Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

skinner-c The only negative I can find was casting Paul Henreid as Philip Carey. A very fine actor without doubt, but it just didn't seem to me that he was Philip Carey. But as for Mildred Rogers, I honestly don't think ANYONE could have handled the part better than Eleanor Parker - including Ms. Davis!In fairness to the original classic (1934), one has to realize that there had been no precedent to build it on, nor the enhanced movie technology, equipment, and expertise that 12 subsequent years could bring to fruition. To not keep this is mind is simply unfair.In very brief summary, I honestly would vote both the original of 1934 and Eleanor Parker's remake of 1946 equally remarkable and unforgettable.We all love Nora, Thorpe Athelny and Sally for their kindness, benevolence and inherent virtues, yet - after it's all over and the curtain has dropped, "Mildred Lives."

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Edmund Goulding, this second adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel was adapted by Catherine Turney. Paul Henreid plays a clubfooted, failed artist, gentleman who becomes a medical student that's obsessed with a low class waitress, played by Eleanor Parker. Alexis Smith plays a novelist friend who wishes her relationship with Henreid could develop into something more. Patric Knowles and Marten Lamont play fellow medical student friends of Henreid's, Henry Stephenson one of their professors. Edmund Gwenn plays a father who's family befriends Henreid in his time away from Parker; Janis Paige plays Gwenn's comely young daughter who's infatuated with Henreid's character. Una O'Connor appears for less than a cameo as a landlord's wife; her principal purpose seems to be to glare disapprovingly at Parker when she turns up at Henreid's.Philip Carey (Henreid) meets Nora Nesbitt (Smith) in Paris just after he'd decided he wasn't good enough to continue to pursue being an artist. So he returns to London where his wealthy uncle had setup a trust for him that would pay his way through medical school. A fellow student named Dunsford (Lamont) has noticed that Philip appears to have little interest in women, but asks him to accompany him to meet a woman with whom he's found an interest anyway. Philip is surprised to learn that Dunsford has been admiring a common waitress from afar, and that he hasn't even been introduced to her. They both then meet her, Mildred Rogers (Parker), with Philip convincing his friend that the waitress is not only rude, but also not worthy of him. Though they leave, Philip's vanity gets the better of him and he returns to the restaurant the next evening determined to make her interested in him. She seems only to enjoy the company of a more regular customer named Miller (Richard Nugent), who makes her laugh. However, he persuades her to go out with him to a play. Briefly, because she doesn't seem to have anything else to do, Mildred allows Philip to spend what little money he has on her before Miller returns to town. She then breaks a date with him and an ugly argument throws Philip into a funk over the course of a couple of months which his fellow medical student friends notice. But when he learns that Mildred has apparently run off to marry Miller, his spirits brighten as if he'd been freed from his "bondage" to her.Nora sends him her latest published work and then visits Philip in London. They spend a great deal of time together, but it becomes to clear to Nora that her love for Philip is returned only as friendship. She doesn't know it yet, but Mildred is still in Philip's blood, which becomes clear when he sees her again and breaks his relationship with Nora permanently. Mildred is pregnant with Miller's child, who wasn't ever her husband after all since he was a married man already. Philip helps her anyway and takes her away to Brighton, where there's a beach. He talks with her about the future, that he'll willingly adopt her baby and marry her, but then he makes the fatal mistake of introducing her to his other medical student friend Harry Griffiths (Knowles). Griffiths is a carefree, handsome womanizer who soon has Mildred laughing such that Philip's plans are ruined when she leaves him again for another man.Fortunately for Philip, while listening to Dr. Tyrell (Stephenson) give a lecture about gout, he meets the patient Mr. Athelny (Gwenn). Athelny is a kind gentleman who's not willing to give up all the foods he loves just to allow him to walk without a cane; in that respect, he shares a limp with the clubfooted Philip. Athelny and Philip becomes fast friends such that Philip becomes a regular at the Athelny household every Sunday for dinner. Isobel Elsom plays Mrs. Athelny. His gentlemanly ways and pleasant (at least) facial appearance attracts the attention of Athelny's oldest (almost 17 year old) daughter Sally (Paige), though neither man notice her infatuation. Unfortunately for Philip, he sees Mildred once again, on the streets with rouge on her cheeks. Concerned for the health of her and her many months old child, he gives her a place to stay, as her cook & housekeeper, in his residence. Mildred tells Mrs. Foreman (O'Connor) that she's Philip's wife to set her at ease, but gets a scowling disapproving look from the landlady in any case.Philip neglects his relationship with the Athelny's anyway, even though he refuses to maintain any more than a platonic relationship with Mildred. Mildred is enraged by Philip's lack of interest in her which comes to a boil at Christmas time when she tries to seduce him. After he spurns her, she chases him out of his own residence with a vicious diatribe and then proceeds to burn his only money and trash his apartment. Philip manages to make it to the Athelny's for some brief holiday cheer before he goes out into the rainy night to catch pneumonia. Ironically it's Griffiths that saves him, but when Philip is strong enough to return to Athelny in the spring, he is met with a cold attitude towards him which he doesn't understand. Sally greets him pleasantly and he seems to notice her for the first time. He then finds out that Athelny believes Philip has a wife and child. Leaving there, he returns to Griffiths where he tries to kill himself. Griffiths then takes him to a hospital where Mildred is breathing her last breaths in a ward for contagious patients; the baby had already died. Philip returns to the Athelny's where he learns of Sally's infatuation. After convincing her formerly reluctant father that he didn't in fact have a wife & child, and with his burden clearly lifted by Mildred's death, Philip kisses Sally as her approving father closes the door.

bkoganbing Now that I've seen all three filmed versions for Of Human Bondage, no doubt about, Bette Davis leaves both Eleanor Parker and Kim Novak in the dust.Still Parker gives a good performance as the amoral and tart tongued protagonist in W. Somerset Maugham's novel who for some reason turns on medical student Philip Carey like no one else can. Not a lot different from the way Sadie Thompson gets the Reverend Davidson's libido in overdrive in Rain, another of Maugham's female literary creations.Amazing how three American actresses, Davis, Novak, and Parker all got to play a cockney tart. No one ever thought to hire an English actress like Vivien Leigh who in her personal life was far more Mildred Rogers than any of the three who played her. Paul Henreid is out of place as a continental type Philip Carey. His is much inferior to the justice done this part by both Leslie Howard and Laurence Harvey. Carey is the man with the club foot and the inferiority complex because of that. Odd that both Howard and Harvey who never had trouble getting dates played a man who couldn't get one and gravitates to Mildred because she's looking real easy and sexy. Henreid's accent is way out of place here.Good performances by Parker, Janis Paige, and Alexis Smith as the three women who enter Philip Carey's life at different times. But you have to see Bette Davis as the real Mildred deal.

nbott The acting by Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid is superb in this classic story of love and sexual obsession. In some ways, it is truly a universal story of all of us. Who has not had, at least for a small period of time, such feelings for someone else. Most of us usually move on more quickly than our hero in this film, nonetheless it rings true. I was also genuinely pleased by the authentic period setting of this film and very impressed by the performances of all of the supporting cast, especially Edmund Gwenn. I really do not understand why this version is so rarely shown anywhere. This was shown recently on Turner Movie Classics, otherwise it is never seen. I think it is important for movie buffs to have access to different versions of such a classic story as this.