EX-LADY: Bette Davis and the Character Who Could Not Be Tamed by Raquel Stecher
From the very first scene of EX-LADY (’33) we know that Helen Bauer, as played by Bette Davis, means business. Helen and her boyfriend Don (Gene Raymond) are hosting a swanky party for friends and it’s time to kick them all out. Why? She’s on a deadline. After having landed an illustration on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine, she’s got another lucrative gig waiting in the wings. Soon we find out that not only is Helen a career woman, she’s more talented and sought after than Don, an advertising copywriter. We also learn that she absolutely does not want to get married. For her, marriage is a dull prospect, one that comes with compromise, subservience and general unhappiness. She fights for every scrap of independence she can get her hands on. Her biggest obstacle is love itself. And so begins her internal conflict between her feelings for Don, who wants to legitimize their relationship in the eyes of society with a marriage certificate, and her desire to be free from the shackles of that institution… at least until she’s 40.Â
EX-LADY was Bette Davis’ first leading role. She was under contract with Warner Bros. and her star was on the rise. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck took notice. According to Davis biographer Whitney Stine, Zanuck caved to demands from both fans and industry members to give Davis top billing in a Warner Bros. production. And so he did, just a few short months before Zanuck left Warner Bros. to create Twentieth Century Pictures which soon merged to become Twentieth Century-Fox. Zanuck dipped into the Warner library and plucked out ILLICIT (’31), director Archie Mayo’s pre-Code film starring Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie and Ricardo Cortez. To a modern eye, it might seem too soon to remake a film made only two years earlier, but this was common practice back in the early talkie era. Dusting off a film, polishing it up and giving it another go was a way to take advantage of existing material and the evolving technological improvements of filmmaking. Zanuck hired screenwriter David Boehm to adapt the original play written by Edith Fitzgerald and Robert Riskin. When the play was published in 1930, Fitzgerald and Riskin were a couple and it made sense for two creative types in a romantic partnership to write a story essentially about a couple just like them.
Shot over 18 days on the Warner Bros. lot and made for a budget of $115,000, EX-LADY was directed by Robert Florey. Zanuck made several demands including having Davis portrayed as glamorous as possible in the film. It was clear that the then platinum blonde Davis was being groomed for stardom. In EX-LADY, Davis is showcased in Orry-Kelly creations with a backdrop of Art Deco decor. Gene Raymond had just been released from his Fox contract and was chosen to be the film’s leading man. Other cast members include Claire Dodd as Iris Van Hugh, the long suffering wife of Hugh Van Hugh (Frank McHugh) who craves the attention of her otherwise disinterested husband. Then there is Peggy Smith (Kay Strozzi), the rich socialite who seeks the antidote for boredom with Helen’s husband Don.
Upon release, EX-LADY got panned by the critics. The negative press focused more on the representation of sexuality in the film. The Hollywood Reporter review read “why didn’t Warners shoot the entire script of Ex-Lady in one bedroom on one bed?”. New York Times critic Andre Sennwald thought Davis was miscast and her scenes, “were sometimes timidly suggestive, then depressingly naive and mostly downright foolish.” Even Davis herself didn’t look too kindly on the film. Perhaps the memories of her battle with Warner Bros. for better parts still stung.
I believe a contemporary audience can revisit EX-LADY and find much to enjoy about this film. I find Helen an incredibly relatable and admirable character. She’s strong-willed, talented, smart, witty, knows what she wants and what she doesn’t and spends the first half of the movie fighting against society’s gender norms. Film historian and author Sloan De Forest in her book Dynamic Dames (TCM and Running Press) says the following about Davis’ role as Helen:
“While the title suggests that Bette has a tarnished reputation, the movie takes her side. No accusations, no judgments. Her character is allowed to be as bad as she wants… being a Mrs. doesn’t define her; she gets to keep her career and her man. And her headstrong personality suggests that she’ll never be completely tamed.”
EX-LADY was perhaps too ahead of its time. It gets lost in the open marriage/love triangle aspect of the plot but can still stand on its own as a spirited and ultimately feminist pre-Code.
