Now, Voyager (1942)

Now, Voyager movie storyline. From the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty and enhanced by Max Steiner’s score. A classic soap-operaish, melodramatic tearjerker from Hollywood’s Golden Era. Repressed, middle-aged, frumpy, ‘ugly duckling’ spinster Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis), from a wealthy Boston family, is controlled by her domineering, unloving mother (Gladys Cooper).

During counseling at a sanitarium with a kindly, esteemed psychotherapist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), the frightened, frustrated, introverted woman is restored and transformed into a chic, more attractive, self-confident person. During a suggested South American cruise, she meets a handsome, suave unhappily-married architect Jerry Durrance and finds love through a bittersweet shipboard affair and a befriending of his shy and troubled, withdrawn daughter Tina. Concludes with the famous line: “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars” as the two share a cigarette smoke.

Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty. Prouty borrowed her title from the Walt Whitman poem “The Untold Want”, which reads in its entirety,

Directed by: Irving Rapper
Starring: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville, John Loder, Ilka Chase, Lee Patrick, Franklin Pangborn, Katharine Alexander, Mary Wickes, James Rennie
Screenplay by: Casey Robinson
Cinematography by: Sol Polito
Film Editing by: Warren Low
Costume Design by: Orry-Kelly
Set Decoration by: Fred M. MacLean
Art Direction by: Robert M. Haas
Music by: Max Steiner
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 31, 1942