Bette Davis' bravura, moving-but-never-morbid performance as Judith Traherne, a dying heiress determined to find happiness in her few remaining months, remains a three-hankie classic. But that success would never have happened if Davis hadn't pestered studio brass to buy Dark Victory's story rights. Jack Werner finally did so…skeptically. "Who wants to see a dame go blind?" he asked.

Almost everyone: Dark Victory was Davis' biggest box-office hit yet and garnered Academy Award nominations for 1939's Best Picture, Actress and Original Score (Max Steiner). "If it were an automobile," Newsweek wrote, Dark Victory "would be a Rolls-Royce." It's the perfect match of star and vehicle.