Jezebel (1938)

  This is a pretty old movie and I'd like to be able to say it stands the test of time. It kinda does. At least the first half.

Bette Davis plays a spoiled Antebellum debutante who lives for disrupting her fiance's life. I can relate to that. Going to a dress fitting is WAY more important than some board of director's meeting at your bank. More like bored of directors, amiright?!

Ahem. Anyway, Henry Fonda tells her she's a spoiled brat and in retaliation she wears a red dress to a society event where unmarried women wear white only. This would probably make more of an impact if the movie weren't in black and white. It's hard to feel scandalized when the dress in question is more of a sober gray than a slutty scarlet. The snubbing she gets at the ball, though, rings through loud and clear. As does the grim humiliation on Henry Fonda's face. Brr! So he dumps her ass and moves to New York. Like a good Southern woman, she retreats from society to live in isolation and oversee the running of her house to an obsessive degree.

She finds out that her beloved is coming home to deal with a yellow fever epidemic and decides the most effective way to show him she's a more mature person is to throw a huge soiree at her plantation, away from the city and it's plague-infested people. Surprise! He shows up with a wife. This is where the movie gets really good.

Bette Davis is superb as a bitch and she's so good here, they gave her an Oscar. She flirts with her ex's rival, spurs anti-Yankee commentary just to rile him, and sweetly dismisses the new bride, a mostly inoffensive young lady named Amy who obviously didn't get the memo about her husband's past flame.

If she had stayed completely unrepentant, think Scarlett O'Hara before the poverty, this movie would have been awesome. But no. Henry Fonda gets yellow fever and she decides that she must sacrifice herself to care for him until he dies, on the grounds that Amy is too weak to do it properly. That's where it lost me. There's nothing inherently noble in shoving someone's spouse out of the way just so you can be the last face they ever see. It's staking a claim in stalker territory. Like the next step is stealing the hair from their shower drain so you can make a little doll of them, dressing it in a tux, and tucking it in with you at night. That's just a no.