Better Davis, Paul Henreid, Gladys Cooper, Claude Rains, Bonita Granville, Ilka Chase, Janis Wilson, John Loder, Mary Wickes, Franklin Pangborn.
Little touches: Sol Polito's camera follows Charlotte Vale's feet down the stairs - we hear her being talked about, the feet falter, turn to go back up. When you step outside of the film, as it were, you observe the way Sol's camera rushes into her face in moments of high drama, like when she accepts Jerry's (Henreid) invitation to accompany him on the cruise excursion. I mean, the camera's always moving, even in what might be a static two shot, it's edging in or creeping around, almost like a really modern Steadicam shot. And I'm not necessarily a fan of moving the camera without purpose - Hawks' and Ford's static shots are fine with me. But here, it seems to serve the drama or the story well, like a fluid track in to Bette's restless fingers. Much credit here to Sol Polito, who by this time really knew what he was doing, but also to his flawless camera operator and focus puller, who are of course uncredited (though IMDB lists the operator as Al Green) - and Orson Welles would remind us the various grips are also important here. He was not Oscar nominated but Max Steiner won for his score.
It makes the film very interesting. Patricia White's essay for the Criterion release tells us that '[Irving] Rapper had told Davis of unit producer Hal B. Wallis's plan to cast Irene Dunne as Now Voyager's lead; Davis lobbied for the role and for the relatively untested Rapper as her director. Born in England and with a stage background, Rapper started as a dialogue coach - helping with Warners' stable of non-native-speaking directors: Michael Curtiz, William Dieterle, and Anatole Litvak'. That suggests to me that the cinematic fluidity in this film is largely the work of Polito.
Casey Robinson adapted Olive Higgins Prouty's novel and 'drew liberally on Prouty's dialogue'. And see here for more jottings on the subject.
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| A similar shot appears in Brief Encounter |
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