Bette Davis

THE SISTERS

Warner Bros., 1938. Directed by Anatol Litvak.  Camera:  Tony Gaudio.  With Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Donald Crisp, Beulah Bondi, Alan Hale, Sr., Dick Foran, Henry Travers, Patric Knowles.

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In Montana, at the Election Night Ball for Theodore Roosevelt, Louise Elliott meets charming Frank Medlin, who sweeps her off her feet.  They are married within the week.  Louise's sisters, Helen and Grace, also marry.  Frivolous Helen weds wealthy Sam Johnson, whom she does not love, while Grace accepts Louise's rejected suitor, Tom Knivel, the town banker.

Louise and Frank move to San Francisco, where he works unsuccessfully as a writer, gradually loses confidence in himself, and begins to drink.  The marriage is further tested when Louise becomes pregnant but has a miscarriage.  Depressed and intoxicated, Frank signs on a boat bound for Singapore, leaving Louise alone to face the San Francisco earthquake.  During the disaster, she is befriended by her neighbor, Flora Gibbon, and Flora's mother, who turns out to be the madam of a brothel.  Louise goes to work in a department store.  William Benson, her boss, falls in love with her and sends her back to her family in Montana for a visit.  There, Louise discovers that Helen has been widowed, divorced and remarried, while Grace has survived Tom's middle-aged flirtations.  At the inauguration ball for William Taft, Frank unexpectedly appears, and Louise forgives and reunites with him.

American Film Institute Catalog

Additional photo courtesy of Gary