Voyager Now Summary
Director: Irving Rapper
Genres: Romance
Rating:
Olive_Higgins_Prouty's popular novel was transformed into nearly two hours of high-grade soap opera by several masters of the trade: Warner Bros., Bette_Davis, Paul_Henreid, director Irving_Rapper, and screenwriter Casey_Robinson. Davis plays repressed Charlotte Vale, dying on the vine thanks to her domineering mother (Gladys_Cooper). All-knowing psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude_Rains) urges Charlotte to make several radical changes in her life, quoting Walt_Whitman: "Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find." Slowly, Charlotte emerges from her cocoon of tight hairdos and severe clothing to blossom into a gorgeous fashion plate. While on a long ocean voyage, she falls in love with Jerry Durrance (Henreid), who is trapped in a loveless marriage. After kicking over the last of her traces at home, Charlotte selflessly becomes a surrogate mother to Jerry's emotionally disturbed daughter (a curiously uncredited Janis_Wilson), who is on the verge of becoming the hysterical wallflower that Charlotte once was. An interim romance with another man (John_Loder) fails to drive Jerry from Charlotte's mind. The film ends ambiguously; Jerry is still married, without much chance of being divorced from his troublesome wife, but the newly self-confident Charlotte is willing to wait forever if need be. "Don't ask for the moon," murmurs Charlotte as Max_Steiner's romantic music reaches a crescendo, "we have the stars." In addition to this famous line, Now, Voyager also features the legendary "two cigarettes" bit, in which Jerry places two symbolic cigarettes between his lips, lights them both, and hands one to Charlotte. The routine would be endlessly lampooned in subsequent films, once by Henreid himself in the satirical sword-and-sandal epic Siren of Baghdad (1953). Hal Erickson, Rovi
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