I want you to realize that this whole thing called Life is just a grand adventure. The trick is to act in it and look out at the same time. And remember: no matter what happens, good or bad, it's just so much velvet.
Next movie in my Bette Davis marathon stars Barbara Stanwyck in an adaptation of an Enda Ferber (of Giant fame) novel. Stanwyck plays the main character; we follow her from her childhood through almost her entire life. She’s left penniless when her parents die blah blah becomes rural schoolteacher etc etc. The title of the film refers to a game she plays with her son who we see grow from an infant to an adult over the course of the film. “How big is my little man?” she asks. “Sooooooo big!” she says with the requisite arm movements. The film is pretty hokey. Stanwyck isn’t bad, but she’s saddled with some pretty bad aging makeup in the latter parts of the film. Bette Davis is really good in a small part as a free-spirited artist Stanwyck’s son falls in love with. It’s one of the fast-talking, snappy, pert young women that Davis would play again after this. The structure of the story relegates her to only the last third of the film, unfortunately. George Brent has a nice cameo at the end. But this one is ultimately pretty well a waste of time. It’s a hard one to track down and not really worth the effort. 2 stars.
tl;dr – Stanwyck isn’t bad as the main character in this sappy melodrama, but the story is a real bore; Bette Davis is excellent in a small role. 2 stars.