The Old Maid is a 1939 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1935 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Zoë Akins, which was adapted from the 1924 Edith Wharton novella The Old Maid: the Fifties (taken from the collection of novellas Old New York).
Plot
Set during the American Civil War, the story focuses on Charlotte Lovell and her cousin Delia, whose wedding day is disrupted when her former fiancé Clem Spender returns following a two-year absence. Delia proceeds to marry Jim Ralston, and Charlotte comforts Clem, who enlists in the Union Army and is later killed in battle. Shortly after his death, Charlotte discovers she is pregnant with Clem's child, and in order to escape the stigma of an illegitimate child, she journeys West to have her baby, a daughter she names Clementina (or "Tina").
Following the end of the war, Charlotte and Tina relocate to Philadelphia, where Charlotte opens an orphanage. Delia is the mother of two children, and Charlotte is engaged to marry Joe Ralston, her cousin's brother-in-law. On her wedding day, Charlotte tells Delia that Tina is her child by Clem, and Delia stops Joe from marrying Charlotte by telling him that she is in poor health. The cousins become estranged, but when Jim is killed in a horse riding accident, Delia invites Charlotte and Tina to move in with her and her children. Tina, unaware Charlotte is her birth mother, assumes the role of Delia's daughter and calls Charlotte her aunt.
Fifteen years pass, and Tina is engaged to wealthy Lanning Halsey. Still unaware Charlotte is her mother, she begins to resent what she considers her interference in her life, and when Delia offers to formally adopt Tina in order to provide her with a reputable name and a prominent position in society, she gladly accepts. Charlotte intends to tell Tina the truth before her wedding but finds herself unable to do so.
Charlotte confronts Delia and reveals she resents the fact both Clem and Tina loved Delia more than they did her. Delia tells Tina that Charlotte sacrificed her own happiness by refusing to marry a man who did not want to raise Tina as his own. Delia urges Tina to kiss Charlotte last when Tina prepares to depart with her new husband. Tina complies, and her gesture leaves Charlotte happy and willing to share the rest of her life with Delia as a friend rather than an adversary.
Cast
Bette Davis as Charlotte Lovell
Miriam Hopkins as Delia Lovell Ralston
George Brent as Clem Spender
Jane Bryan as Clementina
Donald Crisp as Dr. Lanskell
Louise Fazenda as Dora
James Stephenson as Jim Ralston
Jerome Cowan as Joseph Ralston
William Lundigan as Lanning Halsey
Cecilia Loftus as Grandmother Henrietta Lovell
William Hopper as John Ward
Frederick Burton as Mr. Halsey (uncredited)
Production
In 1935, the Los Angeles Times reported Ernst Lubitsch had purchased the screen rights to the Zoe Akins play and intended to cast Judith Anderson and Helen Menken, the stars of the Broadway production, in a film released by Paramount Pictures, but nothing came of the project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. bought the rights from Paramount in January 1939.
Humphrey Bogart originally was cast as Clem Spender, but studio head Jack L. Warner felt he looked neither heroic nor romantic and had him fired after two days of filming. Bette Davis urged director Edmund Goulding and producer Hal B. Wallis to replace him with George Brent, who accepted the role despite the fact it was so small.