Spitfire (1934) User Reviews

An Interesting Experiment

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 12 May 2008]

Though the role of Trigger Hicks in Spitfire turned out to be disastrous commercially for RKO and did nothing to help the career of Katherine Hepburn, it's still an interesting experiment when seen today. Especially seen by fans who regard Kate as a feminist icon.

Trigger Hicks is about as far as you can get for a role from the most well known graduate of Byrn Mawr in history. Kate's an illiterate hillbilly lass who is a mountain faith healer, respected by many and feared by more for her alleged powers.

Two who don't fear here are a pair of engineers sent to the Ozarks to build a railroad, Ralph Bellamy and Robert Young. Hepburn unfortunately falls for the married Young who of course doesn't tell her of his marriage to Martha Sleeper.

In her own way Trigger Hicks is as much an independent spirit as Tess Harding or Pat Pemberton or any of the other more sophisticated women that Kate later portrayed. I'm sure she thought of the film as expanding her range a bit even though it didn't quite stretch in that direction.

Still it's interesting to watch.

They should have just titled it "Misfire," although it is an interesting novelty.

[beyondtheforest · 6/10 · 13 August 2006]

There are some good things about Katharine Hepburn's 1934 RKO film, SPITFIRE, but they are overshadowed by the film's numerous failings. However, if you are in the correct mood to witness a "hillbilly" Hepburn or experience a fun time warp back to a time when a film like this could actually be made without being laughed at because it is so ridiculous (oh wait...I think it was!).

Anywho, Hepburn gives a fine, sensitive performance and there are some devastating closeups of her exquisite face. There is a nice subplot about how people can be judgmental of others and assume things which are not true. There was a much too contrived romance between Hepburn and Robert Young, as a city slicker out in the country wooing the "spitfire" hillbilly girl. The catch is he's married, and when she finds out she is heartbroken. The film ends on a good note with a scene of poetic brilliance. Hepburn is leaving, after being scared out of town, but promises to come back in a year for her love (or maybe much sooner, she says, as they share a kiss)! All in all, I was not unhappy I recorded this unusual film, even though stretches of it were boring. The production values seemed high, performances were good for the most part, and the score by Max Steiner was excellent. I was initially intrigued by the film's original poster art, which has great art deco style.

"Them that's trash like me" are characters in trash like this

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 5 September 2010]

It's a tribute to the great Katharine Hepburn that despite RKO casting her as an Okefenokee swamp hillbilly in "Spitfire," where she plays a character named Trigger (formerly mainly known as Roy Rogers' horse), Hepburn managed to have a magnificent and long career. A role like this would a brung down a lesser filly an' she'd a bin hog-tied an' on her way home on the horse that brung her.

Trigger, anyway, lives in a shack with her drunken pappy, lives on faith and is actually a faith-healer. Her neighbors think she's a witch. Two engineers, John Stafford (Robert Young) and George Fleetwood (Ralph Bellamy) meet Trigger and try to help her after she steals a baby in order to heal him. Both engineers end up falling for Trigger, though John is married and his wife shows up.

Katharine Hepburn's finishing school accent doesn't mix well with mountain talk. This is dreadful miscasting. The film is based on a play, and this was probably a new kind of play that didn't deal with the upper class, so it required a more natural style of acting. There's no denying that Hepburn was a fantastic actress, and she certainly can play the emotions called for in this role. But it's a bad fit.

Sidney Toler, who played Charlie Chan, appears in this film and speaks with the same that thar back-slapping accent as the rest of them.

Odd film, probably an odd play, with a odd cast.

A misfire, but better than I expected

[barrymn1 · 20 July 2004]

Yes, this is one of the weaker Hepburn RKO films, but instead of the truly horrible film I expected, I thought it was not as bad as is generally thought.

I like mid-1930's movies, and I'm a big fan of Hepburn. I'm always fascinated watching favorite actors doing unusual roles.

One of the reasons she took the part is due to her obvious talents as a sportswoman....can you imagine someone like Ginger Rogers in the role? Constance Bennett?

I was pleasantly surprised at Sara Haden's performance. She in support of scores of movies, and this role is one of her biggest parts. She's first-rate.

All in all, a very minor film, but if Warners ever gets around to releasing Hepburn's RKO films on DVD, this is one that I will buy.

Katharine Hepburn as a hill billy???

