Why LITTLE WOMEN (1933) is a very big deal

“There’s one thing George and I agree on. Actually, we agree on almost everything. I don’t know anything we don’t agree on. One thing we really agree on is, we love LITTLE WOMEN. We loved doing it. And we love the film we made.” (Katharine Hepburn in Chandler, 83)

LITTLE WOMEN (1933) was nominated for three categories in the 6th annual Academy Awards (1932/33): George Cukor for directing, RKO studios for best production, and Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman for writing (adaptation). Though the film came in third for direction and best production, husband and wife writing team Mason and Heerman walked away with the Oscar. Funnily enough, Katharine Hepburn was nominated, not for her performance as Jo, but for her role as Eva Lovelace in MORNING GLORY (1933), her first of four Oscar wins. Hepburn always insisted she was nominated for the wrong film.

Katharine Hepburn's One and Only Academy Awards Appearance

Katharine Hepburn was nominated for a whopping 12 Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role, more than any other actress in her time. Although Hepburn won the Oscar for four of her film roles (MORNING GLORY (1933), GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967), THE LION IN WINTER (1968), and ON GOLDEN POND (1981)), she never once attended an Academy Award ceremony to accept an award. It wasn't until she presented Producer Lawrence Weingarten the Irving G. Thalberg Award at the 46th awards ceremony in 1974 that Hepburn ever appeared at the Oscars.

"I've never been to an Academy Award [ceremony]. Now, if I sit here, in my chair, where I must be honest with myself so I'll progress and my character will improve, why don't I go to the Academy Awards? It has to be because I'm afraid that I'm gonna loose. Doesn't it? I don't approve of my attitude, of not going. I think that's cheap of me. Second rate. Second rate, not to go. It's a group activity." (interview with Morley Safer for "60 Minutes")

David Lean's SUMMERTIME (1955)

Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) has finally earned herself a personal holiday in Venice, Italy. An unmarried professional, she travels alone, hoping to discover she knows not what in this exotic new city. She meets handsome antique dealer Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi) and after a bit of a rocky start, they have a brief, but passionate, affair. At the height of their romance, Jane abruptly terminates their relationship and returns home alone, but with the memory of her great love in Venice.

The most famous scene of the film is when Hepburn falls backwards into a canal while taking a picture. Although warned about the dangers of making contact with the polluted water in the canals, Hepburn insisted on doing her own stunt work. Passersby were informed that Hepburn was in fact an excellent swimmer, so they weren't to be alarmed when she tipped into the water. The effect is marvelous, although Hepburn did contract an eye infection as a consequence. Years later she remembers the incident:

"I had no fear, but if I had known just how toxic the garbage in the canal was, or what kinds of problems it would produce for me for the rest of my life, I would have been afraid.I still wouldn't have let someone else do it for me, although it might not have been as hard on someone tougher-skinned than me. My skin has always been sensitive. I certainly would have put up a bigger squawk about it and suggested they use a dummy. As it was, they did use a dummy, and the dummy was me." (Chandler, 209)

SUMMERTIME is one of what scholar Andrew Britton would call Hepburn's "spinster cycle." It is a film that features Hepburn as a repressed, middle-aged, unmarried professional (214). However, in many ways, this film is feministically progressive because, as biographer William J. Mann points out:

"Rather than a mawkish, tearjerker ending, SUMMERTIME gives us the rare portrait of a woman who decides the love of a man isn't necessary to make her whole." (Mann, 399)

SUMMERTIME is one of the few romantic movies I've seen that allows the female protagonist end the picture without a husband, or at least the potential of a husband. Yet the film concludes successfully - it is not a tragic ending. The Hepburn character is permitted to maintain the dignity and self-respect she earned as the story unfolded. Although at the beginning of the film, Jane displays an almost self-pitying loneliness, she doesn't ultimately satisfy that loneliness with a male companion. I think it becomes clear that societal pressures had convinced Jane that marriage (or sex) was necessary to be a whole woman, but after experiencing a very fulfilling sexual relationship with a man, she realizes that she is not, in actually fact, an incomplete woman without a man. Once Jane has proven to herself that she is perfectly able to attract and satisfy a man, she no longer feels the desire to maintain such a relationship indefinitely. So, she rides off into the sunset alone, but not lonely.

