Poll: What's your favorite Katharine Hepburn classic?

Communities of Women: Katharine Hepburn Passes the Bechdel Test

The cast of The Women with director George Cukor

The Bechdel Test had a significant impact on helping film viewers become aware of the lack of realistic female relationships on screen. It points out that not only are individual women not accurately represented, but that the way women interact with one another as friends, mothers, daughters, sisters, is almost completely ignored. Groups of men are represented in a slew of westerns, military, and sports films in which their primary subject of interest is not women. Yet movies like chick flicks, which do show groups of women, are more often than not focused on a romantic relationship with a man. This was equally true in classic Hollywood, the most obvious example being George Cukor's fabulous all-female cast The Women (1939), in which all the characters ever talk about is men!

Scholar Andrew Britton argues that Hollywood films about female relatives show these characters “bound together in passionate, destructive resentment and animosity” which is invariably generated by the women being rivals for a man and/or, as in the twin-doubles films, by their embodiment of the ‘good’ (wifely, domesticated) and ‘bad’ (sexual) woman respectively." However, he recognizes the difference in Hepburn films. He calls the female bond in Hepburn films an “oppositional unity in contradiction to that of the patriarchal family”. These bonds are therefore, as in Little Women (1933, left) and many other films of this type, “destroyed by the intervention of men." It is Hepburn’s star persona which allies the audience with the female bonds, alienating, rather than sympathizing with, the male characters, and thus creating a new type of film about women.

Stage Door (1937) Hepburn second from left then
Ginger Rogers then, seated, Eve Arden

Hepburn epitomizes what her mother’s generation of feminists were striving for: an educated, opinionated, confident, independent, autonomous professional woman. First wave feminism provided the modern woman with the right to vote, as well as the right to better higher education and to birth control. What the first wave didn't establish was an equal footing with men in the workplace. Therefore, Katharine Hepburn’s generation inherited an incomplete feminism, which did not establish social equality with men. However, a few women of her generation were able to establish themselves as exceptions that could work and live as examples of what a more complete feminism could look like. Author Susan Ware points out that Hepburn “remained one of the few actresses who was ever allowed to sacrifice love for career” while yet maintaining her legitimacy as a truly female star with sex appeal.

Hepburn in
Christopher Strong (1933)

The presence of Katharine Hepburn’s star text (the mode in which the star persona, may be read within the context of the film) gives strength and legitimacy to the presentation of feminist ideology within the greater film text. The plots of these films center on the goals, cares, concerns of groups of women and how they address their personal issues with each other. These films are unique in that they ally the audience with these female groups rather than with a single male protagonist or a heterosexual romance. Katharine Hepburn’s persona emphasizes this alliance because she represents the bridging element between the traditional female roles, in which she plays the leading woman to a leading man, and the strengths and legitimacy of a female group. 

Little Women (1933): Jean Parker, Joan Bennet, Spring
Byington, Frances Dee, and Katharine Hepburn

In other words, it is only because Hepburn’s star text in the traditional film roles reads as a liberated feminist that the audience is tempered to the idea that whole groups of women may also express autonomy in the same way. During the 1930s she had made such films as Christopher Strong, Little Women, Alice Adams, Mary of Scotland, and A Woman Rebels, in which she portrayed autonomous and powerful women. Her particular brand of female independence had been accepted by the general public to the point that it became something attractive rather than repulsive. Therefore, the film text is therefore able to portray communities of women which highlight this new type of female empowerment because her star text has already proved its possibility and its potential.

Desk Set (1957): Dina Merrill, Sue Randall,
Katharine Hepburn, and Joan Blondell

Two films in particular, Stage Door (1937) and Desk Set (1957), prove that communities of autonomous women have a place in society when the star text of the central character makes them acceptable to that society by way of being exceptions. Hepburn’s popularity as an exception to traditional gender expectations supports the acceptance of these groups in a way that necessitates their existence. The presence of the familiar Hepburn persona prevents the audience from registering horror at the possibility of a group of autonomous women as the focus for a popular film. George Cukor, who directed Katharine Hepburn in ten films and was her dearest friend in Hollywood, once said, “Kate is the most eccentric person I know. And the most eccentric thing about her is she thinks she’s regular” (Chandler 11). Perhaps this is the reason for her energetic spirit and perhaps this is what all twentieth century women aspired to – the regularity of Hepburn’s eccentricity as an autonomous female.

