The Anniversary (1968) 91m.
Even if you're not a Bette Davis fan you'll find her impossible to resist in this nasty, often hilarious comedy by director Roy Ward Baker. Davis is the matriarch of a family business who treats her three children more like board members than sons. The boys (two of them with female partners) gather at the family home for their mother's ruby wedding anniversary (their father has since passed on, and Davis wears a bright red dress for the occasion). They pledge that this year will be different. Fat chance.
Film version of Bill MacIlwraith's play looks pretty much how it would in a theater - there are only two outdoor scenes and neither of them are essential. Also, Baker elects not to use a background score. Quite rightly, the rhythm comes from the sharp, snappy dialogue. And Davis snaps with the best of them. She gives a delicious performance as 'Mum' (almost every line she delivers is a put-down) and succeeds in making us admire a character who by rights we should view as monstrous. What helps us from being put off the Davis character altogether is that we're not sure who to root for otherwise. We want her sons (and their partners) to break free of their mother's control, but none of them seem deserving of our support. They're either wishy-washy or petulant. It's noteworthy that the only one we come to admire (Sheila Hancock) is just as sharp-tongued and strong-willed as Davis - her worthy foil. As the film goes on, fiancee Elaine Taylor is ready to follow her example. You have to question Davis' real opinions of her children: does she even love them at all? I think it's more a case of maternal instinct in overdrive. Consider, for example, if Davis had three daughters instead of sons. I don't believe she'd be as possessive if she was in the position of welcoming another gender (sons-in-law) to the family home. As it is, the men in this film are tokens to be claimed and fought for - the only one exempt from this treatment is the most soft-spoken of the trio, who has a fetish that is decidedly effeminate. In the end, it doesn't even concern us what real opinion Davis has of any of the others at her party - she so enjoys her Machiavellian power plays that it's easy enough for us to believe that she's simply acting that way for the sheer hell of it.
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