Of Human Bondage (USA)

(83 min; 1934; b/w; English)
Director: John Cromwell

With Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, Frances Dee

Recipient of the Photoplay Awards 1934 for Best Picture

Bette Davis delivers a lively performance as the femme fatale Mildred Rogers in this brisk adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel. Leslie Howard plays club-footed Philip Carey who becomes obsessed with tearoom waitress Mildred so much so that he visually hallucinates her everywhere. Mildred rejects him but then drifts back into his life numerous times only to become more nasty and villainous with each return. 

Of Human Bondage is widely regarded by critics as the film that made Bette Davis a star.