1936 – Gale Sondergaard
Anthony Adverse
I’ll admit, I’ve only seen a handful of films in which Gale Sondergaard appeared. But every one of those movies had her in the role of a villainess. But darn it, she did it so well! She had that face that was sexy, sly, sultry, and slightly malicious, all at the same time. As a matter of fact, in my research, I learned that Sondergaard was originally cast as the Wicked Witch of the West in The 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz, but she pulled out of the project when the decision was made to make the witch ugly instead of beautiful.
Here, she plays the part of Faith Paleolgus, the maid and presumptive heir of kindly Mr. Bonnyfeather. But when the young Anthony shows up, and she recognizes him as Bonnyfeather’s grandson, she waits for the opportunity to get rid of him so that she can inherit her employer’s fortune. Failing at that, she ends up working with, and eventually blackmailing the evil Marquis Don Luis, wonderfully played by the incomparable Claude Rains, into taking her as his wife.
Sondergaard had a way of playing the bad guy with a sly smile that told the audience that she was perfectly aware of how wicked she was being. She even smiled when Anthony called her out for her manipulations that caused him such hardship. In several scenes, she was just there, lurking in the background, like a spider waiting for her prey to fly into her web.
Through her performance, I saw in her eyes a bit of thrill at the prospect of stealing Anthony’s inheritance, of hiding Anthony’s true identity from Don Luis, and also disappointment when her murderous scheme failed to kill Anthony in the mountains on the road to France. And there was even real fear in those eyes the moment Anthony appears at Casa de Bonnyfeather after five years in Africa. Gale pulled it all off admirably, and looked good doing it.
And finally, I have to mention her final scene in the film, in which all the lies have been revealed. When she greets Anthony at the opera, her acid smile lets us know that she has that one more secret up her sleeve, making her wicked to the end.