DVD Review: Katharine Hepburn - 100th Anniversary Collection

By Frankie Dees Jun 6, 2007, 16:06 GMT

Morning Glory (1933), Undercurrent (1946), Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Without Love (1945), Dragon Seed (1944), The Corn Is Green (1979). ...more

Warner Brothers presents a six-film collection to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest actresses, Katharine Hepburn. Starting with her third film, 1933’s ‘Morning Glory, which resulted in her first Best Actress  Oscar and ending with her last collaboration with long-time cohort George Cukor in 1979s ‘The Corn Is Green’, this set provides a nice sampling of her early to late work.

Katharine Hepburn is an infinitely fascinating actress whose mannerisms, her way of speech, even her gait, have become iconic. Hepburn had a sharp, intellectual wit and was not afraid to embrace her athleticism, refusing to conform to the standards expected of her by Hollywood at the time. Flying in the face of the blond bombshell actresses of the thirties, actresses like Jean Harlow or Fay Wray, she very rarely wore dresses, opting for pantsuits and despising makeup.

This set her apart early in her career with films like ‘Morning Glory’ and ‘Little Women’ but her caustic relationship with the press, frequently turning down interviews, or making quips to amuse herself (when reporters in 1933 asked if her and her then husband socialite businessman “Luddy” Ogden Smith had any children, her at the time controversial response: “two white and three colored”), led to a arrogance-fueled public persona.

By 1938, a string of flops including ‘Sylvia Scarlett’ (in this set) and ‘Bringing up Baby’ led to an infamous box office poll that labeled her “Box Office Poison”. It wouldn’t take two years for her to jump back into the spotlight with an adaptation of Philip Barry’s ‘The Philadelphia Story’, a play written specifically for her. With the assistance of Howard Hughes, she was able to attain the film rights and get control over who directed and starred in the film through MGM. With George Cukor along with Cary Grant and James Stewart firmly in place, the adaptation became one of the biggest hits of 1940 and her status as one of our great screen idols confirmed.

This first film in this set will be 1933’s ‘Morning Glory’ directed by Lowell Sherman (Born to be Bad). Sherman was an early silent film actor turned director who never quite got the chance to be remembered as his death in 1934 led to any formidable career cut short. Adapted by Howard J. Green from a play by Zoe Akins (How to Marry a Millionaire), Hepburn plays the title role of Eva Lovelace, a - powerful in spirit, naïve in relationships - young actress who moves to New York to become a star from her small hometown in Vermont. Wasting no time, she promptly hits the office of Louis Easton (Adolphe Meniou), one of the big producers on Broadway. Meeting an accomplished, aging actor “Bob” Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith), she is able to endear herself to him through her completely unaware fast-talking, bouncing from one subject to the next with the speed and plan of a pinball.

When “Bob” Hedges introduces her to Louis Easton and a writer Joseph Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), her zany manner of speech finds a fan in Sheridan but Easton waves her off as a bit crazy. We cut to an unspecified time later where she was apparently given a chance by Easton and Sheridan in a small role and she didn’t seem to be very good. Now found penniless and hungry in a diner, ‘ol “Bob” Hedges happens to see her on a way to an uppity party hosted by Easton where he invites her along. Sheridan is also there where it doesn’t seem his crush has relinquished. 

Almost making a drunken fool out of herself, she ends up putting on an impressive one-woman show acting out scenes from ‘Romeo & Juliet’ where she soon passes out in the lap of Easton. With indirect 30s fashion, we learn Easton might have felt a bit sorry for her (or taken advantage of her…its hard to be sure) and asks Sheridan to do his dirty work for him, unbeknownst that Sheridan was in love with her. Cut to some time later and Eva might just get her chance when a marquee actress starts in with diva demands on the eve of a big show Eva understudied for with the help of Sheridan.