[tfiddler · 3/10 · 2 January 2007]

Any chance to see Katharine Hepburn in something I haven't seen or from her early movie career is a treat, and on that level the film is amusing, but she's horrible miscast as a Hill Billy. Her famous New England enunciation slips through, making lines like, "I'd better rustle up some Vittles" pretty ludicrous. She's so pretty and so young… it almost overcomes this major flaw. The story is an old fashioned melodrama, and there fore, a younger generation may think this pretty corny stuff, but this was the staple of American Entertainment well into the 1940's. It has its moments, but you might need to be a die-hard movie buff to appreciate it.

Universally ridiculed, and I liked it

[marcslope · 7/10 · 12 June 2014]

Just the thought of "Katharine Hepburn as a hillbilly" automatically sends many viewers into hysterics, and it's indeed jarring at first to view her as Trigger Hicks, an innocent Ozarks miss who's an ungainly combination of religious fervor, antisocial behavior, unexamined but potent sexuality, and wisecracks. Take away all your predispositions about Katharine Hepburn, though, and she's quite good in it, doing a lot of acting with her eyes and singing in a far more resonant alto than she exhibited decades later on the Broadway stage. It's a "Tobacco Road"-like melodrama of misfits in the hills, with Ralph Bellamy and Robert Young as the smart-men-from-the-city who are interested in her, and it's from a 1927 stage play that didn't run long. (One of the stage actors, Sara Haden, repeats her stage role; also in the original company was a very young Natalie Schaefer, as the wife of the Robert Young character.) It's picturesque and thoughtful and really quite touching in examining how nonconformists cope in unfriendly surroundings, and the lack of background music and deliberate pacing make it seem less manufactured and movie-fied than many contemporary offerings. Give it a chance. However, a postscript: In the mid-1970s I had occasion to tell Miss Hepburn, as she was getting into her limo, "Miss Hepburn, one of your movies is on TV locally this week, it's called 'Spitfire.'" "'Spitfire,' 'Spitfire,' she mused. "Oh, God help us all."

Blazin' brimstone! It's a backwoods skeleton in Kate's closet!

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 13 August 2006]

Katharine Hepburn as a mountain woman who mixes prayer with positive thinking--and is thought by the local folk to be a witch. Kate works overly-hard trying to convince us she's a backwoods hick (named Trigger Hicks!), but you can see she doesn't even believe in this unintentionally comical scenario. Constantly-smiling Robert Young plays a foreman working on the construction of a mountain dam who becomes Trigger's first crush...but alas, he's married! No amount of white magic can resuscitate this formula, based on a play and brought to the screen by R.K.O. with too broad a hillbilly flourish. It is ungodly, and just about unwatchable. *1/2 from ****

An Odd Little film

[AlanBryan2112 · 7/10 · 4 April 2005]

I enjoyed this to a point. It's certainly an ODD Little film

I was trying to understand where it was going. I stayed with it to see what the ending was going to be -- I expected Trigger would somehow die in the end.

Hepburn was funny as Trigger. I don't think that was intentional, but I laughed at her odd syntax and slang. She was gorgeous too; a bit too good looking for someone missing a few meals every day.

Ralph Bellemy's "Mr. Fleetwood" was the nice guy and while he was the 'Boss' over the damn project he was liked by all his workers. Isn't that an odd thing?

Robert Young's "John Stafford" was a jerk. I was a bit annoyed at his flirtation with this Hepburn's Trigger since he was supposed to be married and he hid that fact from her. I guess that is how his character was supposed to come off for Trigger to learn how deceitful even 'city folk' could act.

The religious overtones are interesting but grind to a halt late in the film. I don't understand why Trigger burned her 'Sunday School' cards.

The movie intrigues the viewer but leaves too many questions.

imagine Katherine Hepburn playing a Hillbilly!

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 17 June 2005]

This is a really silly job of miscasting--about as bad as Hepburn playing a Chinese woman in "Dragon Seed". The lead part Hepburn plays is a combination of Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies and a faith healer! This film is even worse than Bogart's "Swing Your Lady", because at least Bogart didn't play a hillbilly--he was just surrounded by them. And the dialog sounds as if it comes right from a Li'l Abner strip! The problems don't really end with the outrageous casting, though, as the plot is completely muddled and the 'love story' might make your brain hurt. For no reason WHATSOEVER, married Robert Young falls for this Ozark bobcat. Was it her lovely personality that won his heart? I doubt it, as she is the fiery "spitfire" the movie was named after and she really seemed to like fightin' and scrappin' and hollerin'! Was it her feminine charms? With no makeup and fashions that looked like they were designed by Ma Kettle, I doubt if this was the case as well. To top this off, in the end, somehow Ralph Bellamy also fell for her, though once again, it really doesn't seem to make ANY sense.

