On Henriette Deluzy-Desportes’s first day teaching at a girls’ school, rumors fly that she is embroiled in a murder scandal. Henriette (Bette Davis) admits it openly, forewarning both students and audience, “Life is not always the pretty picture you would like it to be.” Her narration draws us into a sumptuous flashback chronicling her adventures as governess to the family of the Duc de Praslin. Henriette’s calm strength wins the love of the children—and increasingly, the duke (Charles Boyer). Her selflessness is a welcome contrast to the self-absorption that tortures the duchess. Yet both women are ultimately thwarted in their desires. After the duchess reads aloud one of her desperate letters to her indifferent husband, starkly delineating her debasement, she is murdered. The suppression of one woman’s voice leaves its mark on the naiveté of the other. Drawing on historical events of the 1840s purportedly leading to the toppling of the monarchy, this film is also about the ramifications of women’s speech transgressing its bounds.

—Britta Sjogren, Kathy Geritz

• Written by Casey Robinson, based on the novel by Rachel Lyman Field. Photographed by Ernie Haller. With Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O’Neil. (140 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Warner Bros.)