Katharine Hepburn

[6] Katharine Hepburn plays a woman determined to dodge marriage and make a career for herself. She gets pretty far, until an unexpected turn of events turns her into a single mother. A Woman Rebels presents a peek at the feminist persona for which Katharine Hepburn would later become famous, but the film is a little too melodramatic for my taste. With the Hays Code firmly in …

[6] Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn star in a Frank Capra movie about the political and personal tolls of running for president of the United States. Van Johnson and Margaret Hamilton are fun in supporting roles. Angela Lansbury is nice as the cold, calculating antagonist — her first scene is one of the movie’s best.

[3] Katharine Hepburn plays an aspiring composer who falls in love with a successful conductor. He cheats on her, they split up, they miss each other, they get back together. Snore. Supporting player John Beal is five times more appealing than phoney baloney leading man Charles Boyer. There’s no chemistry between Hepburn and Boyer, and no believable reason they should ever want to stay together. …

[5] Burt Lancaster stars as a conman promising rain for dollars to struggling farmers in the drought-ridden South. He almost gets away with his latest swindle, but burgeoning feelings for one of the farmer’s daughters (Katharine Hepburn) threatens to make an honest man of him. It’s a very atypical role for Hepburn, playing a spinster desperate for a man. But she pulls it off, despite …

[6] Katharine Hepburn plays a journalist who bad-mouths sports in her widely-read column. Spencer Tracy plays a sportswriter who publishes a rebuttal. The two continue sparring publicly until they meet in person… and start to fall in love. Now don’t get me wrong — I love it when Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy spar and make up, but this (their first pairing) is not among …

[8] George Cukor directs from the play by Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story), giving Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant a chance to shine in this screwball romance. There’s not a Hepburn/Grant pairing I don’t like, and this one comes with a great supporting performance by Lew Ayres as Hepburn’s sobriety-impaired brother. Grant plays a somewhat Bohemian man who falls in love with a rich socialite …

[6] Katharine Hepburn plays a daring aviator, her first starring role, in Christopher Strong. You can see a lot of the attitude and behavior that would later define her career in this early talkie. But the film, directed by Dorothy Arzner, is far from a triumph for feminist viewers. Hepburn’s character begins an affair with a married man and ends up paying the ultimate price …

[9] Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio in this biopic of Howard Hughes, the billionaire aviator, filmmaker, and playboy whose considerable ambition was tragically counterbalanced by his mental illness. The Aviator opens with Hughes’ mammoth, three-year-long production of the aerial battle movie Hell’s Angels and his budding romance with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). He makes considerable advances in the field of aviation and challenges the movie …

[10] Which of King Henry II’s sons will succeed him on the throne? This question is rife with political intrigue, personal vendettas, and intense family drama in The Lion in Winter. The relationships are fascinating to watch unfold. The three sons will stop at nothing to wear the crown. King Henry has his favorite, and his wife Eleanor has hers. Their desires come to a …

[9] Charm can take a movie a long, long way. With Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in their only film together, The African Queen goes the distance. She’s Rosie, the prudish widow of a missionary, and he’s Charlie, the rough-around-the-edges steamboat captain. Director John Huston puts them in a small boat together and lets the sparks fly. We need only a simple plot to drive …

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