HOUSEWIFE

You would think money and success would simplify any relationship.  Worries about bills, employment, and the future would be replaced with comfortable quarters, posh parties, and a general sense of security...unless Bette Davis were somehow involved.  In that case, you'd do well to drop to your knees and ask the heavens for your old life back.

When we meet Nan (Ann Dvorak) and William (George Brent), they face the same workaday challenges as most couples: stretching a dollar, raising a rambunctious child, and running a household.  Suspiciously they employ a rather inept maid, yet constantly puzzle over the cost of meat, William's salary, and how to cover all the bills.  You would think that dismissing the help and doing the housework right would go a long way toward saving money and time, but Nan has a better idea.  Why not put a new and improved label on regular old face cream and charge twice as much?

William, an ad man, thinks this is a grand idea and sets about pitching it to Duprey Cosmetics.  With the help of new hire Patricia Berkeley (Bette Davis), he succeeds, and soon he and Nan have left their humble beginnings behind them.  The trouble is that Patricia is a local girl who had designs on William as a teenager.  She took herself to New York to become a sleek, sophisticated professional, but her feelings for William remain the same.  Nevermind the fact that Nan had always been a lovely friend to her: she wants what she wants.

And how can William resist this baggy-boobed powerhouse with a corner office and $25,000 a year salary?  She stares at him with her Bette Davis eyes while filing her nails in business meetings, and he's sold!  Mr. Duprey can see that Nan is smart, funny, affectionate, and charming, but she's yesterday's lunch to William.  He makes no secret of his feelings for Pat, blatantly kissing her hand and staring into her poppy Bette Davis eyes right in front of his wife.  Even more appalling?  Patricia nonchalantly tells Nan that she might as well get out of the way while asking to borrow her powder.  And Nan passes it to her while resolving to hang onto her husband!  It's all so civil it's horrifying!

Housewife's breezy chronicling of Nan and William's rise to the top coupled with the are-you-kidding-me drama of his infidelity (so shocking and yet so mundane!) makes the film engaging and weirdly fascinating.  Bette Davis is ridiculously young in this role, and almost a wallflower compared to the over-the-top vixens she would play later in her career.  Ann Dvorak is the real scene stealer here, and her portrayal of Nan remains impressively relatable even now.  Never underestimate a housewife!