Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Admirable film.

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.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

"The Great Lie" released in 1941, was made at the height of Bette Davis' fame at Warner Brothers. It's not a very well-known film, and it also stars Bette's frequent co-star, George Brent, and Mary Astor is on hand as well. The three principle stars get mixed up in a sort-of love triangle. George Brent plays Peter, a playboy of sorts, who marries Sandra (Mary Astor) a vain, self-centered pianist. They marry on a whim, find out the marriage is not legitimate; so Peter, realizing he still loves Maggie (Bette Davis) then marries her! Wow...after aviator Peter flies to Brazil and is assumed dead, Sandra discovers she is pregnant. Being that she is career-focused and about as maternal as a rattlesnake, she agrees to allow Maggie to raise the baby. Well, lo and behold, Peter turns up after a year, not dead at all. Maggie lies to him and tells him the baby is hers. Sandra shows up, agrees they had a bargain, but now that Pete is alive, well, she wants him back and the baby. What to do? What saves this improbable and somewhat ridiculous story is the performances of Bette Davis and Mary Astor. Astor clearly has the more delicious part, playing a totally self-absorbed diva and throwing off catty one-liners at Davis. Bette plays her part as more maternal and traditional, but she is not above giving Astor an occasional look that could kill. This film, while certainly not great, shows the real talent of Bette Davis. One of her genuine strengths as an actress was to be able to take the occasional mundane scripts Jack Warner threw at her and turn them into something real. There are also able supporting performances by the reliable Hattie McDaniel and Lucile Watson as well. Worth checking out just to see Davis and Astor go at each other a couple of times.

Who could believe a film where Bette Davis brings up the baby that her husband had with another woman? This is an absolutely ridiculous idea. Anyone knows that with a real Bette Davis film with this kind of subject matter, a killing would have taken place.Mary Astor's supporting Oscar was ridiculous here. The accolade should have gone hands down to Sara Allgood for her poignant, memorable portrayal of Mrs. Morgan in "How Green Was My Valley."What do we learn from this? Make sure your divorce decree is in. Don't drink for 3 days after your wedding. Control yourself, it's later than you think.After doing such a wonderful job in Bette's memorable "Dark Victory," George Brent is out of his league in this film.What woman would hand Bette Davis a baby at picture's end? There wasn't even a gun involved.

The Great Lie in its own way is quite daring for the time. There were not too many films in which motherhood was seen as a burden rather than a sacred obligation. In that sense Warner Brothers was taking quite a chance with this film.The one thing I don't understand is Bette Davis taking the role of the noble one in the triangle that involves her with George Brent and Mary Astor. Astor's part is clearly the showier one which she proved by taking home the Best Supporting Actress for 1941. Perhaps it was simply a matter of screen time and that Davis was not going to be in support of anyone.Be that as it may, The Great Lie involves a possible lie to come when a certain infant comes of age. George Brent's got both these women on the string. He marries Mary Astor who is a renowned concert pianist in a whirlwind courtship as soon as the ink on her divorce became dry.Turns out it wasn't quite that dry yet. But nature taking its course Astor gets pregnant. But before she and we find that out, Brent whose marriage to Astor was technically invalid runs off with Davis who's a member of the rich Maryland horsey set.Later on Brent goes missing in a plane crash in the Amazon rain forest and Davis comes up with a marvelous proposition. If Astor will give up the kid when it's born, she'll raise it as her own. Astor who is career minded to the last exponential degree agrees to this until Brent finds his way out of the rain forest.The Great Lie is one potboiler melodrama which is lifted above its worth by these two women. Davis does what she can with the part, though I think she would have been better as the pianist. But Mary Astor just dominates the film. Her performance is the best thing by far in The Great Lie. This was the pinnacle year in Mary Astor's career. She also co-starred in 1941 in her best known screen part, that of Brigid O'Shaunessy in The Maltese Falcon. Given the mores of the time there are only certain directions this plot can take. The Great Lie would be one great flop, but for Bette and Mary. See it for them.

An average melodrama with a powerhouse performance by Mary Astor (if you've only seen her as Marmie in 'Little Women' she's a bit different here). Bette Davis and George Brent are former lovers still on the boil, and circumstances mean that he is passed between her and Astor depending on what's happened on a particular day. Then he goes missing in a plane, there's a baby, there's a plan ... and that's about it.'The Great Lie' is a typical Warners potboiler, lengthy, not very believable, but with decent enough performances and production values. In the 1940s there were a lot of love triangles in the movies and a lot about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of children; this film is no exception. The husband may be a bit colourless, but the ladies he is involved with more than make up for that, although it is hardly Davis' best performance.