Wonderful character development!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Sometimes my choice of what movie to watch next is influenced by something I might have just seen. In "Summer of '42", a couple of sex-obsessed but inexperienced teenage boys take their summertime girlfriends to the theater and their choice of pictures is "Now, Voyager". As the boys try to cop a cheap feel, and as the girls swat away their advances, I don't know how much of the picture they actually got to see. But since this title was in a stack of unwatched movies, my own decision was an easy one to make.The title comes from an obscure line from the poet Walt Whitman in my summary above. The 'Voyager' of the film is the character portrayed by Bette Davis, an emotionally scarred young woman whose domineering mother has made her a cloistered wreck. With the help of a patient and understanding psychiatrist (Claude Rains), Charlotte Vail (Davis) discards the remnants of her abusive past and begins to grow as a self confident young woman, eventually catching the eye of a gentleman who shows interest in her aboard a cruise ship. As their romance blossoms, Jerry Durrance (Paul Henried) reveals the details of an unhappy marriage in which he's trapped, with a daughter suffering the consequences of a mother who like Miss Vail's own, is incapable of showing love or compassion.In sharp counterpoint to Mrs. Henry Vale's (Gladys Cooper) attitudes regarding wealth and societal status, Durrance offers one of the most compelling and effective arguments ever made in cinema when he speaks to Charlotte about finding happiness - two people having fun together, getting a kick out of simple, little things and finding beauty in them, and sharing confidences with a loved one you wouldn't share with anyone else in the world. It's the kind of advice that would make practitioners like Dr. Jaquith (Rains) obsolete if one would only take it to heart and follow it.Bette Davis had a way of tugging on viewer heartstrings in many of the roles she portrayed in her films. In this picture she quite literally transforms from an ugly duckling into an attractive young woman, while running a gamut of emotions coming to grips with love, losing it, and finding the way back again. As the viewer, one may find it beneficial to keep the tissues handy to deal with the emotional ups and downs of the story.

Well-made but dull."Now, Voyager" is essentially a movie-length soap opera. Has all the ingredients: over-stated melodrama, complex relationships, high society and their weird mores, idyllic settings, forbidden romances and a nagging, fascist mother. From the outset the movie just feels stuffy, and superficial.Good production though, despite the dialogue feeling so much like a play. Max Steiner won an Oscar for his musical score.The acting goes with the play/soap opera feel: over-stated emotions, exaggerated portrayals.

Now, Voyager is a brilliant film in every area, one where I am still trying to figure out why it took me so long to see it as a fan of classic film and as someone who considers All About Eve as one of her all-time favourites and Bette Davis' performance in it one of the all-time greats. Now, Voyager is beautifully produced, with each scene lushly photographed and with the costumes and sets very sumptuous, particularly striking at the end which has a real magical touch. There is also Irving Rapper's grand direction, which shows a director in command of what he wants, and an intelligent script that is sharp and provides a good amount of emotional impact(Davis' final line really resonated with me) without resorting to soap-opera-quality. The story is never dull and very poignant with a subtly gritty edge, the ending being romance at its absolute finest, with two scenes that have rightly gone down in cinematic history. One being Paul Henreid's lighting of two cigarettes and the other being Davis' speech which is a genuine tear-jerker. The ugly-duckling-turned-into-a-swan theme is a potentially hackneyed one but Now, Voyager is one of those rarities that does something truly special with it. Henreid is the personification of suave, Gladys Cooper is outstandingly formidable as the annoying over-bearing mother figure and Claude Rains, one of those rare actors who I've never seen a bad performance from, is beautifully sympathetic. The two best things about Now, Voyager are Bette Davis and Max Steiner's score. Davis is just fantastic in one of her greatest performances, a very close second to her iconic performance in All About Eve, she's never looked lovelier too. And Steiner's score is haunting, swells with emotion and romance and sounds in places almost symphonic, it's quite possibly his best score and Steiner penned some great ones. To conclude, a brilliant classic film that has nothing ugly about it, not even Janis Wilson's oft-criticised performance as Tina(which while she does overdo it a little I didn't have a problem with personally, there was a lot of heart to her role). 10/10 Bethany Cox

The definition of a Woman's Picture, as was. It's basically all that would be required nowadays too but sadly it usually best works with a sprinkling of soft porn to rope the ladies in, er as in Fifty Shades Of Grey so to speak. This expert film can even to hold the guys to the end, through the layers of soap and tripe to the climactic Give and Take annihilation of reason and the triumph of corn.Mentally repressed woman Bette Davis under mother Gladys Cooper's bony thumb first with the help of psychiatrist Claude Rains and then with married lover Paul Henreid eventually asserts her independence and blossoms as a person, and of course as a Woman which is more important. It's a masterclass in emotional cinema and tenuous logic – they're right when they say this couldn't be remade successfully: the down-to-earthy realism and intolerance to cigarette smoking nowadays and also the lack of seemingly untouchable stars, a Max Steiner to supply a suitably heart-stirring score, a dreamy gleamy nitrate black and white photography, and soft Warner Bros production values will all see to that.It's all rather wonderful to watch, and to wonder if you really are closer to your feminine side watching and digesting the labyrinthine plot. The cast, especially Davis are almost perfect in their melodrama. The money shots are just before and after Henreid (and Steiner) ask "Shall we have another cigarette on it?" – if you're not affected by the emotional conclusion and trite resolution of non sequiturs then you must surely have a screw in place!