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Apr 18, 2011Michael rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
OPL has it, but I saw this 1942 Bette Davis classic - the biggest box-office hit in her multi-faceted and splendid career - on the Turner Network over the weekend. I enjoyed it immensely. Taking its title from a line in the Walt Whitman poem "The Untold Want": "The untold want by life and land ne'er granted, / Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find." - the movie's script is faithful to those verses. And Bette Davis does justice to the role of Charlotte ("Some girls aren't the marrying kind") Vale, the emotionally troubled spinster who falls in love with a married man, Jerry, played by Paul Henreid of CASABLANCA fame. Despite the then, 'Hayes Office', canning much of the original content in the film, because of its on-screen censorship guidelines, covering the subject of affairs between married and unmarried adults - this movie still has legs. It stays true to the telling of an unusual love story with equally unusual "emotional crescendos". And how can anyone not come away loving the ebb and flow of a film that leaves you star-gazed by its parting scene: Paul Henreid puts two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them at the same time, then offers one knowingly to Bette, asking her: "Are you happy?" And Davis ending the scene, and the movie, with the unforgettable line:"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars," !