BETTE DAVIS "A BASICALLY BENEVOLENT VOLCANO" BBC 1983 (1/8)

Part 1: Here Bette talks about her early experiences in Hollywood; the contrast between her Boston upbringing and her Hollywood surroundings in the early days; the sacrifices and inspiration of her mother and best friend, Ruthie; and the role that the great English actor George Arliss played in giving her a career.
Alongside the Turner Classic Movies documentary All About Bette one decade later, A Basically Benevolent Volcano might be the best of the many documentaries made on the life and career of Bette Davis. While this 1983 BBC production is far less educational than subsequent documentaries (no mention is ever made of Of Human Bondage and its importance in the history of both Bette Davis and the Academy Awards!) the film shines thanks largely to a priceless interview with Bette Davis, one of the last interviews she would give prior to the relentlessly, tragically unfair series of physical and personal setbacks that would befall her from 1983 to 1985. This dark but empowering chapter in the life of The First Lady of the American Screen would include a double mastectomy, a massively debilitating stroke that slurred her speech, a broken hip that undermined her ability to walk or act with her body the way she had done so masterfully on film for decades, and, worst of all, the cold and cruel betrayal of her eldest daughter, the beloved child who abandoned her mother and wrote a whiney but nasty book about herafter becoming a Born Again Christian, no less (today she runs the B.D. Hyman Ministry, named after herself). While Bettes continued triumphs against the worst of the hurdles life could offer would be her greatest challenge and most inspiring legacy, Volcano offers a chance to see how truly happy and fulfilled Bette Davis was in the first half of her seventies, before fate delivered a slow-motion death blow in the years that lay ahead. In addition to a truly marvelous interview with Miss Davis, her co-stars (who became some of her closest lifelong friends) Olivia de Havilland, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Anne Baxter, as well as one of her favorite directors and greatest admirers, the legendary Joseph L. Mankiewicz, writer/director of All About Eve.
VIVA LA BETTE!!!

[@anastasia10017]

i love her voice. i always thought she was gorgeous. the old hollywood stars were so much better than what we have today.

[@gymnastix]

Here, here, ""anastasia46!" Today's actors and actresses, whether on film and in television or from the stage, truly do not speak with the same eloquence and precise diction as the actors and actresses of yesteryear. For one thing, without the Hollywood studio system to provide lessons in elocution and enunciation, and private schools as well public school systems no longer providing a rigorous curriculum of classical scholarship, professional actors today are products of largely incompetent educational systems more concerned with social engineering and private or public babysitting than in actual imparting of significant knowledge. Thus actors today not only do not know how to speak correctly, they also often do not know of what they speak. In television productions especially, the dialogue involving younger characters is delivered as a series of run-on sentences, paying no mind to the existence of punctuation. Incoherent mumbling spoken in a rapid fire manner does not communicate effectively. And in stage plays with most productions now reliant upon headsets to make the dialogue and monologues audible, actors and actress are no longer learning how to project their voices so they may heard in the distant orchestra seats, let alone in the second and third balconies of a theater. Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and their likes would be turning in their graves if they could hear and see what has happened to their once fairly competent profession.

[@lovingmayberry307]

I cannot describe how much I love and admire this woman!

[@aehrab78]

I could listen to this woman's voice for days... Looooove Bette Davis

[@scottevans748]

Thank-you thank-you for posting this. It's far and away the best documentary ever done on Bette Davis. Leave it to the BBC to nicely cover one of America's greatest screen legends. Meanwhile A & E (and gag me please) the Lifetime television network, tragically failed to even find a pulse.

[@ThePurplebear77]

Sorry its off topic but what is the best marilyn monroe documentary just want to know since i hate how marilyn documentaries interview the most pro women GS or most pro men HH about marilyn.

[@TheTibmeister]

That voice..that look.....that walk.....incomparable

[@davidfairbrother4292]

Amoungst being a BRILLIANT actress & a wonderful humanitarian- her Manners are impeccable..A very interesting lady- have always loved her, too bits xxx

[@xtinaandravenfan]

Thank you soooooooooooooo much for posting this! I adore Bette shes my favourite old hollywood actress, what a lady. The Letter and Jezebel are 2 of the best movies ever made! She was just incredible in both! Again thanks so much for posting much appreciated! :)

[@ChicagoLove95]

love listening to her speak 😊

[@RenanCMaia]

Great Bette!

[@scotnick59]

Always thought Bette was 10X more fun to watch than Hepburn

[@victoriacohen2882]

La Extraña Pasajera

[@bobbasheely]

nonsense.

[@davidfairbrother4292]

I agree totally 100%

[@thomstephens]

Bette was more of an actress and Kate more of a personality. Kate was herself (and amazing) in her movies. She told Peter O’Toole that she never acted, she just spoke the lines. Bette tore into it!!

[@scotnick59]

@@thomstephens Yes: but Kate did win 4 Oscars

[@sweatyhot]

My favorite actress of all times.

[@Etheline]

LOVE YOU,LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU for this! Thanksssssss

[@New2010Me]

Thanks for this posting I am it will be enjoyable !!

[@MrQbenDanny]

Bette had appeared on Broadway along with Mr. George Arliss in "The man who played GOD", before going to Hollywood.

[@creolelady182]

They certainly do not have actresses like this anymore with the exception of Meryl Streep

[@manuellarodrigues]

Here she is looking like the Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro.

[@Etheline]

@2504marcus Hello :-))))))

[@jamesbrown693]

And Kate Winslet

[@jenylogan1]

Benevolent is questionable !