Please don't spend money on this.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I must confess I love the old movies ... love the glamour and drama! The dialogue and acting may be bad, but there is still something enchanting about them all... maybe its just the deep respect and awe I have for all the old Hollywood movie stars, after all we would not have the great actors and movies we have today if it had not been for the great stars of yesterday! Love Bette Davis, love the expressions on her face. This is a good old black & white movie that I enjoyed. When you want to watch something completely different with over-the-top drama & acting, something a little more innocent & gentle then the violent movies of today, then curl up on your most comfortable chair or sofa, with a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy.I did have a good giggle to myself tho, as here in South Africa they have rated this movie from 1941 as '18'.... can u believe it!! WOW!! I wonder what kind of old movie it would be that they rate for '13'?? LOL!

In the middle of her prime Bette Davis switches gears and Mary Astor races past her in this implausible melodrama that has aged badly-not that there wasn't plenty to complain about it upon release.Pete Van Allen (George Brent) wakes to find he has married piano virtuoso Sandra Kovak. It's clear that since both are career people accommodating each other might be a challenge and Van Allen manages to have the marriage annulled clearing the way for him to marry the more domesticated less shrill Maggie Patterson (Davis). When Van Allen's plane crashes in a South American jungle and Kovak turns up pregnant Maggie demure but resourceful concocts an elaborate scheme to make the baby appear to be her own. Van Allen is eventually rescued and returns home to find out the truth or be deceived by the great lie.You have to jump through a lot of hoops to accept the premise of The Great Lie but Davis and Astor have some terrific scenes together with Davis shockingly less hysterical and the cooler head of the two which allows Astor to walk away with the picture as she brings a bravura haughty elegance to her role. Director Edmond Goulding's camera movement is gracefully impressive in more than one scene and he uses it to great affect when diva Astor sweeps into a room but the story itself remains too far fetched and dragged out to hold together for the duration.

The Great Lie (1941)This is really a fabulous mixture of great movie themes, and it pulls it together to make its own amazing statement about fidelity and love. And class. And pre-war America, seemingly isolated but actually trapped by world events.Within ten minutes there is first an echo of My Man Godfrey (George Brent in this case making a more mainstream Powell) and then a swoop down for a taste of Gone with the Wind or even closer, Jezebel (the plantation south, even though it's 1940 or so). Then it's a melodrama straight up, and tragedy, and even if the plot is improbable, you go with it and get swept away. Brent plays Pete, a man caught between two women, both of money, but one cosmopolitan and used to being in charge, and one a lively, warm woman living a more earthy life. At the start it seems Pete is married to the urbane one, a concert pianist, Sandra, played with typical poise and ice by Mary Astor (compare this to her more famous role in The Maltese Falcon from the same year). She's a professional woman, in charge of her life, and, lately, Pete's. She wants independence and culture, and man with his feet on the ground. But Brent's country girl, an ex-love (and true love, it seems) Maggie is played to perfection by Bette Davis. The music here, and the support cast is African American, which makes for a more heart warming, and wrenching, background. He pays a visit to Maggie the day after his wedding (for reasons that slowly clarify) and the dynamic is set. And the twists begin. We have a contemporary drama between recognizable stereotypes as World War II looms for the U.S. Early on, Sandra asks Pete after his visit to Maggie, "Did you get it?" He says, "What?" Sexual innuendo intact, the Hays code chaffing, she clarifies, "The air?" What a great simple example of how movies so often played brilliantly with innuendo because the code wouldn't allow a straighter interplay. Director Edmund Goulding is not as well known as some of his contemporaries, but he has a few masterpieces in his lot, including the Bette Davis Dark Victory and the later Razor's Edge. For me, The Great Lie is maybe short of perfect--the plot does intrude on our sense of suspending disbelief--but it's really fast, moving, well written, and well directed. No question.

An average melodrama with a powerhouse performance by Mary Astor (if you've only seen her as Marmie in 'Little Women' she's a bit different here). Bette Davis and George Brent are former lovers still on the boil, and circumstances mean that he is passed between her and Astor depending on what's happened on a particular day. Then he goes missing in a plane, there's a baby, there's a plan ... and that's about it.'The Great Lie' is a typical Warners potboiler, lengthy, not very believable, but with decent enough performances and production values. In the 1940s there were a lot of love triangles in the movies and a lot about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of children; this film is no exception. The husband may be a bit colourless, but the ladies he is involved with more than make up for that, although it is hardly Davis' best performance.