Of Human Bondage (1946)

• Director
  • Edmund Goulding
• Writers
  • W. Somerset Maugham(novel)
  • Catherine Turney
• Stars
  • Paul Henreid
  • Eleanor Parker
  • Alexis Smith

  This second film version of Somerset Maugham's classic novel stars Paul Henreid as a clubfooted, introverted medical student--an Englishman in the novel, but not in the hands of the mittel-European Mr. Henried. Eleanor Parker is featured as Mildred, the vulgar, brassy cockney waitress in whom Henreid is foolishly enamored. The role of Mildred had made Bette Davis a star in the 1934 version of Bondage; the magic didn't happen for poor Ms. Parker, who'd spend several years in variable parts before achieving full stardom. The subject matter of the original Maugham novel, which explored how sexual obsession can ruin an otherwise rational man, was missing in the 1946 version thanks to timorous studio censors. To quote Alexis Smith, who played the second female lead, "The remake of Of Human Bondage shouldn't have been made." This 1946 version would disappear completely from view upon the occasion of the third filmization of Of Human Bondage in 1964, wherein Kim Novak was pathetically miscast as Mildred.