So, here we have two city fellers fallin' for a scrappy unfeminine she-beast played by Ms. Hepburn--now THAT'S a recipe for a good film!

Them Thar Hills

[lugonian · 6/10 · 15 May 2016]

SPITFIRE (RKO Radio Pictures, 1934), directed by John Cromwell, stars Katharine Hepburn in one of her most unusual movie roles, unusual by sense of her casting rather than its story. Following the pattern of playing a stage struck girl in MORNING GLORY (1933), for which she won the Academy Award, and going one better as Jo March to the screen adaptation to Louisa May Allcott's literary work of LITTLE WOMEN (1933), who would have imagined the now established Hepburn choosing for her next movie role as a mountain girl? Taken from the story, "Trigger" by Lula Vollmer, SPITFIRE could easily be a hillbilly caricature of Jo March due to her tomboyish nature, yet at the same time makes every effort presenting herself in a very believable manner down to her hillbilly spoken dialect.

Opening title: "Ignorance and superstition are not confined to any one locality. They stalk hand in hand all over the world flourishing, especially in isolated sections cut off from civilization. But, here in the backwoods countries sometimes we find a faith simple and strong enough to throw its lights even into civilization." Trigger Hicks (Katharine Hepburn) is introduced as a religious 18-year-old mountain girl who's peaceful one moment and speaks her mind with violent outbursts the next by throwing stones without hitting her target. She believes herself to be a mystic healer whose prayers can heal the sick and raise the dead. Close by to where she's living are John Stafford (Robert Young) and George Fleetwood (Ralph Bellamy), a couple of contract engineers for the Whitlock Construction Company working on a dam building project nearing completion. They each encounter Trigger Hicks and find her fascinating in nature. Trigger becomes slightly romantically involved with one of them, unaware the he's married. The basic premise, which takes up much of the film's second half, concerns Trigger taking it upon herself in abducting an infant belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer (Sidney Toler and Therese Wittler), believing she can cure this sickly baby who's near dying. The child does improve under her care, but is advised by Fleetwood to return it to its parents, which she does. After the return, the baby becomes weaker, and after its death, both parents and the neighboring crowd accuse her of witchcraft, resulting to verbal outbursts and casting stones. Will Trigger be able to prove otherwise?

Though there have been backwoods stories told on screen before dating back to the early days of motion pictures, with the rarely seen STARK LOVE (Paramount, 1927)immediately coming to mind with an authentic hillbilly cast rather than professional actors in the cast, makes one wonder how SPITFIRE might have turned out had it been produced that way instead? However, for the sake of box-office appeal, comes Katharine Hepburn, Robert Young (on loan from MGM) and Ralph Bellamy as the selected actors working together for the only time. Others in support are: Louis Mason (Bill Grayson); Martha Sleeper (Eleanor); Virginia Howell (Granny Raines); John Beck (Jake Hawkins); along with Bob Burns (billed as High Ghere) in the role of West Fry. In her first screen role, Sara (billed Sarah) Haden, nearly steals it with her believable performance as Etta Dawson, an ignorant hillbilly girl who gets on Trigger's nerves. Louis Mason is equally effective playing the rustic hayseed, also working on the dam project who stirs up Trigger by wanting to kiss her.

With the exception of the opening credits, SPITFIRE lacks any sort of mood music and underscoring, yet manages not to resemble an early 1929 talkie. It does, however, take some time getting the story going with character introduction and plot development to where the story is heading before leading to a resulting conclusion that's seems to pave way for a sequel which never occurs.

Formerly available on video cassette, SPITFIRE did have broadcasts on various cable networks as USA (1980s); American Movie Classics (prior to 2001); and Turner Classic Movies since 1994. Though rarely shown on New York City television since the 1960s, it was interesting getting to see SPITFIRE at one point dubbed in Spanish on the Spanish TV channel prior to 1973 on WNJU, Channel 47, Newark, New Jersey, before getting to know what the actors are actually saying when shown entirely in its original English with a couple of reruns on public television's WNET, Channel 13 (1977-78), in New York City.

Aside from other Hepburn's offbeat performances as a Chinese wife in DRAGON SEED (MGM, 1944), and a Russian in a Bob Hope comedy, THE IRON PETTICOAT (MGM, 1956), for SPITFIRE, this is Hepburn, a different Hepburn type performance, that dominates the proceedings in such a way that it's totally impossible not seeing this one through its entire 87 minutes, at least for Hepburn fans anyway. (***)

Spitfire what a misfire!

