Back in Bondage

Of Human Bondage. When a Hollywood actress begins to hunger for juicier roles, she often ends up playing a tart. Sadie Thompson or maybe Nana. Or sometimes Mildred, the strumpet waitress who dishes out the spice and spite in Somerset Maugham's classic autobiographical novel of the torments of young manhood. Bette Davis flashed on-screen as the first movie Mildred, in 1934. Eleanor Parker entered a low bid in 1946. Now, all Mildred's beads, feather boas, and skin-tight finery bedizen the substantial person of Kim Novak. Though the film will give ordinary moviegoers little pleasure, it may well set Bette Davis to snapping her garters in glee.

As portrayed by Actress Novak, Mildred giggles a lot and speaks cockney like a girl who learned the sound of Bow bells from somewhere in South Chicago. But she still manages to make life hell for Philip (Laurence Harvey), the sensitive clubfooted medical student whom she meets, seduces and betrays with monotonous regularity. Eventually, Philip drags himself from her bed, only to find himself standing beside it while she dies of syphilis reels later. "I want a proper funeral," moans Mildred just before the end, and she is duly interred tor the third time.

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