Best of Katharine
My recent watching of The Aviator has reminded me once again of my great, great fondness for Katharine Hepburn. And I wondered that, legendary as she still is, whether there won't be a sizable portion of the audience who comes to the film solely because of Leonardo di Caprio, or Martin Scorsese and has never seen a single Hepburn picture. In the first case due to youth, and in the second due to a concentration on the gangster genre. Or perhaps they won't know simply because they never caught her films on tv. So, a few reflections on some films starring K.H. which I think one absolutely should watch, via renting or loaning a tape/DVD, if necessary:
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Shot during her "box office poison" period, which makes the fact it became a cult classic later on a nice irony. Directed by Howard Hawks, co-starring Cary Grant, a leopard, a dinosaur skeleton, a dog and a great collection of one liners. Hepburn is a zany excentric rich girl named Susan, Grant is a shy professor whose life she makes living hell. And we love her for it. The only actor whom Katharine Hepburn was paired up with more often than Cary Grant was Spencer Tracy. They've got great chemistry, and a rare comedic timing. Bringing Up Baby is also refreshingly empty of a morals. You can bet that if it had been shot some years later, Susan would have learned to be a good responsible professor's wife at the end, instead of taking him into her life of living in the moment. Definitely my favourite film for the young Kate H.
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
This one was remade with Grace Kelly as High Society, and the remake inadvertendly reveals all the sexism and inherent flaws of the story, though they cut the most offensive line. (Tracy Lord's father tellling her he wouldn't have cheated on her mother with a younger woman if she had been a better daughter.) Why do I still recommend watching the original? Because on the bright side, it offers a lot of witty dialogue and Katharine Hepburn, Joseph Cotten and Cary Grant in top form. Grace Kelly in High Society is just an insipid snob, and it's hard to say why all the males of the film fall for her. K.H. in The Philadelphia Story is also a snob, but you can understand Cotten's character telling her she glows, that she's a goddess, for she really has that charm and vitality that overwhelm you. Oh, and: it features one of the funniest drunk scenes on film. This movie marked Hepburn's triumphant return to Hollywood on her terms.
(After the box office poison period, she had gone home to Conneticut, Phil Barry had written the play The Philadelpha Story for her, and she had made it a stage triumph. Howard Hughes bought the film rights for her and gave them to her as a gracious post-break-up present, which allowed her complete control over casting and director for the film version.)
The African Queen (1951)
Or, the film that launched a thousand books. (The shooting of same, rather.) Well no, only two, but both are very readable. Peter Viertel's thinly fictionally disguised White Hunter, Black Heart was made into a film by Clint Eastwood, starring himself as the John Huston character, and is a Hemingwayesque tale about an obsessive director. Hepburn's own African Queen, about the shooting, is an amusing madcap adventure with tongue-in-cheek portraits of Huston, Bogart, and herself. Huston's hunting obsession, taken so very seriously in the Viertel novel, is here a given as a "boys and their guns, or why John never grew up" treatment. She doesn't spare herself, either, noting that the alcohol-swallowing Huston and Bogart made it through Africa without a single day of illness, whereas she, who had lectured them on their lifestyle, was done in by the water.
Oh yes, the actual film. Features Hepburn as a missionary spinster and Bogart as a slovenly Captain who finds himself saddled with her. Co-starring African scenery, a very shaky boat, and some Nazis who come in handily for a wedding. The novel this film was based on was written by C.S. Forrester, and it shows, if you've read the Hornblower novels. Great fun, and with touching moments besides. If you look at it from a Bogart instead of a Hepburn perspective, it's a departure from his usual pairings - Charlie is definitely not the dominating guy here...
Summertime (1955)
One of David Lean's less known films, which is a pity. He does for Venice what he does for everything he turns his camera towards, no matter whether the desert or Ireland or Russia. Gorgeous cinematography. Hepburn is a teacher who comes to Venice and has a fling with a (married) hot young Venetian. As this isn't a Tennesee Williams story, she neither goes mad nor becomes eaten nor becomes a nymphomaniac or a prostitute. She doesn't die, either. It's that rare thing, a older woman/younger man romance (as opposed to the usual older man/younger woman combination), which ends in some gentle melancholy, but on a satisfying note.
Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner (1967)
Famous for a couple of things: it was Spencer Tracy's last film (he died shortly after), which was really why Katharine Hepburn is in it. Her role isn't big, but she wanted to keep an eye on him, as he was already very sick. Moreover, who is coming to dinner is hers and Tracy's characters' future son-in-law, played by Sidney Poitier. Years later, the film was critisized as being not daring enough for the first mainstream effort about an interracial couple - Poitier's character is a brilliant doctor, the best husband one could wish for. But as Poitier once said himself, that's sort of the point - Tracy and Hepburn play a liberal couple which has to face the fact that it's really just the race of this perfect guy which disturbs them, and what that implies about their tolerance.
Lastly, the film is famous for one particular scene. Tracy and Hepburn amazingly managed to have a decades-long love affair without the press ever outing them, despite the fact that he was married (and a Catholic). He also was not prone to outbursts of emotion, and rarely, if ever, talked about how he felt about her. But in Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner, his character, having been won around to his daughter's choice of a husband, has a wistful little speech about love, at the end of which Tracy directly looked at Hepburn. All accounts of the filming agree that it was meant, and felt by the crew, as a tribute and a personal confession.
So, if you want a look at the idealistic side of the 60s, and a moment of odd biographical relevance, watch the movie.
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Never mind idealism. This is a witty and dark look at that fascinatingly dysfunctional dynasty, the Plantagenets, and my second most favourite historical movie of all time. I've seen other actresses as Eleanor of Aquitaine, but none like Katharine Hepburn. She's brilliant, ruthless, manipulative to the nth degree, passionate, and can switch from despair to the next big plan in seconds, all completely believable. This role brought her her third Oscar, and you can see why at once.
Actually, the entire cast of this film rocks. Peter O'Toole is magnificent as Henry II (and btw, considering that he was much, much younger than Henry when making this film, the perfectly believable middle-aged body language is another amazing feat in addition to the other aspects of his acting), in the quintessential love/hate relationship this side of "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" with Eleanor. Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton, many, many years before either got famous, were Richard the Lionheart and Philippe of France respectively. And be sure to keep track of who is double-crossing whom all the time. *veg*
***
And here are some quotes on Kate the Great. Sian Phillips (the actress who so magnicently embodied the empress Livia in I, Claudius and was married to Peter O'Toole during the 60s and 70s, and, trivia for BTVS fans, then had a fling with Robin "Ethan Rayne" Sachs) writes in her memoirs:
When O'Toole, who was very smitten by her glamorous, unusual presence, was moved to say, 'My God - if I was thirty years older I'd have given Spencer Tracy a run for his money', we looked at each other, slightly cross-eyed, wondering which of us had been more insulted; Kate for being considered too old to be desirable or me, who, all things being equal, would have been discarded in favour of a young Kate. It wasn't something to be thought about too closely, so we both smiled sweetly. When, in 1970, Kate was playing in COCO, the musical, in New York, O'Toole and I dined at her house before leaving for South America. As we left, she grabbed me by the arm and hissed, 'You let him push you around - stop it. I'm spoiled. GET SPOILED!' I nodded, smiling, and thought I'd like to see her trying to get her own way with O'Toole, were she thirty years younger. Not a chance. I remember her as spoiled and selfish indeed but what wonderful common sense she had. And she took what she wanted and paid for it, and, I would hazard, has rarely had occasion to regret her choices.
Spencer Tracy, when it was first suggested to him he should play in a film with Katharine Hepburn: How can I do a picture with a woman who has dirt under her fingernails and who is of ambiguous sexuality and always wears pants?
David Lean: I suppose she's just about my greatest friend, even now. I love her. I mean, she had the same sort of expertise as Celia Johnson. Celia and Kate, the two of them, are the great actresses I've worked with. Just, just wonderful, both of them, no trouble at all, always easy. I remember being with Kate in Venice. We had a set, high up overlookeing the canal, in which I said, 'Look, Kate, I'm afraid I can give no excuse for it, but, having done this and that in the middle of the room, you've just got to walk to that window, and I can give you no reason for doing that.' And she said, 'Yeah, well, that's what I'm paid for.' And she did it. And it looked as if the only thing for her to do was to move to that window so she could look out. Just wonderful.
Lauren Bacall (married to Humphrey Bogart and hence along at the shooting of African Queen):
As we headed for Ponthierville, we passed a bamboo forest. Katie said, "Stop the car, I've always wanted to sit in the middle of a bamboo forest." I thought Bogie would explode. But the car stopped and out she got - as did I. It was very still and very beautiful. (...) So many of the crew were confined to bed - some with dysentery, amoebic or straight. Even Katie had to take to her bed - she was a sick lady, nauseated all the time, but never complained and never missed a day's workk. God, I admired her! She had opinions, voiced them, and stuck to them, sometimes drove Bogie crazy - mainly, I think, because they were so alike, and also because he knew she'd stay in Africa forever if it need be.
