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Martin Shingler
In 1935 Bette Davis played the role of Joyce Heath, a washed-up, alcoholic stage actress in the film Dangerous (1935). Her performance here won her the first of her Academy awards for best actress. At this time Davis's voice was in the process of developing into something distinctly her own. The accent is clipped and classy. She speaks quite fast and quite loud, projecting her voice, except for instances where it is checked, held back in her throat to produce a voice choked with emotion. There is a scene in the film where Franchot Tone discovers Davis crying on a bed. As their dialogue begins, Davis's voice is typically fast, loud and clipped but then it suddenly drops, softens and slows to prepare us for the most critical moment of the speech: ???When you took me in your arms I didn't want to laugh.??? In speaking this line, the actress created an unusual moment of intimacy, not just between herself and her co-star but also with her audience. She did this not onlyby softening her voice and slowing the pace but also by reducing its projection. As Davis's confidence as a screen performer grew, her voice began to change and the projected, rather loud and fast voice she had used initially was supplemented, although seldom entirely replaced, by something more intimate, something that sounded less theatrical. This was a voice she used with great effect throughout Jezebel (1938), for which she won her second Oscar. For much of this movie, Davis spoke in a tiny voice, little more than a soft, high whisper, even when her character is angry.
By the late 1930s a distinctive feature of Bette Davis's vocal style had become the combination of a hard, loud, projected voice with something softer, quieter, more intimate, often within the same scene. The final scene from Now, Voyager (1942), for instance, reveals Bette Davis to be in total command of her vocal method and able to use it to tremendous effect. Here she seems to know exactly how to pitch it and how to vary the volume and the tempo in order to produce the appropriate type of emotion, even allowing the voice to break at crucial moments. This is a bravura...