IN THIS OUR LIFE

John Huston's second film, "In This Our Life" may have been just a job of work for him and nothing more than a trashy melodrama but it's undeniably entertaining with a very classy cast even if it does have one of Bette Davis' worst performances, (she's still the bitch but her acting is pinched as if her heart wasn't in it, as if she knows what a crock she's landed herself in). She's the bad sister who steals her good sister's husband and drives him to suicide. Olivia De Havilland is the good sister who finds her backbone after she's been dumped. It was quite daring for its day, even touching on the subject of incest, (Bette has a randy old uncle who has the hots for her and is played with lip-smacking relish by Charles Coburn). The men in their lives are George Brent, (who else?), and Dennis Morgan and there's a nice supporting turn from the young African-American actor Ernest Anderson, (whatever happened to him?) as the boy Bette tries to incriminate in a hit-and-run. Unfortunately poor Hattie McDaniel, only a couple of years after winning an Oscar, is back to playing Mammy and Billie Burke is wasted as the mother who never seems to get out of bed. Huston's heart may not have been in it any more than Bette's but he keeps it moving along at quite a gallop nevertheless.