Of Human Bondage (1934)

Of Human Bondage is an American romantic film drama first released in 1934, directed by John Cromwell.  The film is based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham and stars Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Frances Dee, Kay Johnson and Reginald Denny.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


For the past four years, clubfooted Englishman Philip Carey has been studying art in Paris.  When he realises that his work will never amount to anything more than second rate, he returns to England to study medicine.  One day, he encounters Mildred, a sluttish waitress who works in a London tearoom.  Although she gives him no encouragement, and in fact taunts him repeatedly, Philip cannot help falling in love with Mildred.  He is devastated when she decides to marry a vulgar salesman, Emil Miller, but consoles himself with a sympathetic woman writer, Norah.  Some months later, Mildred return to Philip, with her newborn baby, having been rejected by Miller.  Still madly in love with Mildred, Philip squanders his rapidly diminishing financial resources to pay for a room for Mildred and her child.  But then she deserts him a second time, running off to Paris with one of his medical student friends.  With no money left and turned out of his lodgings, Philip is at the end of his tether.  Fortunately, he still has friends who are prepared to help him – Sally Athelny and her father, one of Philip’s former patients.  With their help, Philip finds work so that he can earn enough money to resume his studies.  Just when Philip’s life is back on track, Mildred returns to torment him a third time...

The best of the three screen adaptations of W. Somerset Maugham’s classic novel features Bette Davis in her star-making role.  Davis was under contract with Warner Brothers at the time but lobbied hard to get the role of Mildred when she learned that RKO had acquired the rights to the novel.  She was practically the only actress interested in the role.  Other stars, such as Irene Dunne and Katherine Hepburn, turned the part down.  Davis insisted on playing Mildred with a strong (and very grating) cockney accent, which she picked up from a housemaid she hired once she had been given the part.

Leslie Howard is appropriately cast as the sensitive hero, giving a suitably understated performance that heightens the pathos of his character’s plight as he is drawn into a destructive love affair.  Davis takes no prisoners and plays her part for all it is worth, although there is a sense that the lady doth protest too much.  Her Mildred is so unremittingly revolting that it is hard to see just why her admirer is so enamoured of her.

Whilst the film can hardly do justice to Somerset Maugham’s remarkable novel, it is an effective adaptation which captures something of the brutality, pathos and irony of the original story.  John Cromwell’s imaginative direction makes the most of the film’s limited budget, whilst the moody photography and confined sets lend a claustrophobic sense of entrapment, evoking the poisonous desolation that is wrought by an unrequited passion.

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