Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942). Based on a novel released the previous year, Now, Voyager casts Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale, a miserable heiress who comes under particular abuse from her domineering mother (Gladys Cooper). Charlotte is taken to a sanitarium by Dr. Jacquith (Claude Rains, who’s wonderful in the role), who helps her overcome the feelings of inadequacy that have been instilled over the years. The prescription includes a six-month pleasure cruise following her discharge. It’s on that global jaunt that Charlotte meets Jeremiah Duvaux Durrance (Paul Henreid). Although he’s married, the two begin a romance. Things are further complicated when both return to their respective homes and then their paths cross again, in quietly heartrending fashion. Director Irving Rapper handles the proceedings with aplomb, preventing the melodrama from swamping the film. He certainly benefits from pointing the camera straight at Davis, one of the most no-nonsense stars U.S. cinema ever produced. Davis gives herself over to complex character work needed to play Charlotte while showing the thread of hard intelligence that will lift the woman out of her misery. There’s also some cracking comedic work by Mary Wickes, in a small role as a nurse employed in the Vale household.

The Three Faces of Eve (Nunnally Johnson, 1957). Any movie exploring heavy-duty psychological issues that bears a copyright date around or before the middle of the last century is going to automatically have some issues. Based on a real case that was turned into a nonfiction bestseller, The Three Faces of Eve is an early cinematic depiction of the mental state now known as dissociative identity disorder. Despite attempts to present the story in a resolutely serious and informative manner — exemplified by Alistair Cooke providing an introduction and narration with journalistic sternness — the particulars are stiffly unconvincing. As is likely expected, the redeeming component of the film is the performance by Joanne Woodward in the title role. A relative newcomer at the time, Woodward took on the part after several other major actresses passed, an almost inconceivable circumstance given the way the challenge of playing a women living with a trio of completely different personalities practically guarantees awards glory. Sure enough, Woodward claimed the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and it was completely deserved. It’s a role that invites showboating, but Woodward opts for piercing honesty, finding an engaging vividness in subtle shifts rather than sweeping gestures.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (Alex Gibney, 2012). A product of the inexhaustible Alex Gibney documentary machine, Mea Maxima Culpa ruthlessly examines the grotesque scandal of sexual abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church. Gibney frames the film with the especially grotesque case of decades of abuse perpetrated in a Milwaukee school for the deaf, but devotes time to as much of the sprawling assault on morality as a couple hours of nonfiction filmmaking can contain. The film is laudable in its scope and density. It stirs outrage and sympathy in equal measure, with a handful of individuals — mostly survivors of the abuse who became brave voices for justice — emerging as true heroes. I would have preferred Gibney excised the creepy, foreboding recreations, but overall Mea Maxima Culpa is vital, powerful filmmaking,