Bette's Hats & Reviews: Ex-Lady (1933)

Glamourous Bette

After playing a good part in The Working Man (1933), Bette was unhappy - yet again - with her next role. "Darryl Zanuck decided it was time to give me the glamour-star treatment," she wrote in her autobiography, The Lonely Life. "It was a great mistake. I wasn't the type to be glamorized in the usual way. In an ecstasy of poor taste and a burst of misspent energy, I was made over and cast as the star of a piece of junk called Ex-Lady, which was supposed to be provocative and provoked anyone of sensibility to nausea. As an avant-garde artist, my lover was Gene Raymond whom I discarded au fin for the marvelously corrupt Monroe Owsley. One disgusted critic announced that Warner Brothers could have saved a fortune by photographing the whole picture in one bed. The final scene dollied in on our feet, soles upward - for which I was grateful - and happily entwined. They may have even had The End written on them. I can't remember [The shot described does not appear at the end of the film. I skipped through the movie so it's possible it was shown elsewhere in the picture]. It is a part of my career that my conscious tastefully avoids. I only recall that from the daily shooting to the billboards, falsely picturing me half-naked, my shame was only exceeded by my fury" (138). 

The offending image and the photos it was based on.

Hat 1

Love this promotional photo that shows the costume with the puffed sleeve coat off.

Miss Davis’ costume choices seem all awry for her personality, including one high-necked affair that’s dangerously reminiscent of the giraffe women in the Ringling-B&B circus. This ‘un will set back Miss Davis.  And just as she was coming along.

 ~ VARIETY

Hat 2

"Ex-Lady" may undo some of the nice things that have been done for Bette Davis in her last few pictures.

~ The New Movie Magazine, April 1933

Hat 3

Bette Davis, a young actress who has shown intelligence in the roles assumed to her in the films, has had the misfortune to be cast in the principal role of “Ex-Lady,” now on view at the Strand. What that somewhat sinister event meant to her employers was that Miss Davis, having shown herself to be possessed of the proper talent and pictorial allure, now became a star in her own right. What it meant to her embarrassed admirers at the Strand on Thursday night was that Miss Davis had to spend an uncomfortable amount of her time en deshabille in boudoir scenes engaged in repartee and in behavior which were sometimes timidly suggestive, then depressingly näive and mostly downright foolish.

~ NY TIMES

Hat 4

Bette's costumes received a little spread in the movie magazine (I did not spot the plaid outfit in the film).

This lobby card shows the costume in all the wrong colors - as lobby cards generally do, even for color films - but it shows the details of the costume nice and clear.

Sources:

Davis, Bette. The Lonely Life: An Autobiography. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962.

Ringgold, Gene. Bette Davis: Her Films and Career. Citadel Press. 1966, 1985.