Bette Davis, the actress who made acting exciting to watch. Nobody was as good at playing bad as Bette Davis was in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Today, she's probably more remembered for the Ryan Murphy series FEUD as opposed to her films, though ALL ABOUT EVE and WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? have its admirers.

Some have said she's overly mannered and she wasn't able to get with the times when acting became more method-y. It was probably true, it doesn't take away from the fact she was the best in her day, being the 1930s and 40s.

When Bette Davis didn't say anything, and her face was how she expressed her emotions, she was incredible. In BORDERTOWN, she depicts her character's increasing insanity in the most subtle way possible. An entire sequence devoted to her worrying face and she nails it.

In IN THIS OUR LIFE, she plays a Southern Belle who steals her sister's husband and turns to murder when her spoiled whims never satisfy her. A scene of her running from the cops and glancing at her rearview mirror, it's the best kind of acting I've seen in Film.

When Bette Davis came to the scene, nobody was like her. Actresses wanted to be pretty and never wanted to play villains. Bette Davis embraced challenging parts, she wanted to act and the more difficult a role was, the more she wanted it. Her performance in OF HUMAN BONDAGE was groundbreaking, it was the part of a tramp destroyed by her selfishness and later, syphylis. Nobody wanted to play the part of Mildred Rogers, Bette Davis took it and it changed everything for her.

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