The Sisters(1938). Directed by Anatole Litvak. The screenplay by Milton Krims is based on the best-selling 1937 novel of the same title by Myron Brinig. Cast: Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Anita Louise and Ian Hunter.
The story begins during the 1904 presidential election, sisters Louise, Helen and Grace, all plan on attending A ball held on the same evening. Tom Knivel, is about to propose to Louise when Frank Medlin,from San Francisco, asks her to dance.Later Frank at Sunday dinner in the Elliott home announces he and Louise plan to marry and the couple leave for San Francisco. Grace marries the jilted Tom and Helen marries Sam Johnson.
Louise and Frank are having a hard time making a living, when she becomes pregnant and she decides to keep her condition a secret. But.. the truth comes out when Louise suffers a miscarriage and her heartbroken husband begins to drink heavily. Frank's writing suffers as a result of his drinking and he loses his job. Louise finds a job at a department store.
Frank leaves San Francisco, to work on a ship bound for Singapore. When Louise arrives home, she finds a note from Frank and rushes to the docks, where a policeman mistaking her for a prostitute arrests her. By the time she is released, Frank's ship has left.
A few hours later, Louise's apartment building, is destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. When her father has not heard from her, he travels to San Francisco to look for her and finds her staying with her friend Flora Gibbon in a bordello.
Two year shave passed and things have gotten back to normal will Frank ever find his way back home?
This is a charming movie featuring Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. Davis gives a wonderful performance as the less fortunate of three sisters who is determined to stand by her man.
Fun Fact:
Several people are in studio records/casting call lists as cast members, but they did not appear or were not identifiable in the movie. These were (with their character names, if any): Edwin Brian (Newsboy), Rosella Towne, Susan Hayward, Paulette Evans and Frances Morris (Telephone Operators), John Harron, Lew Harvey, Richard Bond and Mira McKinney. The 4 telephone operators were possibly among a group seen only from the rear and are not recognizable.
Anita Louise (January 9, 1915 – April 25, 1970), made her acting debut on Broadway at the age of six, and within a year was performing in Hollywood films. By her late teens she was being cast in leading and supporting roles in major productions.
Among her film successes were: Madame Du Barry (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), Marie Antoinette (1938), The Sisters (1938), and The Little Princess (1939).
By the 1940s, she was reduced to minor roles and acted very infrequently until television in the 1950s, which provided her with further opportunities. In middle age she played one of her most widely seen roles as the gentle mother, Nell McLaughlin, in the CBS television series My Friend Flicka from 1956–1957, with co-stars Johnny Washbrook, Gene Evans, and Frank Ferguson.