Nazi Anti-Semitic Propaganda Filmmaking: Veit Harlan and "Jud Suss"

Veit Harlan and Kristina Soderbaum

At our weekly village movie night this week we watched a documentary called Harlan: In the Shadow of "Jew Suss" about Third Reich propaganda filmmaker, Veit Harlan, whose controversial film inspired a nation to persecute and murder all Jews. I had not heard of Veit Herlan before viewing this documentary, but it immediately became clear to me that his work, especially Jud Suss, was infamous throughout Europe. Harlan and his actress wife Kristina Soderbaum were similar in status to Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.  His films were shown in movie houses all over Germany and Europe and his wife, a beautiful Aryan blonde, was famous for her woman-child characters and her tragic screen deaths. They and their children lived a life of privilege during and after the Third Reich. Unlike many German filmmakers of the time, Harlan remained in Germany as the Nazis rose to power. He became closely affiliated with the Party, working very closely with Goebbels himself to produce anti-Semitic propaganda films.

After viewing the documentary, I found Jud Suss on YouTube and watched it. The film is set up as a period drama, taking place in 1770s Stuttgart. A new duke has just taken his place as leader. Upon taking a solemn oath to protect his people, the duke is celebrated and respected by his countrymen. But when the duke is denied funds for such extravagances as an opera, a ballet, and a personal guard, he turns to a wealthy Jew named Joseph Suss Oppenheimer from outside Stuttgart for financial aid. Misguided by his greed, the duke allows Suss gradually take control of various political matters, including road taxes. Suss uses his power to abuse the people of Stuttgart and to open the gates of the city to his people, who have been historically denied entrance to Stuttgart. And, being Jews, they bring with them crime, licentiousness, corruption, and all the sins of hell. When Suss takes advantage of the chairman's only daughter and causes her death, the people of the city, led by the duke's dissolved council, rise up in rebellion. Suss is given a brief trial in which he lies and denies all guilt, and then he is hanged for defiling a non-Jewish woman.

The message of the film is clear, and there is no doubt of it's cruelty. The Jewish characters are each caricaturized in the most disgusting way imaginable. They are greasy, with hooked noses and small glittering spectacles, and the wring their hands and hunch forward when they walk. They are all lying, manipulative, scoundrels. Their synagogue service is shown  like some sort of chaotic heathenish devil-worship, with worshipers writhing and wailing, packed close together in the filthy synagogue. The movie does more than imply that Jews are inherently evil and corrupted.  They must be first prevented from ever entering the country and expelled if they have gained a foothold, then hunted down, and killed like rats.

After the war, Harlan was one of the few filmmakers brought to trial for his participation in the Nazi plot. He was acquitted of two counts of crime against humanity, but the judge himself was a known murderer himself, so many feel that justice was not served. Harlan himself would continue to make films, albeit without the financial support he had had access to through Goebbels. He continued to deny his guilt, claiming that Goebbels forced him to make those films, that he had no choice but to comply with the party that was so much more powerful than he was. Some of his family believe that he was only interested in personal gain, that he made the movies he had to make in order to be successful at that time. But others argue that he wanted to support the party - he enjoyed the privileged life that collaboration awarded him and he believed in the messages that his films declared.

The documentary showed how the children and grandchildren of Veit Harlan continue to fight a sense of guilt left in the wake of Jud Suss. How could their father/grandfather make such a disgusting film? If he was forced to make the film, why did he have to make it so well, so convincingly? Why did he star his wife in a film that was potentially so explosive, unless perhaps he did not feel threatened by opposition to the film's themes? Why did he not just say that he was making such films so that he could continue to live in Germany under the Third Reich? Did he or did he not believe the Jews should all be killed? How aware was he of what was going on in the camps? He must have known what was going on because he was working so directly with the people who were carrying out these heinous crimes against an innocent people. Indeed, his own first wife and her family were killed at Auschwitz.

