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“Aren’t you going to do a column on Katherine Hepburn?” my friend asked. “I really think you should, even though a lot has been written. Do one on some of her lesser-known films that I like so much.” So, I will!
Katherine Hepburn was an American icon. And she lived to the great old age of 96. She appeared in over 40 movies, and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won four. My friend loves her early work when she was so radiant, more that the later hard-edged Katherine of On Golden Pond or Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?
Let’s start with Morning Glory (1933), one of her first films, made when she was only 26. Ms. Hepburn plays a stage-struck young actress trying to make it big in the Big Apple. She is so appealing and fresh, and she won her first Oscar for this part.
That same year produced the first, and best, movie version of Little Women, with Katherine Hepburn magnificent as Jo, and also featuring Spring Byington, Joan Bennett and Paul Lukas. The 1994 version with Winona Ryder is almost as good as this one. The other two are not really worth your time.
Katherine Hepburn is Alice Adams (1935) a small-town unsophisticated painfully unaware of how her pretensions sick out. She is drawn to low-key Fred MacMurray, who tries to like her back. This is one Ms. Hepburn’s best roles – you pull for her so hard, and she is so clueless you want to cry. The dinner-table scene is simply unforgettable.
Stage Door (1937) is the story of a bunch of girls living together in New York, all aspiring actresses. Ms. Hepburn is a rich girl determined to make it on her own. There are three debuts worth mentioning in this film: Ann Miller, Eve Arden and Lucille Ball! It’s a dynamite cast with a good Edna Ferber-George S. Kauffman script.
Bringing Up Baby (1938) is one of the very best of the screwball comedies of the 30’s and 40’s. Katherine Hepburn, in her only slapstick role, is a rich heiress who has set her cap for terminally boring Cary Grant (!). Baby is her pet leopard. Ms. Hepburn here showed the comic touch that would stand her in good stead in her later films with Spencer Tracy.
And if you like Katherine – or even if you don’t – you should catch Cate Blanchett’s dead-on Oscar-winning portrayal of Ms. Hepburn in The Aviator (2004).
All of the films in this column are available on video. All except The Aviator are fine for all ages!
Rusty Hammond has been writing the Mr. Movie column since 1996. It appears in several newspapers in North Carolina.
