THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020 Y C5
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (1935)
Marked for stardom from the very beginning, de Havilland
made her screen debut in this glittery production of Shake-
speare’s romantic fantasy, appearing alongside several stars
and stars-to-be, including Dick Powell, James Cagney, and a
teenage Mickey Rooney, above, as Puck.
De Havilland would give more naturalistic performances in
the future, but as Hermia, a young woman caught between the
man she loves and the man her father requires her to marry,
her emphatic passions fit into a film that gives Shakespeare a
robust reading — to put it mildly. It’s an accessible, unpreten-
tious rendering of the play, however, with a forest set that shim-
mers in fairy dust.
Rent on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.
‘Captain Blood’ (1935)
The first in a string of films with Errol Flynn, above, “Captain
Blood” established a winning formula: Flynn as the rakish, ir-
reverent, truehearted hero of the common man, de Havilland
as the well-mannered aristocrat worn down by his charms.
Set in 17th-century England, the film stars Flynn as a doctor
sold into slavery for rebelling against the king and de Havilland
as the wealthy colonist who decides to buy him, more out of
coquettish intrigue than a need for labor. A large part of de Hav-
illand’s role is to react to Flynn, but she’s an important surro-
gate for the audience as he leads a slave revolt and becomes a
swashbuckling pirate, hellbent on revenge.
Rent on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.
‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ (1938)
Produced in beautiful three-strip Technicolor, “The Adven-
tures of Robin Hood” again casts Flynn, above, and de Havil-
land as natural adversaries who grow into romantic allies, and
the Robin Hood myth accommodates their dynamic better than
anything else they did together.
Flynn is Sherwood Forest’s merry troublemaker, a noble
Saxon who wages guerrilla war against the diabolical Prince
John and the Normans, with de Havilland’s Lady Marian as a
persuadable royal. Flynn’s combination of rapier dexterity and
rapier wit is the main attraction here, giving the film a lightness
and joy that is supported by studio artistry, like a climactic
sword fight staged heavily in silhouette.
Stream on HBO Max. Rent on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play,
Vudu and YouTube.
‘Gone With the Wind’ (1939)
As the famed “search for Scarlett” ballooned to 1,400 actresses,
de Havilland set her sights on playing Melanie Hamilton, Scar-
lett’s sister-in-law and eventual best friend, working hard be-
hind the scenes to get Warner Bros. to release her from her
contract to do it.
During the film’s four-hour-plus running time, Melanie gets
a full arc, marrying her cousin Ashley Wilkes, the man Scarlett
secretly loves; surviving a dramatic child birth without medi-
cal assistance; reuniting with her husband after the Civil War;
and dying from another pregnancy near the end. De Havilland
plays both confidante and romantic obstacle for the lead char-
acter, and a paragon of loyalty and moral decency.
Stream on HBO Max, which recently added an introduction, by
Jacqueline Stewart, that gives context to the film’s treatment of
race. Rent on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu.‘Hold Back the Dawn’ (1941)
A winning prototype for the Gerard Depardieu/Andie Mac-
Dowell rom-com “Green Card” nearly a half-century later,
“Hold Back the Dawn” stars de Havilland as a schoolteacher
who’s conned into a marriage of convenience by a Romanian
gigolo (Charles Boyer, above) waylaid in Mexico.
His plan is to gain U.S. residency and dump her for a glam-
orous dancer (Paulette Goddard), but their sham marriage
evolves into something approaching a legitimate one. Scripted
by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder as their famed partner-
ship was just hitting its stride, “Hold Back the Dawn” is a clever
and intoxicating love triangle, with a novel twist of Paramount
studios itself playing a role in the resolution.
Stream on Peacock.‘To Each His Own’ (1946)
De Havilland won the first of two Oscars in this beautiful exem-
plar of a “women’s weepie,” which finds her suffering with
heartbreaking nobility until the very last, bittersweet scene.
She stars as a small-town girl who falls for a pilot (John Lund,
above) during World War I, stays with him long enough to get
pregnant before losing him in combat, and, through a compli-
cated series of circumstances, has to give the baby up for adop-
tion. When the boy grows into a pilot himself (also Lund), now
in World War II, it sets up a touching payoff for a lifetime of
self-sacrifice.
Stream on Peacock.‘The Dark Mirror’ (1946)
The same year she acted opposite John Lund in a dual role, de
Havilland got the opportunity to play one herself, starring as
identical twin sisters, Terry and Ruth (both above), who fall
under suspicion when their neighbor is murdered. Despite
necklaces and pendants to help tell one from the other, investi-
gators puzzle over which sister is normal and which one is psy-
chotic, especially when the two engage in mind games and ma-
nipulation.
“The Dark Mirror” is a parlor game disguised as a serious
psychological thriller, but de Havilland cuts loose in the lead
roles and the director Robert Siodmak (“The Killers”), a noir
specialist, adds plenty of pulpy atmosphere.Stream on Amazon Prime.‘The Snake Pit’ (1948)
Long before Sam Fuller’s 1963 classic “Shock Corridor,” “The
Snake Pit” shined a light on state mental institutions and their
reliance on remedies like hypnotherapy and electric shock
treatments. The devotion to realism carries over to de Havil-
land’s performance as a schizophrenic housewife who hears
voices and experiences massive disorientation, which the film
communicates via de Havilland’s inner monologue.
The terror of her situation is reflected in the title, which
refers to the padded cell reserved for hopeless patients, but the
film is more nuanced about the possibilities of recovery and the
relationships the afflicted have with doctors and with one an-
other other.
Rent on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.‘Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte’ (1964)
Two years after setting Bette Davis and Joan Crawford against
each other in the deranged psychological thriller “What Ever
Happened to Baby Jane?,” the genre maestro Robert Aldrich
brought Davis back to pair up with another screen legend, de
Havilland (shown here with Joseph Cotten), in a similarly fe-
ver-pitched drama.
Davis is the more dominant presence as a wilted Southern
belle who was exonerated for the murder of her married lover
(Bruce Dern) nearly 40 years earlier, but most assume she was
guilty. De Havilland arrives as a once-poor/now-rich cousin
from New York who’s there to help save Davis’s mansion from
demolition, but whose presence dredges up the past once more.
Their battle of wills manifests itself into an intense, hallucina-
tory melodrama with a wonderfully macabre ending.
Rent on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.So Much More Than ‘Gone With the Wind’
Best known for her turn as Melanie Hamilton in
“Gone With the Wind” and her swashbuckling ad-
ventures with Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland spe-
cialized in playing aristocrats of virtue, though her
work would get more varied as her career pro-
gressed.
De Havilland, who died Sunday at age 104, per-
formed for some top Hollywood hands, including Mi-By SCOTT TOBIAS chael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh, William Wyler and Robert
Aldrich, and proved surprisingly eager to reveal
cracks in her patrician facade. Her Oscar-winning
role in “The Heiress,” as a plain woman whose heart-
break over a gold-digging suitor turns into chilly res-
olution, cannot currently be streamed, but it’s avail-
able on Criterion Blu-ray and DVD.
Here are nine films that illustrate the dramatic
chops that won her two Oscars and some of the riski-
er roles that she gambled her image to explore.EVERETT COLLECTION METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER DONALDSON COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGESWARNER BROS., VIA EVERETT COLLECTION JOHN SPRINGER COLLECTION/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES 20TH CENTURY-FOX/GETTY IMAGESUNITED ARTISTS PARAMOUNT PICTURES 20TH CENTURY FOX/GETTY IMAGES