[6] In the first and least successful of their screen pairings, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant star as swindlers who end up running a traveling vaudeville show on the shores of England. Hepburn’s character disguises herself as a young man in order to evade police looking for her father (Edmund Gwenn), a gambler on the lam. The episodic script becomes unfocused when the father becomes …
[7] Katharine Hepburn had never acted with Henry Fonda before, and Fonda had never acted with his daughter Jane. On Golden Pond united the three screen legends for their first and only film together. Hepburn and the elder Fonda play an old couple vacationing at a rustic lake cabin. Fonda has had heart problems and is preoccupied with his own mortality, while Hepburn enjoys picking …
[5] Katharine Hepburn won the first of her record four Oscars for this film about a naïve, aspiring actress who ingratiates herself into the Broadway social circle. She isn’t taken seriously at first. In fact, she’s pitied. But a childish sense of self-confidence helps her endure until the opportunity arises to show the theater world what she’s got. The story of Morning Glory is a …
[6] George Cukor directs Katharine Hepburn as Jo March in one of the earliest screen adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, a chronicle of the lives and loves of four sisters growing up in New England during the Civil War. There’s intrinsic nostalgia and sentimentality to the storytelling, but Cukor never lets the film become maudlin. That’s largely owed to Hepburn’s contribution. The then-controversial …
[4] Katharine Hepburn’s affection for director George Cukor began with this, her feature film debut. A Bill of Divorcement stars John Barrymore as a man returning home after five years in a mental asylum. During that time, his wife (Billie Burke) and daughter (Hepburn) have moved on with their lives and are planning their respective weddings. Imagine their surprise when Barrymore returns home and promises …
[7] Katharine Hepburn stars as a poor young woman trying to enter snobbish social circles to find a husband in this first major film directed by George Stevens (Woman of the Year, Gunga Din). Hepburn’s character eventually lands a doting beau (Fred MacMurray). Her problem then becomes how to disguise the fact that she comes from modest means. I like Alice Adams because it features …
[7] A doctor visits a woman in an insane asylum to determine if she requires a lobotomy to forget the horror of seeing her cousin murdered, or if her aunt is pushing for the procedure to cover the truth. Tennessee Williams wrote the play, Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) directed the film, and the three leads are played by …
[5] A young minister (John Beal) falls in love with a gypsy (Katharine Hepburn) and begins a village scandal. Hepburn and Beal are fairly matched and the rural setting is lovingly evoked through impressive indoor sets. The story, based on a novel by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, doesn’t quite break free from the hackneyed cross-class romance mold, but you could do worse for formulaic …
[6] Katharine Hepburn stars in this odd duck of a movie about an eccentric Countess who catches wind of a conspiracy to destroy Paris in the name of oil drilling and decides to take matters into her own hands… by killing all the men involved. Director Bryan Forbes (The Stepford Wives) is completely aware of the story’s intrinsic absurdity, executing key moments with touches of whimsy …
[4] Katharine Hepburn goes as far against type as possible in Spitfire, playing a hillbillie faith healer who gets accused of witchcraft by her backwoods community. Hepburn is far too erudite to sell the role convincingly, but it’s interesting to watch her attempt Appalachian jargon and throw rocks at people. The film doesn’t get as preachy as I’d expected, but it loses focus in its …
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