Dark Victory (1939)

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This is a melodrama, that in this age of high technology and common medical knowledge is hard to swallow. Judith, the heroine, is diagnosed with a brain tumor that will eventually kill her with almost no warning in a preposterous fashion. The drama and trite characters should have ruined this movie. The only redeeming value is to watch Bette Davis play such a guileless character, unlike anythin... read more

In Dark Victory Bette Davis played against type: she wasn’t neurotic, she wasn’t a washed-up actress or a woman rebelling against aging, there was no unglamorous transformation and she wasn’t a bitch. She played a likeable, if slightly frivolous, socialite who slowly dies over the course of the film from a malignant brain tumor. Oh, yes, it sounds like melodramatic flim-flam, and to an exten... read more

The twenty-three years old wealthy sportswoman Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) has painful headaches and double-vision, and the family doctor, Dr. Parsons (Henry Travers), convinces her to go with her best friend Ann King (Geraldine Fitzgerald) to a consultation with a famous specialist. After the physical examination, Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent) finds that Judy has a lethal glioma brain tumor, and he immediately operates her to withdraw the tumor. However, the result of the biopic examination indicates that she has less than six months of life, but Dr. Steele and Ann hides the diagnose from Judy.