Programming Note

[Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage, 1934]

Of Human Bondage (1934), directed by John Cromwell and produced by Pandro S. Berman and RKO Radio Pictures, stars Leslie Howard in the finest screen performance of his career up to that time and Bette Davis in her breakout role. Of Human Bondage is based on the 1915 novel of W. Somerset Maugham, a novel which has never been out of print since
its first publication. The novel was not a biography but contains elements of Maugham's own life. Philip Carey's club foot was Maugham's stutter. And like Philip Carey, Maugham understood the pain of losing his parents at a young age.

Leslie Howard plays Philip Carey, a young man who was orphaned as a child and sent to live with his rather cold and distant uncle but loving aunt at his uncle's vicarage. The film begins when Carey has already reached adulthood and has been living in Paris as a struggling artist for four years. Carey has decided to face the reality that he is only a mediocre painter at best and will never be able to sustain a living. He returns to London to pursue a career in medicine. Carey calculates that he has enough money in the form of bonds left to him by his father to finish his education. But then he meets Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis) and all his plans go awry as he becomes more and more obsessed with this waitress who mistreats and abuses him from the start. Carey's desperation for Mildred takes over his life and he finds himself sinking into utter despair, unable to control his own destiny.

Of Human Bondage presents the notion that good and bad are not mere philosophical ideas like right and wrong, but are the real occurrences of joy and anguish in a man's life that determine his state of happiness or hopelessness.

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