Katharine Hepburn: 100th anniversary collection

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Morning Glory (1933)

Sylvia Scarlett (1935) - a very unique comedy with romantic elements that features the first of the four Katharine Hepburn-Cary Grant pairings; directed by George Cukor and based on the Compton MacKenzie novel, its screenplay was written by Gladys Unger, John Collier, and Mortimer Offner. Hepburn plays the title role, whose character also goes by Sylvester when she's pretending to be a boy! After her mother has died and her bookkeeper father Henry (Edmund Gwenn) is about to be caught for gambling with the company's money, Sylvia cuts her hair so that (e.g. as Sylvester; Hepburn looks like child actor Roddy McDowall) she and her father flee France for London. During their passage, they meet Jimmy Monkley (Grant); he's an opportunist that turns loose-tongued Henry in for attempting to smuggle lace into England. However, when the three find themselves sharing a train compartment, they decide to team up to scam unsuspecting persons out of their money. But after Sylvester is unwilling to go through with stealing jewelry from a maid acquaintance of Jimmy's named Maudie (Dennie Moore), the four of them become traveling road performers. Brian Aherne plays a painter named Michael Fane who doesn't think their act is very good, but so captivates Sylvia that she sheds her male clothing and reveals herself to him. But she is soon disillusioned when she learns that he's attached to Lily Levetsky (Natalie Paley). Meanwhile, her father and Maudie have become an item. The story then takes some dramatic turns and finishes rather oddly on several levels, though it remains fascinating for Grant's cockney role and Hepburn's characterization (and onscreen analysis of her singularly masculine femininity).

Dragon Seed (1944) - while a contemporary viewer might get upset about the casting (Caucasian actors in Chinese and Japanese roles), one should discount the practical reality of movie making in those times and appreciate instead the power of this drama's information, which conveyed the atrocities and genocide practiced by Japan's invading forces on the peasants of China. Harold Bucquet and Jack Conway directed Pearl Buck's story which was adapted by Marguerite Roberts and Jane Murfin (What Price Hollywood?(1932)). The production earned supporting actress Aline MacMahon her only Academy Award nomination; the film's B&W Cinematography was also Oscar nominated. Walter Huston plays Ling Tan, the patriarch of a farmer family that has lived on their land for generations and, while not wealthy, has established itself such that he is one of the most revered members of the agrarian community; MacMahon plays his wife. They have three sons: their eldest Lao Ta (Robert Bice) and his wife Orchid (Frances Rafferty) have a son and infant daughter; their middle Lao Er (Turhan Bey) and his nontraditional outspoken wife Jade (Katharine Hepburn) are childless; and their youngest Lao San (Hurd Hatfield), who plays the flute and rides an ox while his brothers work with their father in the fields; all live in the Tan family complex. However, their daughter (Jacqueline de Wit) lives with her husband Wu Lien (Akim Tamiroff), a merchant who sells Japanese goods before the invasion, and then chooses to work for the occupying force afterwards, for practical and self preservation reasons. Meanwhile, per the suffering their family suffers at the hands of the Japanese soldiers, the Tan family resists: Lao Er and Jade join the rebuilding effort while Lao Ta, his wife raped and murdered, and Lao San join the Chinese underground. Ling Tan and his wife help by housing resistance members and hiding their supplies. Jade and her husband return with child and Ling Tan and his wife are thrilled especially since they'd just buried their other two grandchildren, who'd starved to death. However, the jealous wife (Agnes Moorehead) of Ling Tan's third cousin (Henry Travers) tells Wu Lien of the child, and Jade makes a fateful decision to protect the secret by manipulating the kitchen overseer (J. Carrol Naish) to poison the enemy's broth. Later, she convinces Ling Tan that he and the other farmers must burn their crops to keep the food from the occupiers. Lionel Barrymore narrates and several recognizable oriental actors also appear uncredited, from Philip Ahn and Benson Fong to Lee Tung Foo and others.

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Without Love (1945)

Undercurrent (1946) - this is the only film-noir thriller that stars Katharine Hepburn or was ever directed by Vincente Minnelli. It was written by Thelma Strabel with a screenplay by Edward Chodorov, George Oppenheimer (The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942)), and Marguerite Roberts but bears a remarkable resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). As Ann Hamilton, Hepburn's tomboy character marries a too good to be true handsome man, Robert Taylor as Alan Garroway in this one, who turns out to have secrets which cause him to act strangely towards her such that she fears for her life. Unlike the aforementioned story, Garroway does intend to kill his wife; he not only climbs a staircase in one reminiscent scene while pursuing her, but he uses his horse to try to force her off a cliff in much the same way that Cary Grant threatened to push Joan Fontaine out of a car to fall to her death similarly. Early in the drama, Robert Mitchum is introduced as a nondescript character, but it's pretty obvious that the mystery man - Garroway's missing brother - with whom Ann is obsessed has to be him, though she doesn't figure it out until the end. As in the only other film in which they appear together (above), Edmund Gwenn plays Hepburn's father. Marjorie Main appears briefly at the beginning in a typical housekeeper role. Jayne Meadows is stunningly attractive as a former woman in Garroway's life, Clinton Sundberg plays a dependable businessman that works for Alan. Dan Tobin plays a professor that swoons for Ann on the campus where her father also works, and Kathryn Card plays a Garroway neighbor that also rides horseback.

The Corn is Green (1979) - first you must know that one of my favorite Bette Davis movies is the original screen version of the Emlyn Williams play. Why? Because then you'd understand that my praise of this Katharine Hepburn TV version of the story (the last of so many wonderful collaborations between the actress and director George Cukor) is well earned. Hepburn's Lilly Moffat is just as wonderful as Davis's was; in fact, I'd have a hard time picking my favorite between the two versions. While Ian Saynor's Morgan Evans isn't up to John Dall's Academy Award nominated performance as Miss Moffat's miner come magnificent Oxford scholarship student, and Bill Fraser is humorless compared to Nigel Bruce as the Squire, the other support provided is excellent including Patricia Hayes as Mrs. Watty, Anna Massey and Artro Morris as Moffat's assistants, and especially Toyah Willcox (who tops Joan Lorring's Supporting Actress Oscar nominated performance in the film version) as Watty’s conniving daughter Bessie. See them both and decide for yourself, but be patient during the first 20 minutes of this one. Hepburn received an Emmy nomination for this rare television appearance.

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