[rose_lily · 1/10 · 3 August 2013]

A movie like this, best forgotten, wouldn't even merit a review but doing so gives insight to the trajectory of a 50 year career where the roles Hepburn selected were done with rigorous calculation to circumvent her limited acting range and showcase her talent to best advantage. And this strategy served her admirably. Katharine Hepburn was lauded with four Best Actress Oscars and reigns as an uncontested film legend.

In "Spitfire" Hepburn is a ruffian, soulfully driven to do "good works," practicing the healing arts and offering prayers for her neighbors. She saves the life of a dying child, which only alienates her further from the good graces of the rural folk whose superstitious distrust brand her a witch. Hepburn attacks her character of the misunderstood and maligned Trigger Hicks with the zeal of an amateur actor, flailing unmoored with discomfort trying to give life to this backwoods girl. Her attempt at producing the speech of rural primitives is a tortured amalgam of verbiage, a parody of hick talk. Always beneath the surface percolates an East Coast swank that manages to now and then, disconcertingly, pour out of her mouth. The end product is Katharine Hepburn trying to insert herself into the character of Trigger Hicks… somewhat analogous to stuffing a diamond into an egg crate.

Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy, two engineers on project assignment in this hillbilly haven are inserted as romantic interest but their relationships with the heroine are ambiguous and never fully developed. Not much to be said about this. The two men's involvement with Trigger appears more like an academic exercise, a fascination with a girl who to them is just a touching cultural oddity.

Recipient of an Academy Award, in 1933 for "Morning Glory," Hepburn's place in the Hollywood pantheon of achievement only gained momentum through her fortuitous pairing with Spenser Tracy. With Tracy she played roles whose characters were close to who Katharine Hepburn was off the movie screen. Tracy representations of the no nonsense "everyman" provided the perfect foil for Hepburn's insolent finishing school personage. And Hepburn excelled when she could play herself, i.e. the independent out-spoken woman with social pedigree. When she had to diverge from this comfortable template, her performances were forced and heavy handed. Her partnership with her "better half" Tracy made Hepburn a star.

Flawed, but a real gem

[fowler-16 · 9/10 · 12 August 2006]

Other reviewers seem to be comparing this delightful old film with standard streamlined products of the 40s and later. But "Spitfire" belongs to an older tradition, and it's a rare example of theatrical naturalism translated to film. Naturalism was always a dicey affair, attempting to study real (i.e., non-glamorous) people in folksy environments, and usually failing because written by authors of "a class above" for sensational purposes. I found this quaint vision of hill folk very appealing, representing a kind of nostalgia for Americana imagined although never real--yet nevertheless enjoyed by mainstream audiences. The young Hepburn gives an awkward but dazzling performance, fully inhabiting her naïve, sentimentalized Trigger Hicks, delivering her lines in a vigorous and truly delicious stage "Hillbilly" dialect. Don't miss a chance to travel on this strange, charming time machine.

Reveals Kate Hepburn's Talents

[parktexas · 7/10 · 12 May 2020]

It's a bit challenging to associate Ms. Hepburn with this role. However, it takes very little time for your mind to accept her in this role. She shows her talent by stripping your mind of her her super star fame. Ralph Bellamy gives a sold performance.

Odd little film that I found myself liking.

I'm still shaking my head and laughing.

[jshaffer-1 · 1/10 · 3 April 2005]

This movie is truly unbelievable, in every sense of the word. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and hearing, and I didn't believe it anyhow. Hepburn is probably my favorite actress, but this was ridiculous. Being a hillbilly myself, I know what it should sound like, and it's not Kate's Back Bay accent. The only thing I found funnier was the fact that the guy who played Charlie Chan so many times, Sydney Toler, was cast as another one of the hillbillies, with accent to match. Maybe this was a practical joke, come to think of it. I can think of no other reason for such peculiar casting. Well, maybe this. I noticed that Natalie Schaefer, Lovey Howell on Gilligan's Island, appeared in this play on Broadway. Can you imagine what part she might have played?

Unintentionally funny - we're talking Miscasting Hall of Fame

[otter · 4 January 2001]

Okay, you have a lame script about a hillbilly girl. She's emotional and immature, ignert and superstitious, grubby and mystical, with an innocent yet powerful sexuality. Who do you cast? Perhaps an actress who can project some of those qualities? Possibly someone who can do the accept properly, maybe someone in the right age group, or even someone whose background has something in it that would allow her to connect to the character? YOU might, but the producers cast the most damnably Yankee actress in Hollywood - Katherine Hepburn.

