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Amazon.com's Price: $7.98 as of 03/20/2010 05:13 EDT details
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Alpha Video
EAN: 0089218307699
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
Label: Alpha Video
Languages: EnglishOriginal Language
Manufacturer: Alpha Video
MPN: 3076
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Alpha Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 22, 2002
Running Time: 83 minutes
Studio: Alpha Video
Theatrical Release Date: July 20, 1934
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com: The interior life of a natural-born introvert is a tricky thing to convey in any story medium, but perhaps nowhere more than in feature films. Fortunately for this 1934 version of Of Human Bondage (the first of three), the introverted young doctor at the center of the story is played by Leslie Howard, who makes a slack spirit and puppet-of-destiny ennui look like a GQ ad from the age of Romanticism. Howard's character, well liked by peers and facing a promising future, becomes a slave to self-destructive impulse when he grows obsessed with a mercurial, promiscuous waitress (Bette Davis). She stands him up, she lets him down, she sleeps around--basically doing anything she can think of to humiliate the plaintive, puppyish Howard. The good doctor's prospects soon sink... and then sink again and again every time she reappears, usually in dire circumstances, after prolonged absences. Much of Howard's performance borders on monotony, but how many ways can an actor show what it's like to lean against desks and ponder the enigma of himself? At least he looks classy while doing so. Meanwhile, Davis's electric performance, one of her best, gives director John Cromwell's slow pacing a shot in the arm. The supporting cast is very good: Alan Hale, Frances Dee, and Cromwell's then-wife, Kay Johnson, do a fine job helping to fill in the silences. Adapted from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. --Tom Keogh
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
Great movie but DVD not very good. I had to play it several times because it kept getting stuck in the same place.
Rating: -
A superficial script offering nothing as to why the characters act the way they do (except that they just do!)Davis overacts without the slightest subtelty, and Howard underacts without the slightest oomph. Read the book--it's far better and much deeper.
Rating: -
This is another fraud company who got hold of this evidently public doman film and lied, via the promise of "remastered" or "enhanced." I fell for it and am livid. Like you, I thought, "ALAS! I'll get to see it somewhat cleaned up, a little sharper!" Instead, it is a DVD-R and looks to be a copy of a copy of a copy (and possibly...of another copy). THERE ARE HUGE PIXILS throughout and the entire film is in an annoying digital fog.
This is nonsense what this company has done and filling ... Read More
Rating: -
The story is not the problem. Davis and Howard are not the problem. That is not why I gave it 4 stars. The problem is that the film is badly in need of proper restoration. Poor sound and picture quality gives it 1 star in that category. Hasn't someone produced a better restored version yet after all these years and how many DVD reproductions later!!??
Rating: -
This version of "Of Human Bondage" is hampered by the early 1930's puritanical production code.
Nevertheless, Bette Davis turns in a fantastic performance as the sluttish Mildred.
Leslie Howard is also effective as the masochistic Philip.
All in all this is a 5 "star" film.
So why did I only give it 4 "stars"?
The quality of the video is mediocre, the digital transfer is not good, the print used was scratched and the sound at times muddy.
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