While Bette Davis didn't make any feature films in 1957, that doesn't mean that she didn't want to work. When the studios didn't call for a good film role, she'd turn to the new medium of television to keep her face in front of the public eye, or head to New York for limited Broadway runs.
In this half hour episode of "Telephone Time", one of many television anthology shows of the time, Davis returned to the world of teaching, which she had done earlier in "The Corn is Green". The previous year, she had played a strong-willed librarian in "Storm Center" where she befriended a young boy fascinated by reading.
Here, she is a grade school teacher stuck in the small one room schoolhouse with her students during a horrendous blizzard. A brisk but detailed teleplay, she plays a truly compassionate woman in fear for herself as much as she is for her charges, but not willing to show that, she turns the disaster into an adventure.
There is no snarling in Davis's subtle performance, just the quick cropped delivery that had recurred in the 1940's, disappeared in "All About Eve", and pretty much remained for the rest of her career. Davis would continue to work in T.V. for the remainder of her career, and this is one of her highlights.
In this half hour episode of "Telephone Time", one of many television anthology shows of the time, Davis returned to the world of teaching, which she had done earlier in "The Corn is Green". The previous year, she had played a strong-willed librarian in "Storm Center" where she befriended a young boy fascinated by reading.
Here, she is a grade school teacher stuck in the small one room schoolhouse with her students during a horrendous blizzard. A brisk but detailed teleplay, she plays a truly compassionate woman in fear for herself as much as she is for her charges, but not willing to show that, she turns the disaster into an adventure.
There is no snarling in Davis's subtle performance, just the quick cropped delivery that had recurred in the 1940's, disappeared in "All About Eve", and pretty much remained for the rest of her career. Davis would continue to work in T.V. for the remainder of her career, and this is one of her highlights.