Winter Meeting (1948)

This is a much more than your typical Bette Davis melodrama. Here, Davis plays a NYC poetess (Susan Grieve), who runs around in high social circles. One of her society friends, Stacy Grant (John Hoyt), invites her to dine with him as he entertains a navel hero, Slick Novak (Jim Davis, Jock Ewing from TV's Dallas) who is staying briefly in town. Stacy's idea was to make Susan his date while pairing Novak up with his secretary, Peggy Markham (Janis Paige). However, the evening doesn't go as planned, since Novak falls for Susan rather than Peggy and invites himself into Susan's house after the evening's entertainment. In spite of Susan and Novak not hitting it off too well at first, they start to talk. They soon discover--after driving to Susan's family farm in CT--that they each have unresolved issues from their past. Susan's problem has to do with her dead father; how her mother had treated him which lead him to commit suicide. Susan never forgave her mother for her cheapness. However, Novak's insistence that Susan had not tried to see her mother's side of the issue leaves Susan to question her own beliefs. Novak's unresolved issue is spiritual in nature. Since he had been 16, he had always felt a strong need to enter the priesthood and had been discouraged from this by talking to a priest before entering the Navy. The two help each other to resolve these some of these issues. In the end, this is not so much of a romantic story between a man and a woman as it is a mutual guidance about leading each other to spiritual epiphanies (or sudden moments of soulful clarity) of how to proceed with their lives. P.S. This is one of those movies in which the two leading co-stars stare the last name: Davis & Davis.

The first thirty minutes may repel some.It's very talky ,it's filmed stage production style.This is a film which grows on you,you 've got to be patient for the "action" is minimal,and most amazing thing, in what is pure psychological drama ,there's not the easy way out : the flashbacks.Another director -it's the first film I've seen by Bretaigne Windust-would have at least enlivened things by introducing two very long flashbacks dealing with the two characters' past.Both have a secret to conceal .This is the very long conversation between them which reveals us that the poetess was demanding,idolizing her father,displaying no compassion for a mother who did not live up to her /their expectations;the soldier is a hero but someone told him something that has completely changed his way of seeing things .People who expect a mushy romance ,a melodrama ,a love triangle (with the secretary) will be disappointed."Winter Meeting" shows the way to compassion for the others,be they hopeless.

Every star must have at least one piece of work that absolutely stinks. Miss Bette and WINTER MEETING is a bore from the beginning. Susan Grieve(Davis)is a depressed poet that falls in love with a war hero(Jim Davis). The events of WW11 makes this soldier want to be a priest. Shared secrets over a nightcap is just not a remedy for the doldrums. A very wordy script and dour atmosphere throughout. Just little over an hour running time is a relief.The efforts of Jim Davis as the moody hero Slick Novak outshines Miss Davis. Also in the cast: Janis Paige, Walter Baldwin, Florence Bates and John Hoyt. If anything is redeeming its the score by Max Steiner.

I agree with another commentator that this is not a good Bette Davis picture. Jim Davis was indeed a weird choice for his part. The ending was about as unsatisfactory as one can be.However, I found three elements fascinating: 1. John Hoyt was never better as the unctuous, insinuating friend to Bette's poetess. Whether or not he was supposed to be homosexual, as is implied by some critics, he was clearly also in a kind of overly-well-bred love with her. 2. Florence Bates, as always, was fine in an unusually subdued role for her (remember her over-the-top self in "Rebecca"!) 3. I just love the cat painting in Bette's apartment that Jim Davis refers to! Isn't it creepy and interesting??? If anyone out there knows who painted it or how to get a copy, I'd love to know.