Philip provides a flat for her, arranges to take care of her financially, and breaks off his relationship with Norah. Norah and Philip admit how interpersonal relationships may amount to bondage (Philip was bound to Mildred, as Norah was to Philip, and as Mildred was to Emil). Of Human Bondage 1946". Turner Classic Movies. Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System ( Time Warner) . Retrieved 15 August 2016. Henreid wrote in his memoirs that he felt the original script "was very well written" but that Goulding rewrote it throughout the shoot. He did not get along with Goulding, disagreeing as to how scenes should be played and taking too many long takes. [4] One reaction RKO executives never expected to hear at the preview was laughter. After watching the film several times, they felt the Max Steiner score was to blame, and the composer wrote a new one that included a motif for each of the principal characters. [3]

A medical student falls prey to a sluttish waitress. Starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis. Screenplay by Lester Cohen. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Directed by John Cromwell. Produced and distributed by RKO. Nervous about audience reaction to her performance, Davis opted not to attend a preview of the film in Santa Barbara, although her mother Ruth and husband Harmon O. Nelson went. Ruth later related, "For one hour and a half of horrible realism, we sat riveted without speaking a word, with only a fleeting glance now and then at each other. We left the theater in absolute silence. Neither of us knew what to think, for we felt the picture would make or break her, but would the public like the unpleasant story as well as the people at the preview seemed to?" Upon arriving home, her husband told Davis he thought her performance, while "painfully sincere", might harm her career. [3]

It was a long way before Philip came up with such a conclusion, and the experience of a love for a selfish and vulgar woman, called Mildred, was the last point of his attempts to become free. His obsession with this girl can be viewed as desperate and unconscious attempt for happiness. Philip by his nature was very sensitive, but he always tried not to show his vulnerability. Mildred had no moral values and her primary interest was money and prosperity, she took advantage of Philip’s soft heart and generosity. Mildred even let herself use and hurt Philip, but he continued making efforts to win her favor and her heart. This love affair was not destined to have a happy end, but a miserable one. What he realized from this relationship was that happiness cannot be measurement of freedom, or rather the pursuit of happiness. Philip finally found peace when he stopped to look for it, and let things go their way. Higham, Charles, The Life of Bette Davis. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company 1981; ISBN 0-02-551500-4, pp. 66–72

By this time he realized that he did his best writing when he wrote about his own experience. Also by this time he had experienced considerable success as a playwright and was able to apply to his prose writing some of the techniques he had learned as a dramatist, thereby bringing greater dramatic tension into his fiction.The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months earlier. Now orphaned, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, Louisa and William Carey. Canham, 1976 p. 74-75: Davis “is matched by the gentlemanly understatement of Howard’s playing, yet he is sufficiently fluid an actor to present Davis from dominating the film as she used to do at Warners with male leads of limited talent such as George Brent and Paul Henreid.”