Pluskylang Great Film overall

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Hitchcoc Much has been written about Bette Davis's performance in this film. Apparently, she thought she would get the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind." It didn't work out so she was tossed the role of Julie in "Jezebel." She made due to the hilt. She plays an ambitious woman who feels she can dominate any situation and get what she wants from any man. She is engaged to Henry Fonda who forces her to show her true colors (in the form of a red dress that embarrasses her publicly). Fonda's character cuts her loose and she goes about trying to win him back. She can be compared easily to Scarlett because she seemed to be sort of a Teflon character herself. The ending is quite good as redemption is at stake in the worst of situations. Davis's performance really stands atop the mountain.

mark.waltz 1850's New Orleans society was filled with gracious living. Well dressed women of the upper-crust, Scarlet O'Hara's everyone of them. Bette Davis coveted both the role of Scarlet in "Gone With the Wind" and Miss Julie in the adaptation of a Broadway play, ending up settling for the later (and get second Oscar), but even without the color awarded to the film version of Margaret Mitchell's novel, still ended up with a classic.Pretty much soiling men's pants as she walks into a bank, Miss Julie is a force to be reckoned with. A banker's meeting is not as important as the choosing of her dress for a lavish ball. Of course, thus is the famous red dress that scandalizes all of New Orleans. The lack of color here doesn't matter because Davis makes the audience feel the red rather than see it, and that is acting. It's as scandalous as Scarlet dancing with Rhett while wearing widow black.But like Scarlett, there is much more than just the obvious selfishness of her Southern belle image. There is the heart and soul of a woman, searching for the right opportunity to reveal her humanity. The men in her life are Henry Fonda and George Brent, and who she ends up with is guided not only by the stars but by historical events as well. The major plot twist concerns an outbreak of yellow fever which threatens the entire population including Fonda.With Fay Bainter (in an Oscar winning supporting role) brilliant as her long-suffering, concerned aunt, ironically also nominated against Davis for the drama "White Banners". Donald Crisp, Spring Byington and Margaret Lindsay also among the supporting cast. Lindsay is particularly important as the Yankee lady from New York City who helps bring out Julie's mobility after years of only thinking of herself. The strong direction of Davis by the legendary William Wyler (probably the only director who knew how to tame Davis) keeps everything moving.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . misbegotten soap opera, GONE WITH THE WIND, since JEZEBEL courageously blows the whistle on the Evils of Black Slavery while WIND set back American Race Relations at least a century (prompting umpteen lynchings, to boot). Even this summer, 76 years after that ill WIND first blew by us, GWTW fans are waltzing into Black Churches attempting to prove that Black Lives Don't Matter; anyone who can read the opening scroll of GWTW without standing up to scream at those Treason-praising lies needs to "self-deport" from America forthwith! Warner Bros. filmed JEZEBEL in Black & White, because Slavery and Race Relations are Black & White issues, hardly fit to be gussied up and glossed over in Technicolor. JEZEBEL features the top movie star of the late 1930s--Bette Davis--because of the serious nature of these issues (JEZEBEL producer Warner Bros. felt no need to cast a mentally unhealthy chick in the lead to garner unmerited publicity). Viewers cannot help seeing JEZEBEL's two mansions without thinking of the thousands of Racist Slave Floggings, brutal "wings-clipping" amputations, and "routine" bleeding-finger cotton-picking marathon work days slaving in the fields that made these germ-infested palaces possible. Henry Fonda's "Pres" character makes sure that his fellow Southerners know not only that theirs is a Lost Cause, but he explains WHY it is lost (unlike Clark Gable's immoral airhead GWTW playboy, Rhett Butler).

jarrodmcdonald-1 The film is based on Owen Davis' play of 1933. Apparently, Owen Davis sets the story in 1850 (though I thought I heard Bette Davis' character say 1852 in the movie). There is a passage of time, such as the year between Pres and Julie's fight when Pres returns with a northern wife. So it would still be the early 1850s. But the great outbreak of yellow fever in New Orleans did not actually occur until 1905, way after the Civil War and reconstruction. Obviously, Owen Davis does not age these characters fifty years, and neither does director William Wyler in the film version. So unless there was an earlier epidemic, they are taking quite a bit of dramatic license with history.Also, a lot has been written about Jezebel in comparison to Gone with the Wind. And if we are, indeed, comparing the two, then what hurts Jezebel the most is its black-and-white photography. Imagine the impact that would have been made if the dress that Bette Davis' character wears to the ball had been shown in Technicolor. After all, it is a major plot point that she is wearing red of all colors, and the scene signifies the character's willingness to defy the conventions of proper society. And just like Tara in Gone with the Wind, we need to see the Halcyon plantation of Jezebel in all its colorful glory. Plus, the yellow fever scenes, with them riding off through the fire would have been bolstered by Technicolor. In many ways, though Bette Davis is the star of the picture, the story of Jezebel is an ensemble drama and most of the roles are well-written. The best scene is at the ball, where Julie, Davis' character, is forced to dance and make a spectacle of herself. There are lines in the film about questioning the value of tradition, and this scene illustrates that point most. Interestingly, when they come into the dance, the camera shows Henry Fonda's facial expressions as much, if not more, than Davis. The red dress seems to symbolize the fact that both of them (not just her) are no longer chaste, and that they are the most liberal couple in the community. However, he quickly renounces this as well as the idea of a future with her when he escorts her home. Again, the dress needed to be seen in bright Technicolor. It occurs to me as I write this that I am making a case for the colorization of this film. Usually, I do not condone such practices. If something was made in black-and-white years ago, then it is often best left in its original format. But Dark Victory was colorized in the 1980s, so why shouldn't Jezebel be colorized, too, especially as it would not handicap the filmmakers' creation. On the contrary, it would aid the work and its themes considerably.