielle (Joey Heatherton), has been arrested for Read More

La Noia

Actors: Bette Davis, Horst Buchholz, Catherine Spaak, Daniela Rocca, Lea Padovani

Synopsis: Horst Bucholz plays Dino, a painter who realizes he has no artistic vision and decides to move back into his wealthy mother's (Betty Davis) home. Just before he does this, however, he falls in love with beautiful and self-serving Cecilia (Catherine Spaak). Though Dino diligently attempts to Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of Constant Doyle

Synopsis: This is the first of four consecutive episodes in which Perry Mason appears only briefly, while a "guest" lawyer handles the case at hand (Raymond Burr was at the time recovering from minor surgery). No less than Bette Davis is cast as female attorney Constant Doyle, the widow of famed defense Read More

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Actors: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Marjorie Bennett, Anna Lee, Maide Norman

Synopsis: As a child, "Baby Jane" Hudson was the toast of vaudeville. As an adult, however, Baby Jane was overshadowed by her more talented sister, Blanche, who became a top movie star. Then, one night in the early '30s, came the accident, which crippled Blanche for life and which was blamed on a drunken Read More

Pocketful of Miracles

Actors: Glenn Ford, Bette Davis, Hope Lange, Arthur O'Connell, Peter Falk

Synopsis: Director Frank Capra's last feature film, Pocketful of Miracles is a Technicolor remake of his 1933 film Lady for a Day. A barely recognizable Bette Davis plays Apple Annie, the besotted, unkempt, rag-clad street vendor who controls the activities of all the beggars on Broadway. Apple Annie is the Read More

The Scapegoat

Actors: Alec Guinness, Nicole Maurey, Bette Davis, Irene Worth, Pamela Brown, Peter Bull

Synopsis: In this uneven but well-acted mystery story with a few gaps in the plot here and there, Alec Guiness plays a double role. He is John Barratt, a British teacher on vacation in France who is conned into taking on another identity. The identity he assumes is that of his double, Count Jacques de Gue Read More

John Paul Jones

Actors: Robert Stack, Marisa Pavan, Charles Coburn, Jean-Pierre Aumont, MacDonald Carey

Synopsis: Robert Stack stars in this sea-faring historical epic as John Paul Jones, the first great hero of the American Navy. While originally a loyal soldier of the King's army, Jones in time becomes a fervent supporter of the American Revolutionaries, and he volunteers to lead the colonists' ragtag fleet Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Out There--Darkness

Synopsis: Bette Davis guest stars in this episode, which was directed by her former Now, Voyager co-star Paul Henreid. Davis is cast as Miss Fox, a wealthy woman living in a luxury apartment. Taking a liking to elevator operator Eddie McMahon (James Congdon), Miss Fox hires him to walk her dog. Later on Read More

Telephone Time: Stranded

Synopsis: A teacher finds her will to survive and knowledge tested when she and students are isolated by a blizzard. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Storm Center

Actors: Bette Davis, Kim Hunter, Paul Kelly, Kevin Coughlin

Synopsis: Trouble brews when a widowed, small town librarian takes a stand against censorship. The trouble begins when the town fathers ask that she remove a book from the shelf because they deem it a pro-communist tract and fear it will taint susceptible young minds. She sees the idiocy of their request Read More

The Catered Affair

Actors: Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Debbie Reynolds, Barry Fitzgerald, Rod Taylor

Synopsis: Bette Davis goes the "kitchen sink drama" route in The Catered Affair. As the frowsy wife of Bronx cabdriver Ernest Borgnine, Davis insists that her daughter Debbie Reynolds have a high-class wedding--caterers and all. Reynolds and future hubby Rod Taylor want a simple ceremony, but Davis' mind is Read More

The Virgin Queen

Actors: Bette Davis, Richard Todd, Joan Collins, Jay Robinson, Herbert Marshall, Dan O'Herlihy

Synopsis: Having previously portrayed England's Queen Elizabeth I in 1939's The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Bette Davis reprises the role in the Technicolor-and-Cinescope costumer The Virgin Queen. Harry Brown and Mindret Lord's screenplay proposes that Elizabeth's relationship with adventurer Sir Read More

Crack-Up

The Star

Actors: Bette Davis, Sterling Hayden, Natalie Wood, Warner Anderson, Minor Watson

Synopsis: An actress who once knew the heights of fame is forced to confronts the depths of defeat in this show business drama. Margaret Elliot (Bette Davis) was once one of Hollywood's great stars, but as she edges into her 50's, both her career and her life have reached an unfortunate crossroads. Margaret Read More

