No More Ill Than a Molting Canary

Life was easier in the '40s.

If you were fat, single and unhappy, all you had to do was have a mental breakdown and go on a cruise and, voila, love would arrive.

Or at least that's the way it went down in "Now, Voyager," the latest instalment of Bette Davis Month at Movieland.

Because I'd never seen it, I was unprepared to see Davis as the frumpy, unwanted spinster daughter with enormous eyebrows that no doubt kept men from looking at her.

She was certainly no "Jezebel."

Her mother was one of those characters  so evil that I could only hope she'd die off and leave her poor daughter in peace (but not before telling her, "Every woman wants a man of her own." Oh, really?).

Once we got past the reinvention of Davis' character and she left on a cruise, things got good.

First of all, that was the time to go on a cruise. Her room aboard the ship was bigger than some hotel rooms now.

People dressed for dinner, met for breakfast (where he promised to greet her as "Miss Vale" and not say out loud that he loved her) and sipped cocktails while playing shuffleboard.

She met a man, unfortunately married, but obviously the love of her life and the words and kisses flew.

Her: I'm not going to struggle with you.
Him: No telling what primitive instincts you might arise.

Hell, I'd kiss a guy just for saying that.

This was the movie where he repeatedly lights two cigarettes, handing off one to her as a sign of, what, shared passion? Smoker's breath?

"I'm still horribly in love with you," he tells her at a party. Not terribly in love, but horribly. The best kind.

The kind where you kiss her through her veil because you can't take the split second to move it.

But this was one Bette Davis movie without a happy ending, so they didn't get the moon, only the stars.

And you know why?

"Some girls aren't the marrying kind."

Hey, don't judge us.