As far as film history is concerned, this RKO movie is interesting as Katharine Hepburn's film debut. It also marked the beginning of her long professional relationship with George Cukor: they eventually made 10 movies together.
The movie also marked Billie Burke's debut in 'talkies.' She was forced to return to the screen to support her husband, Flo Ziegfeld. After his long string of Broadway successes, he was broke in 1932. He died about two months after this movie was released. His story is fairly well covered in the multi-Oscar winning movie, The Great Zeigfeld (1936) with Myrna Loy playing Burke. The year after A Bill of Divorcement was released, Burk, Barrymore, and Cukor rejoined in MGM's ensemble work, Dinner at Eight (1933), and Hepburn went on to make her first Oscar winning movie, Morning Glory (1933), for RKO. While the history surrounding A Bill of Divorcement is interesting, the film is close to a flop for me, saved only by Hepburn's great acting.
The movie concerns a family working its way around its absent patriarch , Hilary Fairfield (John Barrymore). Hilary had been in a mental institution for 15 years due to being shell shocked in the Great War. His wife, Meg (Billie Burk), is serving him with a bill of divorcement so that she can go on with her life and marry again. His daughter, Sydney (Katherine Hepburn), is set to marry her boyfriend, Kit (David Manners), while only his sister, Hester (Elizabeth Patterson), knows the real reason for Hilary's sickness: the awful family history of mental illness. When Hilary escapes from the hospital, the family is forced to deal with him.
This dated melodrama doesn't play well for today's audiences who have seen vast improvements in the treatment of mental illness, its portrayal in the movies, and its now-dated stigma. In the movie, Barrymore is pitiful as a whimpering shell of a man who refers to the mental hospital as 'that place.' The family doctor and Hilary's sister are brutal about his disease and its inescapable prognosis for Hilary and all of his blood offspring.
Barrymore's acting is atrocious! Not only do you 'catch him acting,' but the 'acting' that you catch him doing is bad. You become so impatient when he delivers his lines that you want to finish them for him rather than endure his clumsiness. To see a bad job of early sound editing, watch Barrymore's pantomiming his piano 'sonata' at the end of the movie. What you SEE and what you HEAR don't even remotely match.
Billie Burk's performance is better than we are used to. Her voice doesn't warble, and we can feel some sympathy with her situation, at least as she understands it. The entire movie is saved by Hepburn's loving and caring debut performance.
The movie also marked Billie Burke's debut in 'talkies.' She was forced to return to the screen to support her husband, Flo Ziegfeld. After his long string of Broadway successes, he was broke in 1932. He died about two months after this movie was released. His story is fairly well covered in the multi-Oscar winning movie, The Great Zeigfeld (1936) with Myrna Loy playing Burke. The year after A Bill of Divorcement was released, Burk, Barrymore, and Cukor rejoined in MGM's ensemble work, Dinner at Eight (1933), and Hepburn went on to make her first Oscar winning movie, Morning Glory (1933), for RKO. While the history surrounding A Bill of Divorcement is interesting, the film is close to a flop for me, saved only by Hepburn's great acting.
The movie concerns a family working its way around its absent patriarch , Hilary Fairfield (John Barrymore). Hilary had been in a mental institution for 15 years due to being shell shocked in the Great War. His wife, Meg (Billie Burk), is serving him with a bill of divorcement so that she can go on with her life and marry again. His daughter, Sydney (Katherine Hepburn), is set to marry her boyfriend, Kit (David Manners), while only his sister, Hester (Elizabeth Patterson), knows the real reason for Hilary's sickness: the awful family history of mental illness. When Hilary escapes from the hospital, the family is forced to deal with him.
This dated melodrama doesn't play well for today's audiences who have seen vast improvements in the treatment of mental illness, its portrayal in the movies, and its now-dated stigma. In the movie, Barrymore is pitiful as a whimpering shell of a man who refers to the mental hospital as 'that place.' The family doctor and Hilary's sister are brutal about his disease and its inescapable prognosis for Hilary and all of his blood offspring.
Barrymore's acting is atrocious! Not only do you 'catch him acting,' but the 'acting' that you catch him doing is bad. You become so impatient when he delivers his lines that you want to finish them for him rather than endure his clumsiness. To see a bad job of early sound editing, watch Barrymore's pantomiming his piano 'sonata' at the end of the movie. What you SEE and what you HEAR don't even remotely match.
Billie Burk's performance is better than we are used to. Her voice doesn't warble, and we can feel some sympathy with her situation, at least as she understands it. The entire movie is saved by Hepburn's loving and caring debut performance.