Phone Call from a Stranger

Actors: Shelley Winters, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Keenan Wynn, Bette Davis, Evelyn Varden

Synopsis: David Trask (Gary Merrill), the sole survivor of an airplane crash, takes it upon himself to contact the families of the various victims. Though he's already formed preconceived notions of his deceased fellow passengers, he's in for quite a few surprises when he meets the relatives. His first Read More

Payment on Demand

Actors: Bette Davis, Barry Sullivan, Jane Cowl, Kent Taylor, Betty Lynn, Frances Dee

Synopsis: Just before filming All About Eve, Bette Davis starred in the marital melodrama Payment on Demand. Davis plays the wife of Barry Sullivan, who one fine morning demands a divorce. Most of the film is in flashback, recounting the events leading up to the marital schism. After Sullivan takes up with Frances Dee Read More

Another Man's Poison

Actors: Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Emlyn Williams, Anthony Steel, Barbara Murray

Synopsis: Bette Davis co-stars with her then-new husband Gary Merrill in the British melodrama Another Man's Poison. Adapted from Leslie Sands' novel Deadlock, the story concerns one Janet Frobisher (Davis), a successful writer of suspense novels. Janet's life is thrown into turmoil when her disreputable Read More

All About Eve

Actors: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill

Synopsis: Based on the story The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, All About Eve is an elegantly bitchy backstage story revolving around aspiring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Tattered and forlorn, Eve shows up in the dressing room of Broadway mega-star Margo Channing (Bette Davis), weaving a melancholy Read More

Beyond the Forest

Actors: Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian, Ruth Roman, Regis Toomey, Minor Watson

Synopsis: "What a dump!" That's the classic line delivered by Bette Davis at the halfway point of Beyond the Forest, her final Warner Bros. effort of the 1940s. Some Davis devotees feel as though this vituperative utterance is the high point of an otherwise turgid melodrama; others consider the line a Read More

June Bride

Actors: Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, Fay Bainter, Betty Lynn, Tom Tully, Barbara Bates

Synopsis: June Bride is based on Feature for June, a play by Eileen Tighe and Graeme Lorimer. Bette Davis plays the businesslike editor of a fashionable woman's magazine, who plans a feature on a "typical" midwestern marriage. She assigns her aide (and former fiance) Robert Montgomery to cover the story, a Read More

Winter Meeting

Actors: Bette Davis, Jim Davis, James Davis, John Hoyt, Florence Bates

Synopsis: The most memorable aspect of Winter Meeting, and the one that stirred up the most publicity, was its teaming of two Davises: Bette Davis and Jim Davis (whose only "A"-picture starring role this was). Bette D. plays disenchanted poetess Susan Grieve, while Jim D. is cast as disillusioned war hero Read More

Deception

Actors: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, John Abbott, Benson Fong

Synopsis: Deception is an operatic rehash of the 1929 film Jealousy. Music teacher Bette Davis--who evidently has a large student pool, judging by the size of her penthouse apartment--is reunited with her cellist lover Paul Henreid, whom she believed to have been killed in the war. Henreid wants to marry Read More

A Stolen Life

Crew: Producer

Actors: Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Walter Brennan, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: In this romantic melodrama, Bette Davis plays twin sisters for the first time (she would do so again in 1964's Dead Ringer). Kate Bosworth (Davis) is a sincere, demure girl and talented artist. Her twin sister Pat (also Davis) is a flamboyant, man-hungry manipulator. Orphans, the girls' guardian Read More

The Corn Is Green

Actors: Bette Davis, Nigel Bruce, John Dall, Joan Lorring, Rhys Williams, Mildred Dunnock, Rosalind Ivan

Synopsis: In this 1945 filmization of Emlyn Williams' semi-autobiographical 1938 play The Corn is Green, Bette Davis steps into the role originated on Broadway by Ethel Barrymore. Davis plays Miss Moffat, a turn-of-the-century schoolteacher in a Welsh mining town. She has opened her own school in hopes of Read More

Hollywood Canteen

Actors: The Andrews Sisters, Robert Hutton, Joan Leslie, Jack Benny, Julie Bishop, Bette Davis, John Garfield, Betty Brodel, Sydney Greenstreet, Barbara Brown

Synopsis: The West Coast's answer to Broadway's Stage Door Canteen, the Hollywood Canteen was created as a GI morale-booster by film stars Bette Davis and John Garfield. The Canteen was established so that Our Boys on leave in Tinseltown could have a good time with good food and good dancing -- and, as a Read More