[dark_crystal]

Jezebel (Bette Davis, 1938)

IMDB Summary:

Set in antebellum New Orleans during the early 1850's, this film follows Julie Marsden through her quest for social redemption on her own terms. Julie is a beautiful and free spirited, rapacious Southern belle who is sure of herself and controlling of her fiancé Preston Dillard, a successful young banker. Julie's sensitive but domineering personality--she does not want so much to hurt as to assert her independence--forces a wedge between Preston and herself. To win him back, she plays North against South amid a deadly epidemic of yellow fever which claims a surprising victim.

Personal Impressions:

There is a scene about fifteen minutes in, at the dressmakers, where they get Jule (Davis) out of the white ballgown she's in fittings for and you see that she is sitting knees apart on a stool under a crinoline cage- that's a brilliant shot

the perv in me was turned on by this quote in the next scene:

"None of my business anyhow, but speaking abstractly, and nothing personal intended, your generation don't understand the darlings...Woman, sir, is a chalice-- a frail, delicate chalice to be cherished and protected, ..
..Think your father would have allowed the lady of his choice to come surging into his business?"

"What would he have done?"

"He'd have cut him a hickory and flailed the living daylights out of her, then helped put lard on her welts and bought her a diamond brooch- That's what he'dhave done, and she'd have loved it."

and my Axis 2 issues liked this:

"You're wrong. That dress could cause trouble. Folks would keenly resent you coming to the ball in it."
"They're petty and narrow-minded."
"They got rules, and they go by them, same as you and i."
"Do you prefer to go by your rules?"
"I always have, miss julie."
"Then I'm sorry I troubled you"

(i am totally into structure, rules, protocols, traditions. it is odd b/c i am seen (and see myself) as a non-conformist- but any refusal to conform to a particular set of guidelines can always be traced back to a conflict with a higher-level set that may or may not be self-constructed.)

Quibbly Quibbles:

the movie could have started when they got to Halcyon Plantation...everything that came before that is re-explained in the first plantation scene.

The mosquito bite that gave Preston yellow fever was the only mosquito bite in the movie...i wish a couple of other people could have been shown slapping mosquitos earlier in the film or mosquitos could have been mentioned in the dialogue somewhere...it just felt heavy-handed to me