Christopher Strong (1933)

Director:

Dorothy Arzner

Writers:

Gilbert Frankau (novel)
Zoe Akins (screenplay)

Release Date:

31 March 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Higher and higher! Faster and faster! She gave herself to the great god Speed, and tried to run away from the fires within her!

Plot:

A famous female flier and a member of Parliament drift into a potentially disastrous affair.

Plot Keywords:

Airplane Accident | Around The World Flight | Aviator | Boat Ride | Cannes France

Cast

Katharine Hepburn	...	Lady Cynthia Darrington
Colin Clive	...	Sir Christopher Strong
Billie Burke	...	Lady Elaine Strong
Helen Chandler	...	Monica Strong
Ralph Forbes	...	Harry Rawlinson
Irene Browne	...	Carrie Valentine
Jack La Rue	...	Carlo
Desmond Roberts	...	Bryce Mercer

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #1544-R)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Newsreel footage of parades and famous flights were used in the movie.

Quotes:

Lady Cynthia Darrington: I wouldn't have loved you if you'd been a usual man. And you wouldn't have loved me if I'd been a woman who didn't take this kind of thing seriously.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Women Who Made the Movies (1992) (V)

Soundtrack:

Nearer My God To Thee

Title Should Have Been Cynthia Darrington

I'm not quite sure why the title of this film is not Lady Cynthia Darrington since the film rises and falls on the action of Hepburn's character and not on Colin Clive's title role of Christopher Strong.

Clive is a most proper member of Parliament, probably a Tory, who through a treasure hunt, a la My Man Godfrey, he meets Hepburn who is a young titled woman who has an interest in aviation. In fact she's the British version of Amelia Earhart.

Clive and wife Billie Burke have a daughter, Helen Chandler, who is something of a wild child. She's having an affair with the unhappily married Ralph Forbes. But before long it's Clive and Hepburn who get involved.

Colin Clive gives us a perfect portrayal of a man going through midlife crisis when everything just seems to settle in a dull routine. He's so taken by Hepburn's vitality and independence that their affair has an inevitability about it.

Dorothy Arzner one of the few women directors around at that point also gives us one of Kate's very first feminist icon roles. Her first film, A Bill of Divorcement, had Kate as a dutiful daughter who gives up her man to care for an insane father. Kate has some critical choices to make in Christopher Strong as well.

What she does might not make sense to today's audience, but made perfectly good sense in post Victorian Great Britain. She and Clive make a wonderful pair of tragic lovers in a drama that while old fashioned still holds up.