Katherine Hepburn - of New England old money, graduate of Bryn Mawr, officially inducted into the Preppie Hall of Fame, the living embodiment of well-bred hard-headed plain-spoken Yankee common sense, whose best roles are as sophisticated and professional women... cast as a ragged teenage Hillbilly outcast illiterate mystic thought to be a witch by her backwoods neighbors? Hepburn had enough Yankee common sense to try everything possible to get out of doing this role, but the idiots who ran studio had the upper hand and forced her into this little stinker. Her awkwardness shows she knows what a fool she's making of herself, but still gives it the old college try (yuk, yuk), taking this movie from ordinary badness into truly amazing eye-popping badness. I mean, classy Kate Hepburn throwing stones at the neighbors and having bug-eyed visions? You have to see this to believe it.

Without Hepburn the movie would still be terrible (but with her it's funny). It's one of these horrible condescending scripts about how ignernt and cruel them backwoods white trash is, and how being ignernt and immature is kinda sexy in a purty girl. Eeew.

(Note: Way funnier than her second-most spectacularly miscast role. In 1941 she played a Chinese peasant woman in "Dragon Seed". It's not nearly as funny, being just a bad war-effort film, it's rather dull and this one is absolutely daffy.)

Country Folk.

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 11 July 2011]

I'm always at a loss at how many stars a movie like this merits. Not that the number of stars matters that much. It's a crude metric. The thing is, I found it almost painful to watch, yet I can understand why others might find it more appealing.

Hepburn plays Trigger, a backwoods young woman who scolds passers by and throws rocks at them if they try to use the path past her house. Yes, she's a queer duck. The other hillbilly folks think she's a bit touched and, in any case, an irritant to the community. Actually, she's an independent spirit whose impulses towards autonomy just take weird forms.

She prays a lot, for example, and always seems to have a quote from the Bible at hand. She prays over a sick old lady who regains her health. And she walks off with a sick infant and prays over the baby, who later dies.

Her ramshackle cabin is invaded by a kind of lynch mob. The word "witch" isn't mentioned but when Hepburn appears in an unexpected place, one of the men mutters, "You kin see what she is." There's a romance thrown in too. Hepburn has no learnin' to speak of and some men enter the picture in order to build a dam. One of them is the handsome Robert Young who gives Hepburn her first kiss. She falls in love, then discovers that he's happily married. Then there is the avuncular chief engineer, Ralph Bellamy, who sees past her quirkiness and perceives her inner spirit.

It's one tragedy after another, with a few interpolated triumphs, including a climactic dash of self understanding. It's what at the time was called a woman's picture through and through. I don't mean any disrespect by that. I don't find men's pictures like "Rambo" or "The Punisher" any more engaging than this unremarkable fluff.

It's based on a play and it looks stagy. And the director, John Cromwell, has brought nothing to the party. It's all overacted and obvious. At one point Cromwell gives us a choker close up of Hepburn's face -- the only one in the film -- to make certain we can see the tear rolling down her cheek. Contrast this, just for an example, with Jane Darwell's leaving the Joad farm in "Grapes of Wrath." Darwell looks wistfully into a dusty old mirror and holds up an ear ring that she is about to leave behind. Hepburn's sentimentality is obvious; Darwell's is subdued and merely melancholy. There isn't a single touch of poetry in this tale.

Another problem is with Katherine Hepburn's performance. She's badly miscast, and hadn't yet developed any acting chops. (Man, was she to develop them later!) Her upland South accent is clearly superimposed on a set of phones acquired in Hartford and Bryn Mawr. She's not even as physically attractive as she would be ten or fifteen years later.

I haven't seen "Bill of Divorcement," in which she is supposed to be very good, but during the 30s she seems to have made a series of films that could have been managed just as well by an actress of more modest talents -- Joan Crawford or someone.

Well, as I say, others might like it more. Good luck.

hillbilly Hepburn

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 2 June 2023]

Trigger Hicks (Katharine Hepburn) grew up alone in the hills after her mother's death. She's a local healer and ostracized by some. John Stafford (Robert Young) and George Fleetwood (Ralph Bellamy) are visiting engineers building a nearby dam. One night, she shows up with a baby.

