A story about time and memory, old age and final years, that manages to be uplifting.
The two major actresses who play elderly sisters in The Whales of August—the gentle, caring Sarah and the cantankerous, bitter Libby—reflect the real-life personalities of the two stars, Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, respectively.
For many years, the sisters, both widows, have been spending their summers on an island off the coast of Maine, in a cliff-side cottage overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. As perhaps symbolic of their advancing years, and now near the end of their long lives, the whales which they regularly saw in earlier years are no longer coming.
Libby, the more invalid of the two (as, indeed, was Davis, who then was recovering from a stroke and fighting cancer), walks slowly with a stiff left leg and usually, perhaps reluctantly (both as her character and the actress), assumes a steady hold of her sister on their occasional strolls over the cliffs. In addition, she has become blind.
Sarah, who still remembers the husband killed in World War I, and honors his picture and keepsakes, is the caretaker of the two. She is wondering toward film’s end if it’s time for Libby to be passed to someone who can better take care of her. Perhaps, too, despite her innate good nature and a durable love for her sibling, Sarah has finally, after all these years, become frustrated by Libby’s behavior. She is always calling to be waited on or complaining about this and that, the littlest things, even that Sarah is always “busy, busy, busy” in dusting things. To which the other replies, “Well, . . . someone has to [keep the house] tidy.”
Although there is no monotony in their lives—they enjoy the cool quiet of things, the comfort of cherished memories, the twilight strolls and the uplifting view of the ocean—the solitude is occasionally brightened by a visitor or two. A local handyman (Harry Carey, Jr.) becomes the center of a dispute when Sarah proposes he install a picture window; Libby doesn’t want it, presumably out of obstinacy, though she eventually agrees.
Ann Sothern (in her last film role) is friendly neighbor Tisha, who brings news from the outside world and a full helping of good cheer. She refers to the two ladies as “girls.”
Mr. Maranov (Vincent Price in a part originally planned for Sir John Gielgud), whom Libby resents being invited to dinner, is a Russian aristocrat whose home is now jeopardized by the death of his landlady. He wears his patrician background well, earning the compliment from Sarah that he is the only gentleman she knows who still bows to a lady. He offers romantic philosophies that, for example, “One’s time is all one’s time . . . You see out there, how the moon casts its silver treasures along the shore? There is a treasure that can never be spent.”
The brief black-and-white flashback soon after the film begins is somewhat superfluous. The whales have been sighted and the sisters, now young with long, flowing dresses of the 1890s, rush from the house to view the creatures with binoculars. The sentiments and nostalgia inferred is covered by the reminiscences of the elderly women. Mary Steenburgen plays Sarah, Margaret Ladd is Libby and Tisha Sterling is Tisha (Sothern’s daughter).
Davis was notorious for fighting with the artists who shared film-making with her, complaining about everything—poor dialogue, soft lighting (in later years, intended to hide her age), unsatisfactory sets—and fighting with costars and autocratic directors. The most famous feuds were with Joan Crawford and directors Vincent Sherman, Michael Curtiz and William Wyler, with whom she also had an affair. Among actors, Errol Flynn was incompetent (a verdict she revised late in life) and Robert Montgomery was a scene-stealer.
So it was on the set of The Whales of August. She tried to direct director Lindsay Anderson, but, most unpleasant of all, wouldn’t speak to Gish unless during actual filming. She had little sympathy for Gish’s hard of hearing, though Gish admitted she often only pretended not to hear, for when Anderson repeated the line for her, she had no problem.
Davis demanded top billing, which appalled Gish, who didn’t care and was there, she said, only for the joy of acting. In the end, Davis received leftmost billing, which was considered ideal, though Gish’s name was slightly higher. Gish, a loving person from all accounts, took into account Davis’ illness.
In a film about advancing old age, the majority of the cast members lived long lives—Gish died at 99, six years after Whales; Sothern at 92; Carey, of all those John Ford Westerns, at 91; Price at 82; and Davis at 81.
The film ends, appropriately enough, with the sisters, after a slow walk from the house, standing on a favorite promontory, “the point,” and sharing an exquisite view of the sea.
“Can you see them?” Libby asks, as if it were still the days of their youth.
“The whales are all gone,” Sarah replies.
“You can never tell,” Libby says. “You can never tell.”
The sisters embrace. Before them, the ocean, ever-present during their annual summer stays at the cottage, is a reminded that while their life spans are limited, the sea is timeless, forever.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myeO7BS-294[/embedyt]