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Shot during her "box office poison" period, which makes the fact it became a cult classic later on a nice irony. Directed by Howard Hawks, co-starring Cary Grant, a leopard, a dinosaur skeleton, a dog and a great collection of one liners. Hepburn is a zany excentric rich girl named Susan, Grant is a shy professor whose life she makes living hell. And we love her for it. The only actor whom Katharine Hepburn was paired up with more often than Cary Grant was Spencer Tracy. They've got great chemistry, and a rare comedic timing. Bringing Up Baby is also refreshingly empty of a morals. You can bet that if it had been shot some years later, Susan would have learned to be a good responsible professor's wife at the end, instead of taking him into her life of living in the moment. Definitely my favourite film for the young Kate H.
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
This one was remade with Grace Kelly as High Society, and the remake inadvertendly reveals all the sexism and inherent flaws of the story, though they cut the most offensive line. (Tracy Lord's father tellling her he wouldn't have cheated on her mother with a younger woman if she had been a better daughter.) Why do I still recommend watching the original? Because on the bright side, it offers a lot of witty dialogue and Katharine Hepburn, Joseph Cotten and Cary Grant in top form. Grace Kelly in High Society is just an insipid snob, and it's hard to say why all the males of the film fall for her. K.H. in The Philadelphia Story is also a snob, but you can understand Cotten's character telling her she glows, that she's a goddess, for she really has that charm and vitality that overwhelm you. Oh, and: it features one of the funniest drunk scenes on film. This movie marked Hepburn's triumphant return to Hollywood on her terms.
(After the box office poison period, she had gone home to Conneticut, Phil Barry had written the play The Philadelpha Story for her, and she had made it a stage triumph. Howard Hughes bought the film rights for her and gave them to her as a gracious post-break-up present, which allowed her complete control over casting and director for the film version.)
The African Queen (1951)
Or, the film that launched a thousand books. (The shooting of same, rather.) Well no, only two, but both are very readable. Peter Viertel's thinly fictionally disguised White Hunter, Black Heart was made into a film by Clint Eastwood, starring himself as the John Huston character, and is a Hemingwayesque tale about an obsessive director. Hepburn's own African Queen, about the shooting, is an amusing madcap adventure with tongue-in-cheek portraits of Huston, Bogart, and herself. Huston's hunting obsession, taken so very seriously in the Viertel novel, is here a given as a "boys and their guns, or why John never grew up" treatment. She doesn't spare herself, either, noting that the alcohol-swallowing Huston and Bogart made it through Africa without a single day of illness, whereas she, who had lectured them on their lifestyle, was done in by the water.
Oh yes, the actual film. Features Hepburn as a missionary spinster and Bogart as a slovenly Captain who finds himself saddled with her. Co-starring African scenery, a very shaky boat, and some Nazis who come in handily for a wedding. The novel this film was based on was written by C.S. Forrester, and it shows, if you've read the Hornblower novels. Great fun, and with touching moments besides. If you look at it from a Bogart instead of a Hepburn perspective, it's a departure from his usual pairings - Charlie is definitely not the dominating guy here...
Summertime (1955)
One of David Lean's less known films, which is a pity. He does for Venice what he does for everything he turns his camera towards, no matter whether the desert or Ireland or Russia. Gorgeous cinematography. Hepburn is a teacher who comes to Venice and has a fling with a (married) hot young Venetian. As this isn't a Tennesee Williams story, she neither goes mad nor becomes eaten nor becomes a nymphomaniac or a prostitute. She doesn't die, either. It's that rare thing, a older woman/younger man romance (as opposed to the usual older man/younger woman combination), which ends in some gentle melancholy, but on a satisfying note.
Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner (1967)
Famous for a couple of things: it was Spencer Tracy's last film (he died shortly after), which was really why Katharine Hepburn is in it. Her role isn't big, but she wanted to keep an eye on him, as he was already very sick. Moreover, who is coming to dinner is hers and Tracy's characters' future son-in-law, played by Sidney Poitier. Years later, the film was critisized as being not daring enough for the first mainstream effort about an interracial couple - Poitier's character is a brilliant doctor, the best husband one could wish for. But as Poitier once said himself, that's sort of the point - Tracy and Hepburn play a liberal couple which has to face the fact that it's really just the race of this perfect guy which disturbs them, and what that implies about their tolerance.
