Jezebel Reviews

Often considered something of a consolation prize for losing out on Gone With the Wind, Jezebel actually has its own merits and charms. Chief among them is the central performance by Bette Davis in which she gets to be both wild and meek. The film is often talked about in the same breath as that Hollywood epic, but it’s an entirely different beast. The similarities are only superficial, really.

Jezebel tells the story of Julie, a headstrong but easily broken southern belle during the Antebellum period. Her selfish choices and too-late actions cause her to lose her life-long love, Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda), to a Yankee. And it all ends with an outbreak of yellow fever. Equal parts romantic melodrama and period piece costume pageantry, Jezebel is an elegant production with confident direction from William Wyler. He crafts textures and moods with his sets and cinematography that enrich the emotional resonance of the film. The ballroom scene where Julie and Preston are shown to have caused a riot of polite passive-aggressive bitchery is absolutely fantastic. Julie has worn a red dress, hoping to cause a stir and a mild controversy, and once she realizes that she’s caused a major tremor in her society she wants to back away. To hide at her family home, bury herself within it and only return when the rest of the community has decided her white flag of peace has been waving for long enough. Preston will not allow for this, he forcefully moves her onto the dancefloor and threateningly stares down anyone who would argue otherwise with him. Not one word is said, but the way he manipulates the camera’s movements and the performances that he gets from the actors tells the entire story. Much like The Age of Innocence, this is a world where the greatest sin is not in committing the offense, but in your boastful arrogance in trying to subvert it. You will pay for the sin in thought and deed.

Davis masterfully charts the transformation of a willful and manipulative princess type into a person of soul, conscious and thoughts for others. She might have shamed Preston into breaking up their engagement, humiliated him into marrying another woman, but she will not let him go just yet. Until she realizes that her penance with him will get her no where. Scarlett O’Hara she is not, but she’s cut from a more docile cloth. The scene where she encourages and leads the slaves in a song is desperate cry for help and a wonderfully subtle way to say that she is losing grip on her emotions. She deserved that Oscar.

A great old New Orleans movie. The lead character is quite similar to Scarlet O'Hara, though this one really lives up to the name Jezebel.