‘Morning Glory’ alludes to the sudden fame of being a Broadway star only for it to fade fairly quickly. The title is only half-way appropriate to the film. Katharine Hepburn won her first Best Actress Oscar for this role and it’s not hard to see why. A genuinely intriguing character and questionably quite mental, she’s at turns determined but sadly naïve. And when she does get her big break, the movie gives it a peculiarly depressing spin…which could possibly describe the tone of the whole film – seemingly comedic; there is a lot of slightly disturbing subtext throughout the picture.

The movie, however, can’t quite keep up with Hepburn’s acting. Playing oddly with time lapses, the film gives no indication of how much time has passed between certain scenes where it almost appears whole chunks of the film are missing. Fairbanks Jr. and Meniou are both fine in the roles but nothing outside of Hepburn particularly stands out. An easy recommend to check out an early showcase for Hepburn. The film is presented in 4:3 full-frame with special features consisting of a cartoon "Bosko's Mechanical Man" and a comedic short "Menu".

Next up is ‘Sylvia Scarlett’ from 1935. Despite being the first pairing of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and directed by frequent collaborator George Cukor, the film has a fairly mixed reputation among classic film buffs. Unlike ‘Bringing up Baby’ which has now had a 2nd life regarded as a classic screwball comedy even though it bombed upon release, ‘Sylvia Scarlett’ has had no such resurgence (although retrospectives of Cukor’s career peg it as a cult favorite in his filmography). One of the many pictures in a row that contributed to Hepburn being labeled “box office poison”, it’s by no means a bad picture but I can see that all involved were still in the development phases as far as screwball comedy was concerned.

It may have to do with a particularly convoluted and lengthy plot. Katharine Hepburn stars as the titular ‘Sylvia Scarlett’, a French gal who escapes to England with her father (Edmund Gwenn) who has gotten himself into trouble with gambling debts. Cutting her hair, dressing up like a boy and assuming the name ‘Sylvester’ to avoid police descriptions, they hit the road only to lose their traveling cash to a slick, English conman Jimmy Monkley (Cary Grant). When by fate, they find themselves in the same train cabin with Jimmy, he’s all to happy to give back what he snaked out of them along with a proposition – to join him in his shenanigans. With a con team, three strong, they should be able to carry off bigger scams.
Soon, Sylvester (Jimmy is still in the dark about her sex) grows a conscious and with a little ribbing by alcohol, refuses to scam a poor chambermaid (Dennie Moore). Instead, in a rather quick and dubious turn of events, the three along with the maid become a traveling singing and dancing clown troupe. Yep, I said a traveling singing and dancing clown troupe.

Without skipping a beat, the film now moves from a rakish comedy to mostly romantic misadventures with a little out-of-the-place, late in the game drama. Now a traveling clown troupe, one performance has them being heckled by a smooth, player-like artist Michael Fane (Brian Aherne). When Sylvester stands up to him, Fane is impressed by the young boy’s moxy and invites them all over for a late night party. As Sylvester falls for Fane, she soon exposes Sylvia to him with less than expected results; meanwhile Monkley develops a crush on Fane’s Russian girlfriend all the while Pa gets himself involved with the maid. These relationships all play out in expected and less expected ways and when heartbreak strikes, one man out of three realizes his mistake.

Overflowing with plot turns and narrative spins, there’s a lot of singular plot points to enjoy but as a whole, doesn’t quiet work despite spot-on performances from Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn, is obviously doing a take on her boyish image, and is comparatively believable as a young boy as well as a young woman lost in love. Cary Grant is continuing on the road to full-fledged slapstick genius with innate comedic timing. His role here is fun but he’s mostly pushed to the sidelines as far as the main romantic thrust of the picture goes. Is it odd that Grant plays second banana to Brian Aherne? Yeah it is…and it’s not completely convincing. Especially by the end of the picture where he is forced to kidnap a woman - As if! (Yep, I’m heterosexual…but that was my wife’s response to the event and I’m inclined to agree with her). 

A lot of fun moments to be had and again Hepburn along with Grant makes the film worth watching despite some peculiar script issues but I can definitely recognize that it’s not considered one of the best of the two main players and the director. The film is presented in 4:3 full-frame with special features “Alias St. Nick” a Happy Harmonies cartoon and “Los Angeles: Wonder City of the West” a travel-centric short.