Lastly, the film is famous for one particular scene. Tracy and Hepburn amazingly managed to have a decades-long love affair without the press ever outing them, despite the fact that he was married (and a Catholic). He also was not prone to outbursts of emotion, and rarely, if ever, talked about how he felt about her. But in Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner, his character, having been won around to his daughter's choice of a husband, has a wistful little speech about love, at the end of which Tracy directly looked at Hepburn. All accounts of the filming agree that it was meant, and felt by the crew, as a tribute and a personal confession.
So, if you want a look at the idealistic side of the 60s, and a moment of odd biographical relevance, watch the movie.
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Never mind idealism. This is a witty and dark look at that fascinatingly dysfunctional dynasty, the Plantagenets, and my second most favourite historical movie of all time. I've seen other actresses as Eleanor of Aquitaine, but none like Katharine Hepburn. She's brilliant, ruthless, manipulative to the nth degree, passionate, and can switch from despair to the next big plan in seconds, all completely believable. This role brought her her third Oscar, and you can see why at once.
Actually, the entire cast of this film rocks. Peter O'Toole is magnificent as Henry II (and btw, considering that he was much, much younger than Henry when making this film, the perfectly believable middle-aged body language is another amazing feat in addition to the other aspects of his acting), in the quintessential love/hate relationship this side of "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" with Eleanor. Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton, many, many years before either got famous, were Richard the Lionheart and Philippe of France respectively. And be sure to keep track of who is double-crossing whom all the time. *veg*
***
And here are some quotes on Kate the Great. Sian Phillips (the actress who so magnicently embodied the empress Livia in I, Claudius and was married to Peter O'Toole during the 60s and 70s, and, trivia for BTVS fans, then had a fling with Robin "Ethan Rayne" Sachs) writes in her memoirs:
When O'Toole, who was very smitten by her glamorous, unusual presence, was moved to say, 'My God - if I was thirty years older I'd have given Spencer Tracy a run for his money', we looked at each other, slightly cross-eyed, wondering which of us had been more insulted; Kate for being considered too old to be desirable or me, who, all things being equal, would have been discarded in favour of a young Kate. It wasn't something to be thought about too closely, so we both smiled sweetly. When, in 1970, Kate was playing in COCO, the musical, in New York, O'Toole and I dined at her house before leaving for South America. As we left, she grabbed me by the arm and hissed, 'You let him push you around - stop it. I'm spoiled. GET SPOILED!' I nodded, smiling, and thought I'd like to see her trying to get her own way with O'Toole, were she thirty years younger. Not a chance. I remember her as spoiled and selfish indeed but what wonderful common sense she had. And she took what she wanted and paid for it, and, I would hazard, has rarely had occasion to regret her choices.
Spencer Tracy, when it was first suggested to him he should play in a film with Katharine Hepburn: How can I do a picture with a woman who has dirt under her fingernails and who is of ambiguous sexuality and always wears pants?
David Lean: I suppose she's just about my greatest friend, even now. I love her. I mean, she had the same sort of expertise as Celia Johnson. Celia and Kate, the two of them, are the great actresses I've worked with. Just, just wonderful, both of them, no trouble at all, always easy. I remember being with Kate in Venice. We had a set, high up overlookeing the canal, in which I said, 'Look, Kate, I'm afraid I can give no excuse for it, but, having done this and that in the middle of the room, you've just got to walk to that window, and I can give you no reason for doing that.' And she said, 'Yeah, well, that's what I'm paid for.' And she did it. And it looked as if the only thing for her to do was to move to that window so she could look out. Just wonderful.
Lauren Bacall (married to Humphrey Bogart and hence along at the shooting of African Queen):
As we headed for Ponthierville, we passed a bamboo forest. Katie said, "Stop the car, I've always wanted to sit in the middle of a bamboo forest." I thought Bogie would explode. But the car stopped and out she got - as did I. It was very still and very beautiful. (...) So many of the crew were confined to bed - some with dysentery, amoebic or straight. Even Katie had to take to her bed - she was a sick lady, nauseated all the time, but never complained and never missed a day's workk. God, I admired her! She had opinions, voiced them, and stuck to them, sometimes drove Bogie crazy - mainly, I think, because they were so alike, and also because he knew she'd stay in Africa forever if it need be.