Dark Victory is a 1939 American melodrama film directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Bette Davis, and featuring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers, and Cora Witherspoon. The screenplay by Casey Robinson was based on the 1934 play of the same title by George Brewer and Bertram Bloch, starring Tallulah Bankhead.
theatrical release poster
From the trailer
Geraldine Fitzgerald and Bette Davis, after "Judy" has lost her sight, in final minutes of Dark Victory
Ronald Reagan and Bette Davis (center, left to right) in the film's trailer
Edmund Goulding was a British screenwriter and film director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 silent film Three Live Ghosts alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwick. Also in the early 1920s he wrote several screenplays for star Mae Murray for films directed by her then husband Robert Z. Leonard. Goulding is best remembered for directing cultured dramas such as Love (1927), Grand Hotel (1932) with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, Dark Victory (1939) with Bette Davis, The Constant Nymph (1943) with Joan Fontaine, and The Razor's Edge (1946) with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power. He also directed the classic film noir Nightmare Alley (1947) with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, and the action drama The Dawn Patrol. He was also a successful songwriter, composer, and producer.
Goulding helping position actors for a kiss while making a film with the motion picture class at Columbia University in 1927