Only Hollywood could mix Walt Whitman and Sigmund Freud and come up with a first-class weepie like Now Voyager, skillfully directed by Irving Rapper. Bette Davis is in top form as a woman who starts out wretchedly oppressed and homely, and ends up happily oppressed and handsome. The bespectacled daughter of a domineering mother (Gladys Cooper), Davis suffers a nervous breakdown and is introduced to "America's foremost psychiatrist," played by Claude Rains. ("Don't call him doctor in front of Charlotte," Mom cautions.) A kindly (and popular) doctor who "leaves scientific terms to the fakers and writers of books," he sends Charlotte off on a therapeutic cruise with a phrase from Walt Whitman, "Now Voyager, sail thou forth..." She sails forth, seeks and finds a married man to fall in love with (Paul Henreid). Telling themselves "we have the stars, let's not ask for the moon," the two come to an understanding that, as the New York Times critic observed, "opens whole vistas of new neuroses." What starts out a brave attempt to deal with psychology and the family is somewhat muddled (probably by attempts to sidestep the Hays Code), but Now Voyager remains a revealing sampler of '40s attitudes toward therapy and change.