Mom and I used to watch 1940s movies on TV in the 50s. She liked this one, starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as two childhood friends who become competing authors. Hopkins' character is quite plainly crazy, but in reality, she was quite insecure about Davis's fame. They had this big feud, though you sure couldn't tell it from the film. My Mom never dreamed of what was going on in real life with those two. At least, I don't think she did.

...asks Millie Drake (Miriam Hopkins),but the answer she gets from the mirror, from the public, from her husband, from her own daughter seems to be "You are! But we just think Kit is a better and deeper person!" Millie and Kit Marlowe (Bette Davis) have been friends from girlhood, and Kit becomes, even in her 20's, a renowned author, a critical success but not a tremendously financial one. Millie, on the other hand, already married to a successful engineer and also pregnant, decides to compete with Kit and write too. However, she pounds out trashy romance novels that are a hit with the masses and therefore make her rich but not critically acclaimed. And that's really all that Millie has wanted since childhood - to be better at Kit at SOMETHING. And yet she keeps failing because Kit's strength is not in what she has but what she is.Now Hopkins plays Millie so over the top and childish that it is hard to dislike her. She takes her husband, Preston, for granted and loses him - he grows to love Kit but she says that is a line friends simply do not cross, even if the break up of the marriage had nothing to do with their feelings. Millie spends so much time on her career that her daughter Deirdre comes to think of Kit as a mom just as much as Millie. How will this all work out? Watch and find out. I will tell you that the surprises are in the men, not in the women. Millie takes everything the way you would expect her to - throwing temper tantrums dressed in the finest fashions while Kit is the lighthouse, the rock of stability through everything. Now back to the men. For one thing Millie's ex-husband doesn't bother to see his daughter for over ten years! He wouldn't have seen her even then had it not been for Kit bringing them together. Preston is no bum, he's had a good career, but no time or place for his daughter in his life? Then there is Kit's beau during the war years who is ten years younger than her and is constantly nagging her to marry him. Their age means nothing he promises, she's all he's ever wanted ... BUT one walk with Deirdre, who is practically Kit's daughter, and he dumps his 42 year old fiancée for a 19 year old girl? Men! How did we win a world war with these weasels in charge? I've given a great deal of the plot away, but the joy is in the execution, not the details. I will give this as a sign of how much it interested me. I was getting ready to exercise and this was on Turner Classic Movies. I usually like to listen to music when I exercise, but this film so interested me - it was not your standard 40's soap opera - that I actually watched the film during my workout and then dragged out one of my Bette Davis collections to see the entire thing.Highly recommended. Just one thing. Do you think Miriam Hopkins did such a good job because maybe Millie actually WAS the real Miriam Hopkins? Just wondering.

