Dark Victory / Now, Voyager

DARK VICTORY, 1939, Warner Bros, 104 min. If one film could be said to sum up Bette Davis's greatness, this might be it: She gives her definitive performance as a wealthy socialite who learns she is dying and then tries to cram a lifetime of experiences into one summer. This is Hollywood melodrama at its best, with expert direction by Edmund Goulding and solid supporting work from Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan and Humphrey Bogart.

NOW, VOYAGER, 1942, Warner Bros, 117 min. Dir. Irving Rapper. In yet another classic Bette Davis soap opera, the great actress plays a repressed spinster who finds love with Paul Henreid after psychiatrist Claude Rains encourages her to embrace life. Max Steiner's Oscar-winning score provides just the right amount of operatic emphasis in this manipulative but undeniably effective, intelligent Hollywood sudser.