The movie concerns Philip (Leslie Howard ) , he's a serious but handicapped medicine student . He falls fatally in love with a heartless , predatory waitress named Mildred( Bette Davis ) . She leaves him , engaging other suitors (Alan Hale, Reginald Denny ). Meanwhile , he is romanced with other women (Kay Johnson, Frances Dee) but she goes after him in a mutually destructive affair.
Easily the best and first of the numerous versions on Somerset Maugham's novel . Bette Davis as the cockney cruel waitress winning yet another magnificent interpretation with an alluring and smoldering role , absolutely hypnotic in her account of the bondage , a sadomasochist relationship that occurs from start to finish . Bette Davis rose the stardom with her performance that put her on the map in Hollywood . Her role as sluttish and crude domineering woman will be repeated several times in his subsequent acting . Leslie Howard as the essentially good and decent student subtly destroyed , gives an excellent and melancholic performance. He was an awesome actor ( Gone with the wind ), besides producer and writer , though unfortunately died in plane crash during WWII . Both of them will play again in ¨ Petrified forest ¨(1936) . The atmosphere of the film is elaborately recreated in the RKO (Radio Picture Inc ) studio and entirely convincing . Remade in 1946 by Edmund Goulding , with Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid ; and in 1964 by Ken Hughes with Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey . The motion picture will appeal to classic cinema buffs . Rating : Very good but a little bit dated.