A classic woman's film in the best sense of the word, "Old Acquaintance" was remade by George Cukor as "Rich and Famous" and echoed in the final scenes of Pedro Almodovar's "La Flor de Mi Secreto." Such is the enduring appeal of this tale of a friendship between two women that continues throughout their lives despite rivalries, temperament, and love affairs. Of course with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as the women, the film rises from melodramatic soap opera to a higher level. Davis plays Kit, a serious, sensitive writer, whose interests lie principally in her work. Hopkins plays Millie, a self-absorbed woman who envies her friend's success, but is determined to have everything: a writing career, a home, and a family. While Kit writes critically lauded books and plays, Millie produces a steady stream of best selling romantic novels. While Millie becomes wealthy beyond measure, Kit remains appreciated if not rich. However, Kit's warmth attracts the affections of not only Millie's increasingly estranged husband, but also her neglected daughter.Thus, the stage is set for emotional clashes between the two writers that provide Davis and Hopkins with some juicy material. Hopkins in particular chews the scenery, wrings her hands, and emotes outrageously. Davis, on the other hand, underplays her role more than usual, although the Davis eyes and inflections remain. Perhaps she understood that the histrionics of more than one actress would be too much for the audience to bear. However, during one classic outburst, Davis unexpectedly does steal a scene from Hopkins and provoke a startled laugh from the audience. With two strong women at its center, the men in "Old Acquaintance" understandably play support. John Loder is all bland good looks as Millie's husband, and a handsome Gig Young does little besides look handsome and play the too-young romantic interest for Davis.With the exception of Deidre, Hopkins' daughter, the other major female roles also involve working women. Although Davis's maid may be a domestic, she does work and earn her own living. The reporter who interviews Hopkins and Loder is a gender-neutral role, but perhaps to emphasize the centrality of women to the story, another strong actress, Anne Revere, was cast. In fact, besides Loder and Young, most of the men in the film play waiters, taxi drivers, night clerks, playboys, and drunks. Newcomer Dolores Moran, who plays Deidre, was out of her league with Davis and Hopkins and comes across as shallow and unconvincing. Her erotic gyrations to seduce Gig Young in a listening booth and her defiant dalliance with an older playboy are at odds with the character and image of Kit, who was supposedly Deidre's role model.Fast paced, lush, and romantic, "Old Acquaintance" is one of those movies that "they just don't make anymore." The dialog is delicious, the performances occasionally border on camp, and the direction is sure-handed. With a box of chocolates, a wad of Kleenex, and a bottle of flat champagne, Bette and Miriam are the perfect friends for a rainy afternoon.

After having gone head-to-head in "The Old Maid" a few years prior, Davis and Hopkins teamed up for round two in this film. It's a credit to both actresses that, despite their intense loathing for one another, they were able to convey warm and deep friendship on screen when it was called for, even embracing fondly when the touch of one probably repulsed the other. Davis plays a somewhat dowdy, earthy authoress who comes back to her hometown amid much flurry to visit her old school chum Hopkins. Davis writes critically-acclaimed, but lackluster-selling, books yet can't seem to find a man to share her life. Hopkins, on the other hand, has an affectionate husband (Loder) and is about to have a baby, but has no outlet for her own creativity. When Hopkins writes a tacky novel and it's a runaway best-seller, the dynamic between these old friends shifts and before long they are engaged in a rivalry and an unstated game of one-upmanship. The years flow by and, though Davis is still a respected writer and playwright, Hopkins has achieved extraordinary fame and success in her field. When Loder comes between the ladies and Hopkins' daughter Moran, as well, the sparks begin to fly, though never without a certain touch of humor. Davis enjoyed portraying a fairly realistic character in this go-round and came up with the notion that she would wear men's pajama tops to bed as a revealingly quirky trait. Though, as the film wears on, she is given a rather silly grey streak in her hair and becomes more mannered, it's still a well-drawn, interesting performance. Hopkins in at full tilt throughout and gives a zesty, energetic portrayal. One hopes that she was in on the joke of her heavily neurotic and over-the-top character. She provides a lot of the comic content with her exuberant bitchery. Loder gives a friendly, solid, if unspectacular performance. Young appears late in the game as Davis' younger suitor and is very handsome and effective. Moran is also mostly appealing and attractive, though she would exit the business before too long after marrying a producer. Revere shows up in a small, but amusing, role as a reporter. The story is an intriguing one, though there are a few head-scratching elements (such as how Moran has no recollection of what her father looks like when they meet after a lengthy separation.) Also, due to U.S. involvement in WWII coming about after the source play's debut, a bit of patriotic sentiment was incorporated into Davis' role to help assuage the potential fluffiness of such a piece in a time of war. In fact, the initial choice for director turned the project down because he didn't think audiences would care about "two bitches" bickering when there's a war on! Fortunately, the film was made as it's a fascinating thing to see these enemies working their craft together with Davis underplaying and Hopkins overplaying and somehow providing a tasty piece of entertainment in the process. Davis would have other nasty rivalries and issues with female stars after this such as with Susan Hayward in "Where Love Has Gone" and, infamously, Joan Crawford in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"