FILM 2038: DARK VICTORY

TRIVIA: Bette Davis said that this was her favourite role to play.

Offscreen, Bette Davis suffered a nervous breakdown during filming as a result of her crumbling marriage to Harmon Nelson. This didn't prevent her from embarking on an affair with co-star George Brent.

Bette Davis pestered Warner Brothers to buy the rights to the story, thinking it a great vehicle for her. WB studio chief Jack L. Warner fought against it, arguing that no one wanted to see someone go blind. Of course, the film went on to become one of the studio's biggest successes of that year.

When the band is packing up and Judith tips them to play a song, she gives the singer a $50 bill and they immediately jump to it. Adjusting for inflation over 80 years, this is the equivalent of about $900.

This was Bette Davis' third Oscar nomination in five years, and her second of five consecutive nominations.

David O. Selznick had originally purchased the screen rights but gave up production plans so he could concentrate all his energies on Gone with the Wind (1939).

Based on a play that opened at the Plymouth Theatre in New York on Nov. 9, 1934 (with Tallulah Bankhead originating the role of Judith Traherne) and ran for 51 performances.

During the filming of the emotionally-charged scene when Bette Davis's character needs to find her way upstairs to her room after the brain tumor has caused her blindness, the cast and crew and several visitors were watching as Davis grasped the banister and began to feel her way up the steps, one by one. Halfway to the top of the staircase Davis paused, stopped the scene, briskly walked back downstairs and addressed director Edmund Goulding. "Ed," Davis said, "is Max Steiner going to be composing the music score to this picture?" Goulding, surprised by the question, replied that he didn't know, and asked Davis why the matter was important enough to stop the filming of the scene. "Well, either I'm going to climb those stairs or Max Steiner is going to climb those stairs," Davis responded, "but I'll be God-DAMNED if Max Steiner and I are going to climb those stairs together!"

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