Christopher Strong.

Review #2187: Christopher Strong.

Cast: 

Katharine Hepburn (Lady Cynthia Darrington), Colin Clive (Sir Christopher Strong), Billie Burke (Lady Elaine Strong), Helen Chandler (Monica Strong), Ralph Forbes (Harry Rawlinson), Irene Browne (Carrie Valentine), Jack La Rue (Carlo), and Desmond Roberts (Bryce Mercer) Directed by Dorothy Arzner (#1648 - Sarah and Son, #1810 - Working Girls, #1992 - The Wild Party)

Review: 

Technically, the focus should be on Arzner, because she was the one key regular female director in the sound era (there were others too such as Dorothy Davenport, but I think you know what I mean). But 1933 was also the year of Katharine Hepburn, so why not a few words here. She had early ideas of being an actress, but it was not until she graduated Bryn Mawr College in 1928 that had her on the road to professional acting, which started in the theater. She appeared in a handful of roles that ranged from understudy to being let go, but her performance in 1932's The Warrior's Husband got her notice in Hollywood from a scout. George Cukor vouched for her in casting for what became A Bill of Divorcement, released in the fall of 1932. 1933 saw her star in three films: Christopher Strong, Morning Glory, and Little Women (it was for the middle film that saw her win her first Academy Award). Hepburn came into the picture after Ann Harding had contractual problems, with this being a production under David O. Selznick at RKO. Strong was based off the 1932 novel of the same name, as written by Gilbert Frankau (it only seems apt that he wrote a novel about a Member of Parliament, Frankau apparently had a desire to serve in politics but a conservative man with his history in divorces did not test well for the times). The screenplay was written by Zoe Akins (who had written for Arzner's Sarah and Son), a future Pulitzer Prize winner as a playwright; the profession was changed from the book, which was about a woman racecar driver. Tommy Atkins apparently served as an assistant director. Hepburn reflected on the film in her autobiography and said that she enjoyed her time making the film (along with noting that each wore pants). It was Arzner who apparently modeled Hepburn's character off Amy Johnson, the first woman pilot (well, the word is "aviatrix") to fly solo from England to Australia (there was a mix of newsreel footage for parades and flights included as well). 

It wasn't a huge success at the time, but it certainly stands as a curious film that happened to be made just a year before the enforcement of the Production Code. Of course, the film isn't really about the one in the title as it is about, well, the woman experiencing her first love affair and how it affects her when it comes to the clashes of caution and danger-seekers. Courage, death, love, well, it all comes together in a crash of emotion that really could only come in that Pre-Code era. Hepburn just has that straight-to-the-point personality that exudes confidence with a knowing aura that moves leaps and bounds over anyone she interacts with, which is curious when wrapped with the idea of being in love for the first time - to a stuffy one, no less. Clive is put in the interesting position of being the stodgiest person in a film where he is playing the title character that at one point gets to look upon a woman wearing an outfit that reminds one of a moth. It is a clammy tightrope to walk in terms of "dignity" (he's playing a character that did enough to be called "Sir", remember) when it comes to trying to maintain the idea of normalcy when facing someone with similar features in single-minded goals. All the while, one sees Burke and Chandler from time to time in that engagement of trying to cope with the predicament that comes in love for one with an "occupied" status. Apparently, Arzner paid significant attention to getting something out of Burke when it came to performance along with stating that her interest really fell to Clive's character, which she described as "a man on the cross". Interpret that any way you wish, but each of them do fairly well anyway. As a whole, the film rests on how much one will go with that ending, which, well, rather than face the prospect of an illegitimate child (as one reads between the lines) and wreak havoc on the lives of people she cares about, a decision is made to fly high into the sky with a plan to never see them again. At 78 minutes, it is a decent experience for the curiosity alone.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Bringing Up Baby.

Review #2060: Bringing Up Baby.

Cast: 

Katharine Hepburn (Susan Vance), Cary Grant (Dr. David Huxley), May Robson (Elizabeth Carlton Random), Charles Ruggles (Major Horace Applegate), Walter Catlett (Constable Slocum), Barry Fitzgerald (Aloysius Gogarty), Fritz Feld (Dr. Fritz Lehman), Virginia Walker (Alice Swallow), George Irving (Alexander Peabody), Leona Roberts (Hannah Gogarty), Tala Birell (Mrs. Lehman), and John Kelly (Elmer) Directed by Howard Hawks (#951 - The Big Sleep, #1352 - His Girl Friday, #1399 - Rio Bravo, #1687 - O. Henry's Full House and #1773 - Red River)

Review: 

"I think the picture had a great fault and I learned an awful lot from that. There were no normal people in it. Everyone you met was a screwball and since that time I have learned my lesson and I don’t intend ever again to make everybody crazy."

