That Certain Woman

With Bette Davis rising quickly through the ranks at Warner Brothers, she was able to choose her leading men, and for That Certain Woman (1937) she chose Henry Fonda. Their lives had intersected a decade earlier when they worked in the same New England summer stock company. Even before that portion of their lives, they had met when Fonda gave the 17-year-old Davis a tour of Princeton University. One night, Fonda later wrote, while he and a friend took Davis and her sister out for a tour of the campus by moonlight, he nervously gave Davis an innocent kiss on the lips. A few days later he received a letter from her: "I've told mother about our lovely experience together in the moonlight. She will announce the engagement when we get home." Fonda was so naïve that he wasn't sure at first whether this was a joke! Davis remembered and liked Fonda enough to request him for this film and then again for Jezebel (1938).

The screen shows a newspaper page with headlines, photographs, and a box in large type, all part of a full-page gangster story. However, only some of the text that can be seen around the edges is part of the story. The rest is "dummy" type, about clothes for college men or electrical equipment.

The opening credits roll up.

Featured in Breakdowns of 1938 (1938)