Of Human Bondage (1934)
A sensitive, club-footed young man gives up his hopes of becoming an artist and takes up medical training in London, where he grows helplessly infatuated with a coarse, indifferent waitress. She uses and abandons him again and again, wrecking his studies and finances, and he cannot break her hold even as better chances at love pass by.
The first sound adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s novel, Of Human Bondage made Bette Davis a star as the callous Mildred and prompted such an outcry over her omission from that year’s Academy Award nominations that the Academy began permitting write-in votes. RKO’s copyright was not renewed, and the film passed into the public domain in 1962.
Background
Of Human Bondage was the first sound adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s novel, following a sensitive, club-footed medical student in London who becomes helplessly infatuated with a coarse, indifferent waitress who repeatedly uses and discards him. Bette Davis, then a relatively minor contract player at Warner Bros., was loaned to RKO for the role of Mildred and delivered a performance widely regarded as her breakthrough.
What to watch for
Watch for how unsparingly the film portrays Mildred’s cruelty and the protagonist’s self-destructive devotion to her, a combination that unsettled some contemporary audiences and critics. Davis’s exclusion from that year’s Academy Award nominations caused enough public outcry that the Academy began allowing write-in votes in response, an unusual episode in the history of the awards. RKO’s copyright on the film was not renewed, and it passed into the public domain in 1962.