His family are dealing with their guilt in a number of ways. Some, like his filmmaker son Thomas, have swung completely the opposite direction, becoming very liberal and contributing to the search for other Nazi war criminals. Some, like his two actress daughters, were forced by their agents to change their last name because no one associated with the Harlan name would be able to get work in the movie industry after the war. It is clear that the grandchildren feel more shame than guilt, though there is still a prevailing fear of the possibility that such ideologies could contaminate the bloodline.

The conclusion our group came to when discussing the documentary afterwards is that Veit Harlan's family's story is representative of the tensions which conflicted the German mindset after the war. The quest for justice for an entire people that either subscribed to the mode of thinking broadcast Nazi propaganda or fell victim to its message continues to this day. While it is impossible to see Harlan's participation as anything benign, we must also consider the strength and impact of the ideological mode of thinking that promoted his work. It is particularly difficult to see an artist, a creator, as someone who would encourage destruction. The work is clearly deliberate, yet how much significance to its affect has been added in retrospect. So many of our American war films seem laughably jingoistic today, in a time when we are so critical of our government's military operations. I do not think there is a simple solution to any of the problems left by the Holocaust. We must pursue justice while still maintaining our faith in humanity. Only through trust, courage, patience, forgiveness, and love can any of the scars left by that experience be healed.

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)

The Philadelphia Story (1940) marks the turning point in Hepburn’s film career. She had decided to return home in 1938 after being labeled “box office poison” for a series of failed costume dramas at RKO. After a hurricane swept away her family’s Fenwick home, Hepburn tried to piece her life and career back together. Playwright Philip Barry visited her in Fenwick with a play which he had written for her about a Philadelphia socialite modeled after Hepburn herself.  The play ran for an unprecedented 415 performances. Hepburn’s then boyfriend, Howard Hughes, purchased the rights for her so that she would be able to return to Hollywood and call her own shots. Rather than returning to RKO, Hepburn signed a contract with MGM studio mogul Louis B. Mayer. The Philadelphia Story was the first film in which Hepburn had almost exclusive control over the casting of the film. She was given top billing across Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart and her friend George Cukor was chosen to direct. 

The Philadelphia Story is about an aloof American socialite who is about to be remarried. Her fiance is a "man of the people" type of guy who has had to work his way up from the bottom. Things get complicated when her ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) appears with some unsettling news. In order to pacify the editor of Spy magazine, the family must allow a reporter (Jimmy Stewart) and camerawoman attend the wedding, or else the magazine will print a shameful article about the father's philandering. The story spans the day and night leading up to the wedding. In this time, Tracy undergoes some serious character growth as she struggles to identify her purpose as a wife, woman, and as a human being. The script is witty and sophisticated, with just the appropriate amount of philosophical digging to get the audience thinking.

The plot of The Philadelphia Story both promotes and contradicts many feminist ideals. Some audiences viewed Tracy’s reformation as a taming, though many film critics debate this point. Although Hepburn’s character is scolded and insulted by the various male characters, they each in one way or another love, admire, or respect her. Tracy's "upper-classness" (Andrew Britton, 1995) is the epitome of Hepburn, but in a way very much unlike her alter ego Jo March. Tracy is an intellectual with very strong opinions about herself and about other people. She is not ambitious like Jo March but she sets very high standards for herself and the people around her. One might observe that Jo March is very like the young Hepburn, the kid behind the star, while Tracy epitomizes that which audiences identify in her star persona – class, intelligence, wit, and high moral standards. Through her role as Tracy, Hepburn came to represent a “special class of the American female,” full of strength and “inner divinity.”

There are three male leads in this film, arguably four if you count the father. Each has a unique relationship with Tracy. She expresses contempt for her father’s philandering, and although he cruelly calls her a “prig and a perennial spinster,” the two are reconciled by the end of the film. Her fiancé in the film worships her but his narrow-minded class and gender prejudices limit him from being truly equal to her. Jimmy Stewart’s character, the journalist Macaulay Connor , falls for Tracy, but only after expressing his own contempt for her class and lifestyle. The impossibility of their being matched is prevented by his snobbishness not hers, and in many ways one could argue that he is as reformed by the end of the film as she is.

