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Even this early in the sound era, director William Wellman had it all over the competition, as So Big proves in just about every scene and frame. The story is more than a little sentimental, and the characters are mostly dated by any standard after the 1930s (and perhaps even then) -- but that's the fault of the screenplay. But Wellman keeps his camera moving and the dialogue flowing at a good pace, even when dealing with players (George Brent is the worst offender) giving relatively stiff performances in stiffly-written roles. And the result is a surprisingly watchable melodrama that straightens up and flies just right whenever Bette Davis comes onto the screen -- when she delivers lines like "I'll probably marry some honry-handed son of a toil, and if I do the horny hands'll win me," even audiences 80-plus years later take it, and her performance and portrayal, very seriously. And her work here does, indeed, have the kind of immediacy of a bracing stage performance. The movie is no masterpiece, lost or otherwise (and at one point it seemed like Warner Bros. was going to give up the screen rights to the book So Big, despite having made three versions of it), but her Davis's portrayal and Wellman's handling of the material it's worth tracking down and seeing.