Themes: Fathers and Daughters, Jewel Theft, Gender-Bending
Main Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne, Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Paley
Release Year: 1935
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
This big-budget 1936 RKO Studios picture lost money, perhaps due to a cool box-office reception to the idea of leading lady Katharine Hepburn in drag, and a rare-for-its-day screen kiss between two women. Edmund Gwenn plays the title character's father Henry, who is obsessed with gambling. His daughter Sylvia (Hepburn) has stolen some expensive lace which they hope to smuggle from France to England. To elude police, she cuts her hair short and disguises herself as a man. She and her father board a ship, and a drunken Henry confesses their scheme to Jimmy Monkley (Cary Grant), a jewel smuggler. To divert attention away from him, Jimmy snitches on Henry to the customs officials, and Henry has to pay up or be arrested. Later, Sylvia confronts Jimmy on a train and punches him. Jimmy apologizes and cuts them in on a scheme to steal jewels from a wealthy family, using his friend Maudie (Dennie Moore), a maid in the house. But Sylvia, still disguised as a man, talks Maudie out of it, and she responds with a kiss. Maudie and Sylvia's father fall in love and Maudie, an aspiring actress, invests money in a show to open in a seaside resort. There they are invited to the mansion of a wealthy artist, Michael Fane (Brian Aherne), who is unsettled by Sylvia's obvious affections before finally discovering that she's a woman. Jimmy is attracted to Michael's roommate, the Russian-born Lily (Natalie Paley) -- and from there, the romantic entaglements between the aformentioned parties proceed like a Shakespearean comedy. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
Universally rejected by the public upon its initial release, Sylvia Scarlett's reputation has undergone a reversal over the years, and it is now recognized as an unusual film of exceptional quality. Certainly, the reasons why the public shunned it are clear. Not only were both stars playing somewhat against type, they were playing characters that sometimes challenged the audience to approve of them. In addition, the movie shifts tones and genres wildly, in a manner that is more acceptable to modern audiences, but would have been off-putting in 1935. The undercurrent of homosexuality that runs through the film gives it texture, but also discomfited potential fans. And Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant don't even end up together. From a critical point of view, only the last of these is really bothersome; it makes sense on a schematic level, but the stars' personalities and charisma fight against the logic of this turn of the script. Director George Cukor provides some of his finest work, assuredly keeping the film firmly on track even as it veers from comedy to tragedy to melodrama, all the while maintaining its stylish and delectable edge. The script is filled with wonderful moments, employing gay subtext to good effect, and featuring witty banter, memorable big scenes, and almost poetic atmosphere. Hepburn is never for one minute believable as a man, but the artifice is part of what makes her performance so attractive; Grant has one of his earliest opportunities at creating a self-centered and amoral character that the audience nevertheless cares for. Over it all, there's a constant push-and-pull struggle that gives the film a very fetching vitality. Sylvia Scarlett is an audacious motion picture; it's fortunate that time has proven its value. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Van Nest Polglase - Art Director, Sturges Carne - Art Director, Muriel King - Costume Designer, Bernard Newman - Costume Designer, George Cukor - Director, Jane Loring - Editor, Roy Webb - Musical Direction/Supervision, Mel Burns - Makeup, Joseph H. August - Cinematographer, Pandro S. Berman - Producer, Mortimer Offner - Screenwriter, John Collier - Screenwriter, Gladys Unger - Screenwriter, Compton Mackenzie - Book Author
Sylvia Scarlett is a 1935romantic comedy film starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, based on The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett, a novel by Compton MacKenzie. Directed by George Cukor, it was notorious as one of the most famous unsuccessful movies of the 1930s. Hepburn plays the title role of Sylvia Scarlett, a female con artist masquerading as a boy to escape the police. The success of the subterfuge is in large part due to the transformation of Hepburn by RKO make-up artist Mel Berns.
This film was the first pairing of Grant and Hepburn, who later starred together in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940). Cary Grant's performance as dashing rogue incorporates him using a Cockney accent and remains widely considered the first time Grant's famous personality began to register on film. (The only other film in which Grant used the Cockney accent is Clifford Odets' None but the Lonely Heart nine years later.) Cockney was not, however, Cary Grant's original accent. He was born and grew up in Bristol, which has a very different accent from that of London.
Plot
Sylvia Scarlett and her father, Henry, flee France one step ahead of the police. Henry, while employed as a bookkeeper for a lace factory, was discovered to be an embezzler. While on the channel ferry, they meet a "gentleman adventurer", Jimmy Monkley, who partners with them in his con games.
