Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage Photos

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Cast & Crew

Leslie Howard

Philip Carey

Bette Davis

Mildred Rogers

Frances Dee

Sally Athelny

Kay Johnson

Norah

Reginald Denny

Harry Griffiths

Alan Hale

Emil Miller

Reginald Owen

Thorpe Athelny

John Cromwell

Director

Lester Cohen

Screenwriter

Pandro S. Berman

Producer

Max Steiner

Original Music

Henry W. Gerrard

Cinematographer

Carroll Clark

Art Director

Van Nest Polglase

Art Director

Walter Plunkett

Costume Design

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Critic Reviews for Of Human Bondage

Audience Reviews for Of Human Bondage

• Sep 23, 2018

  Were you or someone you know ever involved in a lopsided relationship? Where one party knew the other loved them more than they felt and so used the person most inconsiderately? Bette Davis, all hungry vampire-eyes-set-to-kill is a low-class strumpet who sees imminent financial possibility in Leslie Howard's middle class nebbish, who merely suspects that he's being played but can't quite believe that anyone would ever do such a thing (much less his beloved) and is thunderstruck that he himself would allow himself to be played so untruthfully. Like an auto accident on the freeway, you won't be able to take your eyes away.
  

  kevin w Super Reviewer
• Mar 31, 2016

  It's a little hard to watch this one, just as it was a little hard to read the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Leslie Howard plays the sensitive, club-footed young man who falls for a lower-class, vulgar woman who manipulates and exploits him time and time again. Bette Davis plays the woman brilliantly, and for her performance I could have notched up my rating half a star. The movie has one scene worth watching in particular - the one where she viciously rips into him after he tells her that she disgusts him. Her response: "Me?! I disgust you? You, you, you're too fine! You'll have none of me, but you'll sit here all night looking at your naked females...You cad! You dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once. I was always makin' a fool of ya. You bored me stiff! I hated ya! It made me sick when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me. Ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH! I made up for it. For every kiss, I had a laugh. We laughed at ya, Miller and me, and Griffith and me, we laughed at ya! Because you were such a mug, a mug, a mug! You know what you are? You gimpy-legged monster? You're a cripple! A cripple! A cripple!" Despite that, he STILL returns back to her (arrgh), which is disagreeable to watch, even though he has a benign acceptance about being doomed to love her, just as a much friendlier woman is doomed to love him. And so it goes. The movie would firmly establish Bette Davis as an actress, and rightfully so, though she was snubbed by the Academy. I found it interesting to read later that there was such an uproar over it that the Academy president said write-in votes could be cast, and Davis received enough to finish ahead of one of the nominees, but not enough to beat Claudette Colbert who would win for 'It Happened One Night' (the process would be changed the following year). Unfortunately, Davis can't completely overcome the masochism of the story, or Leslie Howard's somewhat wooden performance.
  

  Super Reviewer
• Sep 03, 2010

  I've heard a lot of good things about this movie, but when I saw it I didn't understand it. Maybe I need to see it again, but I really thought it was dull and uninteresting.
  

  Super Reviewer
• Jan 19, 2009

  The unabridged version of the the novel simply can't be adapted to the screen.
  

  Super Reviewer