SUMMERTIME was based on the play "The Time of the Cuckoo" by Arthur Laurents, who also wrote the plays-turned-movies WEST SIDE STORY (1961) and GYPSY (1962). Apparently, Laurents was not impressed with the finished product of this film, claiming that "Kate's movie-star wattage blindsighted director David Lean" (Mann, 399). It is certainly true that the English director David Lean (DR. ZHIVAGO (1965)) altered the script a great deal. In her autobiography, Hepburn commented on Lean's perfectionism:

"[David] threw out everything but the main plot... David was always very fussy about a script and removed everything that didn't interest him - so this movie is really David in Venice." (Hepburn, 253)

"There were two love affairs;  one was mine with Rossano Brazzi in the story, and the other, David's with Venice." (Hepburn interview, Chandler, 202)

Director David Lean filming
Venice's famous Piazza San Marco

Lean was a perfectionist when it came to directing. In DR. ZHIVAGO (1965) he delayed filming for several days to have a field of poppies planted. The result was spectacular. For the red glass goblets in SUMMERTIME, he had several test goblets of different shades, sizes, and shapes hand blown before he selected the perfect one to use in the film. When I first saw SUMMERTIME, I was blown away by the way Lean had really captured the beauty of Venice, with all its magnificent colors, the canal culture, and the wonderful history of art around every corner. When David Lean won the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990, Billy Wilder asked him what his favorite film (that he directed) was:

"I can choose without any hesitation. SUMMER MADNESS, or as you call it here in America, SUMMERTIME. It starred my favorite actress, Katharine Hepburn, and it was filmed in my favorite place, Venice. And the subject is the most basic and pervasive of all: not love, but loneliness. The idea of tragic loneliness appealed to me." (Chandler, 204)

Lean and Hepburn clearly had a very good working relationship. They each respected each others as artists before they worked together, and that respect only grew after making SUMMERTIME. Hepburn described Lean as "very basic - he was simple - he was true" (Hepburn, 253). About negotiating for the part, Hepburn says:

"Fortunately, I didn't go as far as to say, 'I would work for free to work for David Lean.' Worse yet, I could've said, 'I'd pay to work for David Lean.' I only thought those thoughts. But I was told I'd said more than enough. Too much. I'd spoiled the negotiation. I didn't care. I was glad. They might have negotiated me out of the part. That happens sometimes, and an actor never knows what wonderful opportunity was lost." (Chandler, 201)

Of Hepburn, Lean said:

"Kate Hepburn is a great natural spontaneous actress. She would never admit to being a lonely person, but professionally no one can convey it better." (Chandler, 205)

"Katharine Hepburn was capable of playing a woman who was smart and independent and had scared off men all her life. She felt she knew what she wanted." (Chandler, 206)

 At one point in the creative process, there was talk of Brazzi's character being portrayed as a gigolo, but Lean was against the concept:

"For Jane to be deceived by a gigolo wouldn't have suited the image that Katharine Hepburn brought with her. The man has to be worthy, not only of Jane Hudson, but of Katharine Hepburn, as well." (Chandler, 206)

There are some other themes in the movie which are also very interesting to watch out for. The concept of the "ugly American" tourist is represented here by the McIlhennys who are on such a tight itinerary, they're are unable to fully appreciate the romance of Venice. The question of what is legitimate romance is also brought up both in the relationship between Jane and Renato and in the relationships of the other guests in Jane's hotel. This problem is combined with the cultural issues that Jane tries to navigate as she attempts to reconcile her puritanical ideals with her "continental" or "European" desires.

The McIlhennys and David Lean's famous red goblets

Critics of the time liked the movie, praising Hepburn's performance in particular.