We jump ahead nine years to ‘Dragon Seed’, Harold S. Bucquet directs from a script adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel (The Good Earth). 1937s ‘The Good Earth’ was more tolerable to me because of Paul Muni’s less exaggerated make-up and stereotypical histrionics, but ‘Dragon Seed’ suffers from these issues to a point of distraction and almost renders the film completely inexcusable. Despite solid actors such as Hepburn and Walter Huston involved, their ridiculous make-up jobs and incredulous manners of speech and movement automatically raise up a red flag. Capitalizing on the anti-Japanese sentiment of the WWII-torn early forties like a lot of films of this era (John Wayne’s ‘Flying Tigers’), if you can get yourself to discount the reality of filmmaking in those days, there are still very few effective dramatic moments that can rise above the blatant propaganda.

The film follows the uprising of a respected Chinese farmer dynasty, the Tans. Walter Huston plays Ling Tan, the patriarch of this family who has farmed on the same piece of land for generations. Aline MacMahon, with a supporting Actress nomination, plays his wife. His has three sons, the middle Lao Er (Turhan Bey) is married to the outspoken, peculiar Jade (Katharine Hepburn) and have no children – All living under the same roof. He also has a daughter married to a Japanese goods merchant who decides to join the Japanese invading forces for self-preservation. The bulk of the story focuses on the rest of the Tan family resisting the Japanese invading forces which result in rape and murder (and genocide on a grander scale). Lionel Barrymore narrates in a dry manner.

The film has moments here and there that work but there’s no getting around the fact that the bulk of the Chinese cast is played by white people. I’m more than happy to make allowances for the films that deserve it (like the aforementioned ‘The Good Earth’ which is just a better film regardless) but ultimately the film would’ve been rather weak even if it had been played by a Chinese cast. The Japanese are seen as marauding monsters, while the Chinese are one-note peaceful farmers. I have no doubt about the atrocities of war but a more even-handed balance is needed if the film is going to be convincing – mediocre at best. The film is presented in 4:3 full frame with special features including a Screwy Squirrel cartoon ‘Happy Go Nutty’ and a promo short ‘Romance of Celluloid: Twenty Years After’, which celebrates the films of 1924.

1945 brings us to ‘Without Love’ the third collaboration between Hepburn and her one true love and longtime screen companion Spencer Tracy. Probably one of their weakest team-ups, there is still a lot of fun to be had as it is, after all, a Tracy/Hepburn flick. Lucille Ball and Kennan Wynn also provide some comedic support. In addition to ‘Holiday’ and ‘The Philadelphia Story’, ‘Without Love’ was taken from a stage play from Philip Barry with an adaptation by Donald Ogden Stewart, so the beats in dialogue and comedy are never far away here from those earlier films - if less successful.

A rather ridiculous plot stars Spencer Tracy as scientist Patrick Jamieson, who by what could only be called fate, finds himself in the basement of well-to-do widow Jamie Rowan (Hepburn), who has sworn off love due to the death of her husband. Jamieson is helping the WWII effort by working on a high-altitude oxygen mask for pilots and Hepburn decides to help out the wartime effort by allowing Pat to move in with her due to WWII’s housing shortage. Pat has also been burned by love and they decide on a union ‘without love’ as they see much to respect in each other but neither want a marriage that could end in heartbreak.

Of course, these plans go awry amidst a lot of humorous hijinks. The bright spots include Hepburn getting “high” when helping Pat with his high-oxygen mask experiments, and Pats sleepwalking in which he entrusts his faithful little dog to keep him in check. Kennan Wynn is very funny as the man that brought the two together and Lucille Ball, while downright subtle compared to her TV work, also has some good scenes as Jamie’s real estate agent.

While it doesn’t approach the brilliance of ‘Pat & Mike’ or ‘Adam’s Rib’, the chemistry is readily apparent and the verbal tap-dance between the two still present. The script doesn’t quite have the sharp-edged wit to give them their best work; it’s mostly reverence between the two as opposed to disgust which is always funnier for a couple to tower over, but certainly recommended for the pair’s fans. The film is presented in 4:3 full frame with special features including a Tex Avery cartoon ‘Swing Shift Cinderella’ and a ‘Crime Does Not Pay’ short ‘Purity Squad’.

