Now Voyager (1942 Irving Rapper)

Loved Rapper's direction - the camera is always moving, usually tracking in on great acting, but otherwise Sol Polito's just sweeping around in a way people (except Marty) seem to have forgotten how to do. His angles keep changing too. Great acting by Bette Davis, her best performance (?), in eyebrows from Carry On Screaming. Claude Rains an actor you'll always welcome, here both tender and tough. Gladys Cooper doesn't give an inch of sympathy.

Olive Higgins Prouty wrote 'Stella Dallas' in 1922 and this in 1941, the middle of five novels about the Vale family of Boston. She herself suffered from prolonged nervous breakdowns making the subject matter rather personal. It's superbly adapted by Casey Robinson (also Kings Row).

But it would be an altogether different film without Max Steiner's superb score running throughout.

The way Henreid lights two cigarettes is touchingly intimate. And the moment when Janis Wilson asks Henreid her father 'Do you really like me?' would make a goat cry.

Montages by Don Siegel, nippy editing by Warren Low. Featuring Franklin Pangborn.