"I was delighted with this part because it was a change of pace," Bette Davis said about playing Louise Elliott in The Sisters. "I was always challenged by a new type of person to play." Louise is a most appealing type of person, a warm, intelligent woman who loses her heart to a charming ne'er-do-well (Errol Flynn, in his first film with Davis) who marries, then deserts her. It takes the pandemonium of the San Francisco earthquake and two years of heartache to reunite them. Anita Louise and Jane Bryan co-star as Louise's sisters, whose own marital trials add more hankies to this prestige melodrama bookended by the 1904 and 1908 Presidential elections and enriched by a nod to the dawning women's movement.

Adapted from the 1937 novel by Myron Brinig, THE SISTERS is a historical melodrama that looks at four years in the lives of three Montana sisters during the early 20th century. Helen (Anita Louise) wants only to marry, have children, and live and die in her hometown. Meanwhile, her headstrong sister, Grace (Jane Bryan), marries an older man for money and fortune. However, the third sister, Louise (Bette Davis in a soft, sympathetic role), is the most lovely and intelligent. Engaged to marry the town's most eligible bachelor, Louise instead runs off with Frank Medlin (Errol Flynn), a charming, misguided sportswriter who wants to write the Great American Novel. No sooner does Louise follow him to San Francisco than she learns Frank has a drinking problem and a restless heart and can't seem to pull his life together even though he desperately loves her. When the Great Earthquake hits, Louise's life literally comes tumbling down around her. Director Anatole Litvak's dramatic and powerfully acted film deals with themes of inner strength, the bond between sisters, and unconditional love.