Tracy’s relationship with her ex-husband, played by Cary Grant, is the most complex. He refuses to be impressed by her “so-called strength” and he leads the pack in trying to reform her, but it is clear that he truly loves her. His arguments for her reformation are not that she should be less of a strong, independent-minded woman, but that she should be more of a compassionate human being: “You’ll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman until you have learned to have some regard for human frailty.” His appeal is not an attack on her female strength, but more an appeal to her humanity. It is clear that he and Tracy are evenly matched because he does not wish to break her will but only to refine it. The tension between Tracy and Macaulay is based on social and economic class division, but C.K. Dexter Haven argues on the basis of the human vs. either the merely material statue, or the other-worldly, deific goddess. He supports the refined, yet secular, view of mankind which is indicative of his expectations for perfection, regardless of social class. At one point he says "You (Tracy) could marry Mack the night watchman and I'd cheer for you!" 

Tracy's father's objections are the most infuriating because he blames her for his affair with another woman. He also attacks her womanhood when he says, 

"You have a good mind, a pretty face, a disciplined body that does what you tell it to.

You have everything it takes to make a beautiful woman except the one essential: an

understanding heart. And without that you might as well be made of bronze."
Her father's remarks might cut the deepest, but at bottom they are simply a reiteration of what Haven has already said, including the statue motif. The fact that these arguments are framed in a way that limits Tracy's femaleness, they are not read as such by the characters involved. He also practically retracts all that he has said by the end of the film when he denies that Tracy has ever been a disappointment as a daughter, thus voiding his entire arguments against her.

The film concludes on a high note, and Tracy has been able to maintain every ounce of dignity she had a the beginning of the story, which is why it is difficult to view this film as another Taming of the Shrew. The movie was a big hit, winning Hepburn another Academy Award nomination Jimmy Stewart his first Oscar. Hepburn’s career was back on track. From this point forward, Hepburn had a direct hand in the parts she chose to play and in the casting and filming of future projects. Not all of them were as successful as The Philadelphia Story, but Hepburn was able select roles that both stretched her abilities and took advantage of the strength of her increasingly feminist persona.

Brother Tom's Suicide

Tom (left) and Katharine (right) Hepburn

Tom Houghton Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn's brother, was two years her senior. As children, the two were inseparable. Dr. Hepburn encouraged all his children to  be very athletic, and it has been said that his expectations for his eldest son could be extreme. Tom had developed a nervous tick due to a childhood illness, and Dr. Hepburn pressured him to use willpower to overcome the problem. He believed that any physical accomplishment could be achieved through willpower, hard work, and puritanical habits of living (Barbara Leaming, 1995, 139-140). Unfortunately, tom-boy Kathy proved to be more of an athlete than her brother, a point Dr. Hepburn often pointed out, congratulating Katharine on her athletic prowess within Tom's hearing. Tom was in fact a fairly competent athlete; he simply failed to measure up to his father's high standards for his children. Many Hepburn biographers attribute this failing on the father's part to Tom's low self-esteem as a youth. Dr. Hepburn is often portrayed as a bully and harsh task-master to his children. However, Miss Hepburn and her siblings hero-worshiped both their parents and constantly strove to impress them. On numerous occasions, Miss Hepburn attributed her success to the fact that she was the product of two extraordinary individuals (The Dick Cavett Show, 1974).

family photo a few months before Tom's death
Katharine  far left, Tom standing in rear

