I love many of the classics and was fascinated to watch this film when I recently found it on TCM, but the fascination wears off quickly. This was the film that won Katharine Hepburn her first Oscar. Unless voters were deluded to believe that her shameless scenery-chomping here was "unique", then it is impossible to understand any affection for either her performance or the film.
The story is pretty threadbare even at this stage in cinema. Hepburn plays young aspiring actress Eva Lovelace from the sticks, who shows up on Broadway to try to make her mark like her idols of yore. The main characters are introduced when she shows up at an open casting call for a new Broadway show. Adolphe Menjou is the producer, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the writer, Mary Duncan is the diva and C. Aubrey Smith is the character actor who becomes her mentor of sorts. We realize there is a problem pretty quickly. Hepburn babbles incessantly, introducing herself to everyone and invading their space. Some of this could be attributed to her character's nerves, but she acts this way through the whole damn film. She talks and talks and talks, often without barely taking a breath. She name drops incessantly, tells nonsensical lies, rarely listens when someone speaks to her because she is too busy talking over them, and gestures madly all over the place as though she were already on a stage. More disturbing is that after a brief meeting with Menjou, where he barely tolerates her obnoxious presence, she somehow convinces herself that she is in love with him and he with her.
Next sequence finds her wandering the streets obviously broke, when she stumbles across Morris who insists she attend an opening night party with him at Menjou's apartment. She gets drunk and captivates the party by reciting Shakespeare (the film's rare highlight) before making a fool of herself. Menjou is mildly amused, but also irritated by her. Fairbanks for some reason is captivated and starts to promote her career, but Hepburn is so infatuated by the nonexistent romance with Menjou that she takes Fairbanks for granted.
A la 42nd Street, when Duncan's diva walks out, Hepburn has her chance on stage. Tellingly, we never actually see Hepburn take the stage or emote thereon. We just have everyone else tell her how brilliant she is, while she conducts herself like a loon. In the last 10 minutes alone, she goes from the high of her success to the realization that Menjou never loved her (he could not have been more obvious!). Fairbanks declares his love, but she spurns him for her "art", then immediately regrets it and babbles about the loneliness of being an artist, and then decides it is great after all. Truly the woman is cuckoo for cocoa puffs and it is impossible to understand why no one else sees it. There is a difference between an artistic temperament and nuts.
Fairbanks has barely a role to play and ends up just being blandly handsome. Menjou is better, but has limited notes as well since he is stuck having to be slightly amused or annoyed. Duncan is a riot as the diva and Smith is his usual great character actor self. If you are a die-hard fan of Hepburn, you may enjoy her here. Anyone else will undoubtedly find her insufferable. She never manages to make Eva likable or even worth rooting for. Instead, Eva just seems mentally unstable, grasping and obnoxious. Her endless babbling and talking over everyone else gets old fast.
The story is pretty threadbare even at this stage in cinema. Hepburn plays young aspiring actress Eva Lovelace from the sticks, who shows up on Broadway to try to make her mark like her idols of yore. The main characters are introduced when she shows up at an open casting call for a new Broadway show. Adolphe Menjou is the producer, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the writer, Mary Duncan is the diva and C. Aubrey Smith is the character actor who becomes her mentor of sorts. We realize there is a problem pretty quickly. Hepburn babbles incessantly, introducing herself to everyone and invading their space. Some of this could be attributed to her character's nerves, but she acts this way through the whole damn film. She talks and talks and talks, often without barely taking a breath. She name drops incessantly, tells nonsensical lies, rarely listens when someone speaks to her because she is too busy talking over them, and gestures madly all over the place as though she were already on a stage. More disturbing is that after a brief meeting with Menjou, where he barely tolerates her obnoxious presence, she somehow convinces herself that she is in love with him and he with her.
Next sequence finds her wandering the streets obviously broke, when she stumbles across Morris who insists she attend an opening night party with him at Menjou's apartment. She gets drunk and captivates the party by reciting Shakespeare (the film's rare highlight) before making a fool of herself. Menjou is mildly amused, but also irritated by her. Fairbanks for some reason is captivated and starts to promote her career, but Hepburn is so infatuated by the nonexistent romance with Menjou that she takes Fairbanks for granted.
A la 42nd Street, when Duncan's diva walks out, Hepburn has her chance on stage. Tellingly, we never actually see Hepburn take the stage or emote thereon. We just have everyone else tell her how brilliant she is, while she conducts herself like a loon. In the last 10 minutes alone, she goes from the high of her success to the realization that Menjou never loved her (he could not have been more obvious!). Fairbanks declares his love, but she spurns him for her "art", then immediately regrets it and babbles about the loneliness of being an artist, and then decides it is great after all. Truly the woman is cuckoo for cocoa puffs and it is impossible to understand why no one else sees it. There is a difference between an artistic temperament and nuts.
Fairbanks has barely a role to play and ends up just being blandly handsome. Menjou is better, but has limited notes as well since he is stuck having to be slightly amused or annoyed. Duncan is a riot as the diva and Smith is his usual great character actor self. If you are a die-hard fan of Hepburn, you may enjoy her here. Anyone else will undoubtedly find her insufferable. She never manages to make Eva likable or even worth rooting for. Instead, Eva just seems mentally unstable, grasping and obnoxious. Her endless babbling and talking over everyone else gets old fast.