In 1937, Howard Hawks read a short story in the magazine Collier's that had been written by Hagar Wilde. He laughed so much that he wanted to make a film of the story, which I'm sure you know was called Bringing Up Baby. He had time to spare, considering that he was being stalled out in making "Gunga Din" (which was worked out eventually by George Stevens). Wilde wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Dudley Nichols (known for his structure work with films such as The Informer three years earlier) that retained a chase for a docile cat (panther in the story, leopard in the movie) in the wilderness of Connecticut. Look, sometimes you have to say audiences don't always know what the hell they want. This is especially true here for a film that only would make a small profit upon subsequent re-release. Perhaps most famously, Hepburn would be referred to as "box office poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America a couple of months after the release of this film in 1938, who referred her as having an excellent performance but also referring to it and another film in Stage Door as flops when closing out by saying "Sound judgment and good business sense are valuable assets in an industry that is far from being an art." Believe it or not, Hawks actually had Harold Lloyd in mind first for the lead role played by Grant. The studio rejected that suggestion and offered the role to a handful of others that rejected it. Lloyd apparently told Hawks that the film was the "best constructed comedy" he ever saw, which I'm sure has something to do with Grant and his portrayal that surely was modeled after Lloyd (right down to the glasses). Walter Catlett (a veteran of vaudeville and a number of films since the early 20th century) was brought in to help out Hepburn and her early jitters with doing comedy and ended up having a key role in the film as well. This was the second of four films with Grant and Hepburn after Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940), and it was her work in the latter of the four that resulted in Hepburn's first of four Academy Award wins, proving the old lesson that sometimes words on print really are worth less than toilet paper.

It is a profoundly silly movie, the screwiest kind of screwball movies that could only be done by a craftsman of energetic filmmaking. Hawks may have thought that the film had a few too many zany characters, but the main thing that is told here is that at the end of the day, it is better to enjoy life with free-spirited energy rather than try to stick with dignity. Hawks later stated that the way he achieved such vast pace is by pacing the actors "quickly within the frame rather than cross cutting fast". This results in a zany film filled with consistent energy from beginning to end that delivers everything you would think comes in these types of films without failing in the goal of worthwhile comedy. The 102-minute runtime is the ideal time to try and wrap these odd little characters for one wholly watchable feature that never plods in how it presents these two main people and the winding road they are tied to in amusing predicaments, complete with a select handful of ad-libs. Grant was already a comedic name on the rise with The Awful Truth (1937), because he really was quite the charmer who could hold his own with any kind of material and any kind of requirement, which in this case involves flustered panic. You can see pretty easily from the first sequence involving old bones and where his energies have to lie with such vaunted people. Hepburn is a free spirit of the highest order in impulse, one who has such a great chemistry with Grant that never leaves our mind from the very get-go. They make for such a great pair together, one zigging where the other is zagging without a false note detected among their interactions or ones where Grant is left trying to spin out of a spinning top of absurd situations, one of which involves a torn dress and a hat and another involving waiting to be heard in the middle of a convoluted explanation. They make a quality pair in both timing and, eventually, romance. Robson (a veteran of the stage who became a noted film presence at the ripe age of her seventies) amuses as the dignified straight one among the proceedings to be accompanied by Ruggles and his befuddled attitude among would-be hunters. They are swept up into probably the most interesting of all confounding situations when it comes to Catlett and the belief of just who is really who and the case of one (or two? or none?) leopard. It is the kind of film with quality animal performances (Nissa, the leopard who is used to play both the docile and circus leopard and Skippy, already familiar from The Thin Man) to go with quality timing that practically is as timeless as one would hope to expect in a comedy of screwy manners. The only real debate is just how damn good it is within the career of Howard Hawks and his immeasurable qualities in filmmaking.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

The African Queen.

Review #1379: The African Queen.

Cast: 
Humphrey Bogart (Charlie Allnut), Katharine Hepburn (Rose Sayer), Robert Morley (Rev. Samuel Sayer), Peter Bull (Captain of the Königin Luise), Theodore Bikel (First Officer of the Königin Luise), Walter Gotell (Second Officer of the Königin Luise), Peter Swanwick (First Officer of Fort Shona), and Richard Marner (Second Officer of Fort Shona) Directed by John Huston (#081 - The Maltese Falcon (1941), #094 - The Misfits, #224 - Casino Royale (1967), and #419 - Key Largo)

Review: 
"The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it."
"The only thing you owe the public is a good performance."