"Few actresses in films could equal Hepburn's evocation of aching loneliness on her first night in Venice as she wanders, forlorn and proud, like a primly starched ghost in a city of lovers." (Time)

"[Hepburn] is wonderfully effective [as Jane Hudson], making the most of her opportunities for registering pathos and passion." (The New Yorker)

Hepburn and young Gaetano Autiero hang out on set

Despite all this talk about pathos and loneliness, please don't get the impression that this is a glum film. The sentimentality is very deftly undercut with some very comic scenes and with the charming humor in the child character, Mauro, a street child Jane befriends. SUMMERTIME is a great summer flick because it is a light combination of romance and comedy executed with a great deal of intelligence. If you managed to catch it on TCM earlier this week, I'd love to know your thoughts and impressions. Please feel free to leave a comment and start a discussion!

For a great scene-by-scene breakdown of the film and some awesome pix, I recommend "Jenny the Nipper's" article about SUMMERTIME on her blog "Cinema OCD". I can also recommend this review on the blog "Nothing is Written" and this one on "The Oscar Nerd".

Queer Film Blogathon 2012: SYLVIA SCARLETT (1935)

This post is written in conjunction with the second annual Queer Film Blogathon hosted by Garbo Laughs and Pussy Goes Grrrr! The first film that came to mind for me when I signed up to participate in this blogathon (my first, as it happens!) was George Cukor's SYLVIA SCARLETT (1935), the first film of four to pair the great acting talents of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

The idea to make a film of SYLVIA SCARLETT was entirely the brainchild of Katharine Hepburn and her director friend George Cukor (who was himself, by all accounts, homosexual). He called it "our love child" and she called it "our flopperoo." Hepburn invested some of her own money into the project:

"I sank some of my own money into SYLVIA SCARLETT. 'Sank' is the right word. I could have dropped it into the ocean with bricks tied to it and had a better chance of seeing it again" (Chandler 93).

"I always kept a little foolish money on the side. Foolish money is money I thought I could afford to be foolish with. It wasn't the money that was foolish. It was I" (Ibid., 94).

The preview showing of SYLVIA SCARLETT was a legendary catastrophe. Hepburn sat next to costar Natalie Paley (who plays her romantic rival) and they couldn't figure out why the audience weren't laughing at the funnier scenes. At one point during the movie, audiences stared to leave. Afterwards Cukor and Hepburn went up to producer Pandro Berman (who never wanted to make the picture in the first place) and told him they'd make another movie for him for nothing. He said he never wanted to see either of them ever again (he would - they made a lot more pictures together both at RKO and MGM).

However badly SYLVIA SCARLETT did at the box office, Hepburn herself received some fairly positive notices (Edwards, 145):

"The dynamic Miss Hepburn is the handsomest boy of the season. I don't care for SYLVIA SCARLETT a bit, but I do think Miss Hepburn is much better in it than she was as the small-town wallflower in ALICE ADAMS" (New York Harold Tribune).

"SYLVIA SCARLETT reveals the interesting fact that Katharine Hepburn is better looking as a boy than a woman" (Time).

"SYLVIA SCARLETT is a tour de force, made possible by Miss Hepburn's physical resemblance to the adolescent male" (New York Post).

SYLVIA SCARLETT is a film nested in multiple layers of doubles and contradictions. First of all, the subject matter contains themes of gender ambiguity which are paired off in doubles, the most prominent of which is that Sylvia/Sylvester is a girl masquerading as a boy. There is also the dual nationality aspect of the film which places the Hepburn character in particular in a sort of no man's land of identity. The film itself failed to win over audiences because it was simultaneously too safe yet too risqué. The result is altogether too ambiguous.

SYLVIA SCARLETT is about a girl and her father, Henry (Edmund Gwenn), who are forced to flee France because he has been fiddling with the accounts. In an attempt to deceive the authorities, Sylvia cuts off all her hair and disguises herself as a boy. On the boat to England, she/he and her father meet Monkey (Cary Grant), an English con-artist with whom they join forces. The group is joined by a cockney housemaid named Maudie, who becomes Henry’s new wife, and the troupe goes to the English seaside as a traveling band of performers. It is there they meet local Bohemian artist Michael Fane (Brian Aherne). Sylvia immediately falls for him and he himself gets a "queer feeling" whenever he looks at the boy.