An intriguing turn for Hepburn is next with 1946s ‘Undercurrent’, that rare thriller in her filmography which could almost be billed as a film noir…but not quite. Very similar to Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’, Director Vincent Minnelli impresses with this rare genre picture that confirms he had quite a bit of talent outside of colorful musicals like ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ and soft-spoken melodramas such as ‘The Clock’.

Katharine Hepburn plays Ann Hamilton, the tomboy daughter of a widowed scientist (Edmund Gwenn) on the verge of selling his big innovation to a famous industrialist Alan Garraway (Robert Taylor). Convinced she will be living her life alone, sparks fly with the too good to be true Alan. Handsome, wealthy and powerful, he sweeps her away from her comfy former life to settle in the high society world of politics. When something is too good to be true, it usually is, and she can’t help but feel discomforted about something – something nagging at the back of her mind. In a surprise small role early in the film, Robert Mitchum shows up as a nondescript character - obvious to the audience that its Ann’s missing brother – whom she has become obsessed with.

It seems Alan is hiding something, and when Alan explodes at the mere mention of Ann’s missing brother and dead mother, Ann’s paranoia takes over. Does her husband have ulterior motives, is the marriage a façade? Or is she slowly crumbling?

A different role for Hepburn and its no surprise she did well – kinda makes you wonder how the strong-willed Hepburn and the notorious women taskmaster Hitchcock would have fared? - Probably not too favorably. The film has a solid foreboding tension throughout with a capable script, cast and direction. Robert Mitchum also plays against type with a role not made of machismo. Definitely worth checking out. The film is presented in 4:3 full frame with special features including a Screwy Squirrel cartoon ‘Lonesome Lenny’ and the short ‘Theatre of Life: Traffic with the Devil’.

And the last film in our set jumps ahead 33 years to 1979 for ‘The Corn is Green’. The last of ten films made with George Cukor, who cast her in his first film 1932s ‘Bill of Divorcement’, ‘The Corn is Green’ was a made for television production of the famous play by Emlyn Williams which also had a theatrical adaptation in 1945 with Bette Davis.

Hepburn plays Lilly Moffat, a British spinster who inherits a Welsh estate from a death in the family. The estate comes with the baggage of a small mining town and she sets her mind to single-handedly educate the children of this town who work under slave-labor like conditions within the town squire’s (Bill Fraser) dank mining pits. Starting a school and recruiting children around town causes a riff in the community and ticks off the voracious squire who figures quite rightly that educated children won’t stick around to tend to his mines.

Lilly takes a shine to an older student, Morgan Evans (Ian Saynor), whom she singles out to put on the path of success and ultimately wants him to score a scholarship at Oxford much to the chagrin of the local, Podunk townspeople who don’t want any smarty-pants around. A path to success is never easy, however, and Lilly encounters a lot of obstacles along the way including her own obstinacy.

The film does reveal its television origins, but the talent is able to elevate it above, say, a Lifetime channel movie. It’s well-acted and directed and will provide a nice watch for fans of the play, original film with Davis, or fans of the talent but may provide little interest for those outside that spectrum. The film is presented in 4:3 full frame and has no special features.

All six DVDs come in a foldable case with three double-disc plastic trays with a plastic slipcover. Although there are apparently a few out there that enjoy the space-saving methods of this type of packaging, I’ve never been a big fan preferring each film to have its own keepcase and cover art. A solid collection of never before released on DVD Hepburn pics, I can’t really label any of these must-haves, but will provide enough interest to Hepburn fans and classic film buffs to rate a recommend and provide a nice sampling of classic Hepburn, femme fatale Hepburn and in the box sets one sour spot - Chinese Hepburn.

Katharine Hepburn - 100th Anniversary Collection is now available at Amazon. As of yet, it is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.