Mrs. Hepburn had a very tight circle of friends living in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. Many of them were friends from her Bryn Mawr days, and several were also involved in the social reform movements of the time. Tom and Katharine occasionally stayed with their "aunts" Mary Towle and Bertha Rembaugh, and it was during one of these visits that tragedy struck. When Tom didn't come down to breakfast one morning, 14-year-old Katharine went to fetch him from his attic bedroom. Upon entering the room, she first noticed that the tie from one of the curtains was missing so the drapes hung loose on that side. Then she saw her brother's body, suspended by the curtain tie from one of the ceiling beams, his bent legs clearly able to reach the ground. In a state of shock, Katharine got Tom down from the beam and lay him on the bed. After ascertaining that he was indeed dead, she recalled having seen a doctor's house on their street. She went to the house and rang the bell. The housekeeper answered the door and Katharine told her, "My brother is dead," to which the housekeeper replied, "Then the doctor can't help him, can he? and closed the door in Katharine's face (Hepburn, Me, 1991, 47).

Fearful that her aunt Mary Towle might become hysterical, Katharine went next door to Aunt Bertha's to break the news. The rest of the incident becomes a bit of a blur. Miss Hepburn later remembered her parents coming and crossing on the ferry with Tom's body. Mrs. Hepburn's father had also committed suicide and you must remember that there was a rather strong stigma surrounding suicide in those days (Barbara Leaming, 1995). Suicide was translated as mental instability and was believed to be an inherited trait. Therefore, a history of suicide in the family was not only something one wanted to keep from public knowledge, it also bred the fear that oneself or one's offspring might be threatened by the same problem. One can only imagine how horrified Mrs. Hepburn must have been to discover that her eldest son had succumbed to the same cause of death as her own father. In a documentary about Katharine Hepburn, her brother Bob recalls being at home with Mrs. Hepburn when she received the call from New York that Tom was dead. Even many years later, Bob was reduced to tears as he recalled his usually composed mother slumping over on the kitchen table as she answered the phone call from New York (All About Me, 1993).

Tom's school photo as it appeared
in the local newspaper reporting his death.

There was much public speculation concerning the cause of Tom's suicide. As I've said, some biographers attribute Dr. Hepburn's bullying to a development of low self-esteem. Tom's death was never discussed in the family. In later years, Miss Hepburn speculated that it must have been an accident. No one in the family could find any cause for Tom to suddenly become depressed or suicidal. In her autobiography, Miss Hepburn relates how she seems to remember Tom telling her, during that fateful visit to New York, "You're my girl, aren't you? You're my favorite girl in the whole world" (Hepburn, Me, 1991, 46). But even Miss Hepburn admits that that could be a memory she constructed many years later, half wishing, half hoping it had once been real. One possibility is that Tom was trying to perform an elaborate stunt described by Dr. Hepburn some months prior to Tom suicide. Dr. Hepburn was from Virginia and he would tell a story about how he and his African American friends would play pranks on the northern football teams who came to compete in the south. He showed his children how there was a special knack of tying a rope so that one could suspend oneself from a tree by the neck without cutting off your air supply. Although it is very difficult to find such antics amusing today, it is possible that Tom was trying this stunt but that he lost control of the slippery curtain tie (Hepburn, Me, 1991, 48).

As you can imagine, Tom's death had a dramatic effect on young Katharine. When she returned to the girls school she was then attending, she became frustrated by all the impertinent questions her classmates demanded of her concerning her brother's death. She felt that she lived in a different world than those girls, because she had been forced to grow up so abruptly. She described her new philosophy of life as "onlines:" "What I meant by it was that I wanted to be independent, to separate myself from all the others and never again to care so much about another person, so I would never feel the pain I felt when my teenage brother hanged himself" (Charlotte Chandler, 2010, 1). Katharine left school and began to take lessons from various tutors around Hartford. She much preferred this method of study, not only because it removed her from the society of her nosy peers, but also because it allowed her to play golf competitively; she became quite a champ. She loved riding her bike all over Hartford to her lessons and golf classes.

Katharine would feel the consequences of this less formal schooling when it came to preparations for her entrance to her mother's alma mater, Bryn Mawr College. She had to study extra hard for her entrance exams, just barley scraping the minimum passing marks in chemistry. And, having been away from the society of her peers for so long, she was unprepared for the social life of the all-girl college. Tom's death changed her life irreparably, shaping her into the independent woman the world would come to admire.