Everyone needs a good adventure now and then. Who better to make an adventure than John Huston? He had grown from a bedridden childhood to a resilient early adulthood spent doing various things such as amateur boxing, acting, honorary membership of the Mexican cavalry, and eventually writing, first through magazines before finding his way to contract writing in Hollywood. However, it wasn't until 1938 that he found his way to substantial success as a serious writer, most notably with Jezebel for Warner Brothers. In 1941, he was granted a chance to direct his first film with The Maltese Falcon (1941), an influential noir classic. He directed two further films before serving in the US Army for World War II, where he made a few short films for the Signal Corps before returning to Hollywood for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), where he won Academy Awards for directing and screenplay. In a career that lasted until his death in 1987, he directed and wrote over thirty films, notably directing his father Walter and his daughter Anjelica each to Academy Award wins for their acting in one of Huston's films. One particular actor who benefited from Huston was Humphrey Bogart. He had started his acting career in the theatre, which resulted in a few notices before trying his hand with film parts (with his debut being a short in 1928). Bogart's role in play The Petrified Forest (1935) helped in getting his foot firmly in the door for film roles when it came time for the film adaptation the following year. High Sierra (1941) was the first collaboration between Bogart and Huston (who wrote the film), and the two would collaborate in six films together as star and director.

The film was adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester, which originally had the character of Allnut as an English Cockney (which was changed to him being a Canadian) along with an ambiguous ending for its main characters with its final line. The film had a mixed production between scenes shot in Britian and the Belgian Congo, with a good deal of the cast getting sick (except for Bogart and Huston, who apparently thrived on canned food and whiskey). In any case, one can see the tremendous craftsmanship on display in terms of directing and writing (Huston, James Agee, with un-credited work by John Collier and Peter Viertel) that go along with an incredible pairing with Bogart and Hepburn that make 105 minutes seem to go by quickly. Each play off each other with tense passion that can go for humor alongside drama without becoming a parody of itself. Bogart grabs your attention as he always does with his weary charm and plenty of concentration that is to be expected from him. As such, Hepburn matches up to him just as much in terms of great free-spirited presence that equates to an interesting match that charms the audience once it gets started. There are other members of the cast (such as Morley, who is in the first few minutes), but one spends a primary amount of time with Bogart & Hepburn and finds themselves lost as if they were actually on the boat besides them, complete with Technicolor photography from Jack Cardiff. One should not be surprised to know that this was a hit with the public, with Bogart even winning an Academy Award for his work in the film (while Hepburn and Huston received nominations for acting and directing/writing, respectively), and it is not hard to see why. It is a prime adventure story to serve as the template for plenty of other romantic adventure films, one with a dynamic duo game enough to interact with each other in amusing or touching ways that gives the audience enough curiosity for more in a decade that had plenty of crowd-pleasers to sift through.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

The Philadelphia Story.

Review #1355: The Philadelphia Story.

Cast: 
Cary Grant (C.K. Dexter Haven), Katharine Hepburn (Tracy Samantha Lord), James Stewart (Macaulay "Mike" Connor), Ruth Hussey (Elizabeth Imbrie), John Howard (George Kittredge), Roland Young (William Q. Tracy), John Halliday (Seth Lord), Mary Nash (Margaret Lord), Virginia Weidler (Dinah Lord), and Henry Daniell (Sidney Kidd) Directed by George Cukor (#479 - Travels with My Aunt and #974 - A Star is Born)

Review: 
There are films that are born to be classics. This is one of those movies, pure and simple. Who better to headline this film than three prime stars of Hollywood's Golden Age: Grant, Hepburn, and Stewart. Each had their own way of finding success, which they would utilize for several decades, with a combined five Academy Awards on 18 nominations between them, with the latter two receiving the most benefit from the film in their own ways. had found herself drawn to acting while in college, with her debut in theater occurring in 1928. She spent four years with mostly small roles, but she was noticed in The Warrior's Husband by a scout that led to subsequent screen-testing for RKO for A Bill of Divorcement (1932). Director George Cukor was impressed, and the two would become friends that would do ten films together. She proved a success with the film, and she subsequently won an Academy Award for her third film in Morning Glory (1933). However, her career soon went through a series of setbacks in terms of audience appeal (both in film and theater) that would enclose the rest of the decade, which led her to be dubbed "Box office poison" in one film journal. There were a few moderate successes among slight flops, with a good deal of those films now being held in better respect, such as Mary of Scotland (1936) and Bringing Up Baby (1938). In 1939, she starred in the comic play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry. Inspired by the antics of socialite Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, Barry wrote the play directly for Hepburn, who took on the lead role alongside funding it, which ran for over a year to success. When it came to film rights, Hepburn was given the films rights as a gift by Howard Hughes, which she soon sold to Metro Goldwyn Mayer for the chance to star and choose her own team to direct, write and star. This led to the hiring of Cukor, Donald Ogden Stewart (with un-credited help for the award winning work by Waldo Salt), and the aforementioned two sides of the dynamic triangle for the film in Grant and Stewart, who had just found success in leading roles through You Can't Take It With You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

