It's hard to say how much of The Great Lie (1939) is original to its screenwriter Lenore J. Coffee. In the first place, the film is adapted from a novel, and secondly, at least according to the story, its stars Bette Davis and Mary Astor were unhappy with the screenplay and rewrote much of it. But how much? Nevertheless, in The Great Lie, as in Sudden Fear and Lightning Strikes Twice, two other films written by Coffee, the heart of the matter is a head-to-head struggle between two strong women. In this film it's Sandra, (Mary Astor) and Maggie (Bette Davis) who go to the mat about first, a husband, who is apparently married to both of them (don't ask!) and then, a baby boy. Maggie (Bette) winds up with both husband and child, but it's touch and go for most of the film. I wish I could say that Coffee's dialog was brilliant, but not so. It's a serviceable, competent screenplay. George Brent, playboy and drunkard, isn't nearly as desirable a husband and father as the film asks us to believe. Not much of an actor, either.
Mary Astor won an Oscar and well-deserved it; she steals the show. It's ironic, and it may be significant, that Mary Astor herself had been involved in a child-custody case several years before this film was made.
The music (by Max Steiner) is noteworthy — mood-appropriate variations on themes from Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto.
Hattie McDaniel does as much with the stereotypical "colored" maid as an actress could be expected to do, but her scenes are still painful and embarrassing to watch.
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