Remake This: "Of Human Bondage" (1934)

"I begged, implored, cajoled," Bette Davis remembered in lobbying for the lead role of Mildred, "I haunted Jack Warner's office. Every single day, I arrived at his door with the shoeshine boy. The part of Mildred was something I had to have. [Jack L. Warner] could not have possibly understand any actress who would want to play such a part. I spent six months in supplication and drove Mr. Warner to the point of desperation -- desperate enough to say 'yes' -- anything to get rid of me... If my memory is correct, he said, "Go and hang yourself.""

But Bette Davis came to a disappointed set regardless. Leslie Howard was initially disappointed with having to work with an American actress and would even feed her lines off camera while reading a book. Davis used this to her advantage in the scenes where Mildred had to be horrible to Philip. Howard would even warm up to Bette and would make two more films with her including Humphrey Bogart's star-making "The Petrified Forest." (1936) But even with the film finished, "Of Human Bondage" still suffered, losing $45,000 at the box office.

"[Of Human Bondage] may not possess any great dramatic strength, but the very lifelike quality of the story and the marked authenticity of the atmosphere cause the spectators to hang on every word uttered by the interesting group of characters. [...] No more expert illustration of getting under the skin of the character has been done in motion pictures," Mordaunt Hall wrote in The New York Times. "Mr. Howard suffers seemingly all the woe and cheer experienced by Carey. Another enormously effective portrayal is that of Bette Davis as Mildred Rogers, the waitress who continually accepts Carey's generosity and hospitality and reveals herself as a heartless little ingrate."