In 1938, Warner Brothers, nervous over the flurry of activity over at MGM with the making of GWTW, jumped the gun with a Southern tale of its own that lacked catchy initials but became a box-office smash nonetheless. Bette Davis plays the headstrong Southern lady who re-belles against her beau, Henry Fonda, by wearing an unspeakably red gown in place of the customary virgin white to the 1850 Olympus Ball, the highlight of the New Orleans social season. A very civil war ensues, the engagement is broken, and, after a long period of self-enforced punishment for her willful ways, Davis is on her knees as Henry, now married to another, lies ill with yellow fever. There's enough unswallowable Southern mishegoss in Jezebel to keep us laughing through our tears today - the melodramatic antics, the system of just rewards, the darkies singing spirituals, etc. - but for all this it has a physical beauty, due to William Wyler's staging coupled with Ernest Haller's photography, that lifts the film far above its dated elements. And Bette Davis here does her special trick of turning what might be a charade into a performance of psychological subtlety: “With a hundred of small but vividly expressed details, Davis turns the wanton spoiled brat of the screenplay into an infinitely more complex character. Up to this point in her career, this is undoubtedly her best piece of acting....” --Gary Cary (JB)