It is easy to see why this proved to be Hepburn's resurgent comeback. Beyond the fact that she has two dynamic leads to go alongside a game script, she proves her ground with allure, where one sees her vulnerability alongside a good sense of humor that has tremendous chemistry with the other leads. Grant does just as well, having a good sense of timing and debonair nature. Stewart provides some offbeat everyman charm that generates the kind of warmth one would expect from him while delivering a few laughs in one notable scene where he is carrying Hepburn home after a midnight dip, while singing bits of "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Hussey and Howard also prove to be quite interesting in comparison to the others, both lending their own kind of depth (whether fawning or cynical, respectively) that keep them from being just in the background. Young, Nash, and Weidler also keep the support moving with their contribution to the depth the film has in compelling entertainment. The film is generally listed under the genre of romantic comedy with the subgenre of "comedy of remarriage", in which a couple divorces and flirts with others before remarrying (in a time where affairs were not allowed by the Production Code). It has plenty of passion along with moments of amusement, starting right from the opening scene, with an friendly exchange of broken golf clubs and a shove to the ground from the newly divorced leads. Cukor is certainly the right director for this kind of material, one that is smart with where it wants go in romance and amusement, keeping a steady pace of 112 minutes with plenty of heart that makes it a seminal picture of its genre and for the decade as a whole. It is a tremendous achievement for its iconic stars and its director that is definitely worth a look anytime.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Woman of the Year.

Review #911: Woman of the Year.

Cast:
Spencer Tracy (Sam Craig), Katharine Hepburn (Tess Harding), Fay Bainter (Ellen Whitcomb), Reginald Owen (Clayton), Minor Watson (William J. Harding), William Bendix ("Pinkie" Peters), Gladys Blake (Flo Peters), Dan Tobin (Gerald Howe), Roscoe Karns (Phil Whittaker), William Tannen (Ellis), and Ludwig Stössel (Dr. Lubbeck) Directed by George Stevens.

Review:
It has been a long time since I covered a Tracy-Hepburn film. In fact, the one I covered (#139 - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) was the last one, so it only seems fitting that after over 800 reviews, I cover the first movie to pair the two actors together. As it turned out, the two would make nine films together in 25 years of work, while this film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and it is easy to see why. Almost immediately, the chemistry between Tracy and Hepburn comes out beautifully on screen, with Tracy's no-nonsense attitude and levelheadedness meshing with Hepburn's wit and tenderness that is always interesting. Whether by acting or how it was written (done by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin), they just click. There's a good amount of lines (both romantic and comedic), in part due to the execution by Stevens and a pretty good cast as well. Bainter and Watson are pretty good together, and Bendix provides a good chuckle or two along with Blake. This is just a movie that has a good time with its main two actors controlling the show with grace and charm, with an acceptable pace of 114 minutes. The movie earns a good payoff, and it does that for the most part, with the conflicts being believable, and the climax being somewhat serviceable. The ending was one that came about due to the reaction to the original ending shown to test audiences, in order to give Tess her "comeuppance". The ending (done over the objection of the screenwriters along with Hepburn) doesn't derail the movie, though this bit of irony (if you want to call it that, though I can't make waffles either) I guess makes the movie go full circle in a weird way. Regardless, the movie is a fine classic that I can recommend without any doubt in my mind due to the way that it is crafted.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Review #139: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Cast
Spencer Tracy (Matt Drayton), Sidney Poitier (Dr. John Prentice), Katharine Hepburn (Christina Drayton), Katharine Houghton (Joanna "Joey" Drayton), and Cecil Kellaway (Monsignor Ryan) Directed by Stanley Kramer.

Review
This film was the ninth and final pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (1st time I've reviewed a film with these two though, Hepburn's 105th Birthday being today), and they both are wonderful in this drama. It's beautifully acted, especially from Poitier. This is a well set drama that after 45 years holds up allright. But not perfectly allright. I feel that this film wants to have Poitier be too perfect (Which is actually what the director wanted) He does so much good, why would the other parents not accept him? It's a bit outdated, but it is still an allright drama.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.