The Girl from 10th Avenue: Bette Davis doing heavy lifting

Is this thing worth your time?

If you have a thing for 1930s soap operas where people talk in full, polished sentences while having total emotional breakdowns, you’ll dig this. It’s definitely not for folks who need pacing that moves faster than a turtle in a sweater. If you want to see Bette Davis try to save a script that’s mostly just people yelling in fancy drawing rooms, you’re in the right spot.

Bette Davis is doing a lot of work here. She’s playing this shop girl, and you can see her trying to find the humanity in a character who’s mostly written as a plot device. She’s got this way of looking at her co-stars like she’s already figured out they’re idiots. It’s a mood.

The whole "marrying a stranger to spite your ex" thing is pretty tired, even for 1935. It feels like the movie is constantly trying to remind you that these are rich people problems. Every time someone walks into a room, they seem to be holding a drink or a grudge.

Random thoughts from the back row:

• The dialogue is so stiff you could use it to build a deck.
• I swear the guy playing the lawyer spends half the movie looking like he’s trying to remember where he parked his car.
• The transition between the breakup and the marriage happens so fast you’ll get whiplash.
• There’s a scene in a restaurant that goes on for about three years. Or maybe it was just five minutes. Felt like three years.

If you've seen something like The Vagabond Lover, you know the type of melodrama we're dealing with here. It’s not quite as charming, but it’s got that same weird, stagey energy. Sometimes I wonder if these actors ever got tired of wearing tuxedos 24/7. Probably not.

The movie gets way better once it stops trying to convince us that these two people are actually in love and just starts letting them be annoyed at each other. The bickering is the only part that feels real. Everything else is just people walking through doors and announcing plot points.

Honestly, it’s a bit of a slog. But Bette? She’s a force. She turns a throwaway line into a whole personality trait. You’re watching it for her, let’s be real. It’s a bit like watching Obey the Law where the plot is secondary to just seeing if the main actor can hold the frame together. Spoiler: she can.

Not a classic, but fine for a rainy Tuesday if you don't mind a little cheese. 🧀