Dark Victory

Bette Davis' bravura, moving-but-never-morbid performance as Judith Traherne, a dying heiress determined to find happiness in her few remaining months, remains a three-hankie classic. But that success would never have happened if Davis hadn't pestered studio brass to buy Dark Victory's story rights. Jack Warner finally did so skeptically. "Who wants to see a dame go blind?" he asked. Almost everyone: Dark Victory was Davis's biggest box-office hit yet and garnered Academy Award nominations for 1939's Best Picture, Actress and Original Score (Max Steiner). "If it were an automobile," Newsweek wrote, Dark Victory "would be a Rolls-Royce." It's the perfect match of star and vehicle.

• classic
• drama