The Hepburn character is confronted with a struggle that often accompanies "doubles roles," roles in which the character switches between two identities. This is especially true in this case if we examine Sylvia/Sylvester's relationship with the father figure. The opening sequence in the movie (which was tacked on at the last minute in an attempt to justify Sylvia's radical transformation into Sylvester) explains to the audience how the Hepburn character both adopts yet resists the dead mother's position in relation to the father. On the one hand, she insists on remaining "faithful" to the father by refusing to marry. But on the other hand, she rejects femininity by refusing to be "weak and silly." It is this strange attempt to negotiate the incompatible that renders this film literally in-credible.

A certain theatrical thread runs through this movie, tying together various themes of oppositional identity. It is a radical film in the sense that it defines femininity as an act and gender as a matter of style. At the point in the film when Sylvester reverts back to Sylvia, another character asks an extremely significant question: "Which is which?" That is the real question mark of the entire film! The sexual ambiguity of the Hepburn character becomes more evident as Sylvia and Michael attempt to negotiate the definitions of gender identity. As the film progresses, we forget which of Sylvia/Sylvester's genders is an act and which is her true nature. Without a doubt, Hepburn is much more convincing as a boy than as a girl and this is very apparent in her romantic scenes, which have a tendency to work against her credibility: the more feminine and girly she behaves, the less valid her performance becomes.

Sylvia/Sylvester's relationship between the other female characters of the film is also worth taking a closer look at. As in two other notably popular LGBT films, QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) and MOROCCO (1930), SYLVIA SCARLETT does contain a lesbian kiss. This is one of those moments when the film could have been more ambitious but chose to err on the side of caution by having the Hepburn character reject a kiss from another woman - another woman who, incidentally, believed she was kissing a man in the first place. It's an odd scene which serves little purpose but to highlight the gender trap which the Hepburn character has set for herself. She cannot devote herself to true masculinity nor true femininity unless she wants to cross the line from the hetero- to the homo-sexual. 

The Kiss

Sylvia also has an odd relationship to the woman who would be her romantic rival for Michael. Although Lily is catty and jealous, Sylvia refuses to reciprocate those disgustingly traditional female stereotypes. Instead she ideologically allies with Lily and in fact saves her life in order to allow her to be with the man she, Sylvia, loves (this sort of female allegiance can also be found in HOLIDAY (1938), another Hepburn/Grant film). When Monkley questions her devotion to her female rival, she rejects his cynical view of life and says, "She was willing to die for him. That must count for something" and "It might be a pig of a world for you and me, but not for her, if I can help it." Then when she goes to bring Michael back to Lily, she explains, "You mustn't let her be [this unhappy]." 

Allies or rivals?

When the film places Hepburn back into male costume toward the end of the film, at a point when every other character knows she is a woman, and as she continues to take the part of ally rather than rival to the other female characters, her status as "another one of the guys" is solidified. She and her would-be lover are shown as either homosexual man and man or heterosexual/asexual man and man. It isn't until circumstances force them to chose is the issue somewhat resolved. Even then, the resolution is incomplete, because we are unsure whether they will prefer to continue are rather confused gender charade with Sylvia as Sylvester, or if we can assume that at some point she will attempt to revert to complete femininity (a feat we doubt she can actually achieve anyway).

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn

Although the film fails to come to any definite conclusions about gender and sexuality, it does follow through on many of the issues about gender which are present in many of Katharine Hepburn's other film roles. Like many of her other more radically feminist film, it directly addresses the question of gender identity, even if it does confuse the matter more than clarify it. I find it an immensely humorous film - Cary Grant is really at the top of his game as a performer, even is her does have a more minor part. He really shines as the cockney acrobatic circus performer. Remember that it's in another Hepburn/Grant film that he becomes the first character ever to use the term "gay" for its homosexual connotations (in BRINGING UP BABY (1938)). I encourage you to see SYLVIA SCARLETT and enjoy it, both as a fun comedy, and as an examination of the representation of LGBT themes in classic Hollywood films.