This is a pre-Code drama based on a play. Hepburn is in her later 20's and I don't buy her as a teenager. It's not necessary anyways. The character would work much better as an older woman. That would play up her spinster witch qualities. On top of that, I'm not completely buying her performance. She's supposed to be an uneducated hillbilly. It's a marginally pass.

Misfire in the mountains

[TheLittleSongbird · 3/10 · 27 May 2020]

'Spitfire' was one of those films where expectations for me before watching it were mixed. Like Katharine Hepburn a lot, consider her one of the best actresses of her generation, and love a lot of her films, actually dislike not many of them. Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy have also been very good elsewhere. The story did sound really bizarre, not always a bad thing overall but is when it goes overboard, and the near-universal panning further added to my doubts.

After watching, with it being one of the Hepburn films not yet seen, my feelings on 'Spitfire' are mostly negative. While not considering it quite as dreadful as reputed. A few good points but the main reason to see it is if you want to see as many Katharine Hepburn films as possible if curious. It is though one of her worst films and contains one of her worst performances (general consensus on both counts), Young and Bellamy have also been represented far better elsewhere.

It has its moments as said. It looks pretty good, very handsomely designed and the way it's shot is not too static and is quite elegant. The score is lush and haunting without being too melodramatic or bombastic, big traps for this kind of film.

The best performance comes from Bellamy (though he has been a lot better in much better written roles), who at least tries to bring some dimension to his dull part and at least fits.

Unfortunately that can neither be said for either Young or Hepburn, especially the latter. Young is bland and only has one or two expressions throughout the film, but the woeful miscasting of Hepburn is one of 'Spitfire's' biggest flaws (and it is not just because she is completely out of place within the setting). It is such a mannered and overripe performance that never endeared and actually got really irritating fast, have seen plenty of brilliant performances from her but there have been ones that have not missed the spot and this was a career low for her. The direction is pedestrian and seemed very restricted.

Really didn't care for any of the characters and it was impossible to root for them. They have little personality or development and the way they act towards each together and their decision making frustrate annoyingly rather than intrigue or be worth relating to. Hepburn seldom had a character this annoying than the one she has here. The script is quite dreadful, with no wit or sophistication whatsoever and the silliness and weirdness gets excessive. Any sentimentality is hard to stomach and sometimes it was like we were being talked down to or treated like idiots. The story is lifelessly paced and paper thin structurally, as well as being even more bizarrely executed than how its premise sounded on paper. It never really makes sense either, is hideously contrived, feels really choppy and it was like it didn't know what it wanted to be.

On the whole, not even such a great actress like Hepburn can save this major misfire. 3/10

An absolute monstrosity!

[hemisphere65-1 · 2/10 · 7 July 2021]

The writing and acting couldn't be worse if the cast were actually trying to perform poorly!

The horrible "accents" and the wretched script make this nearly unwatchable, but at least some of it is inadvertently amusing.

Hepburn is terrible, as she often was when not playing a well-bred character, but this is beyond belief!

Avoid it like the plague! Well, at least like a strep throat.

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 5/10 · 13 June 2014]

If this had been the first Katherine Hepburn movie you ever saw, it would probably also have been the last. RKO must have been behind the curve, because this is what I would call a primitive talkie, even though it was filmed in 1934, when films were becoming more modern. For example, there's no background music, which makes the dead spots seem very long.

A huge problem is that Hepburn's dialect is very inconsistent throughout the film. In some scenes she practically "Deliverance" personified. In romantic scenes with Robert Young, her dialect is much more normal. And there's a third dialect in there that's sort of in between. In all fairness, this was one of her earliest credited films.

Just in case you think I'm being down on her, her batting average puts her up there in my highest category of finest actresses in cinema history...but not here.

The plot here has some interesting points. A hick leads a controversial life in her backwoods community. Is she a witch or a faith healer? Why do 2 city slickers who are building a Depression era dam want so to help her (seems a little illogical to me).

Hepburn is the hick witch/faith healer. Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy are along as the city slickers (Bellamy probably has the better role, and Young totally disappears later in the film). You will also recognize Sidney Toler (Charley Chan) who plays one of the hick thugs, but you probably won't recognize Will Geer (at least I didn't).

You're probably thinking I'm saying not to watch this film, but actually I'm not. Watch it as a curiosity.

I liked it! A lot!

[raymondmerritt · 10/10 · 17 June 2013]

I don't know what these other people are talking about. I wasn't bored, not for a second. And I am a movie-buff, actor, writer and director. I thought she did a fine job. Superstitious? Ignorant? Appently none of these other folks have known any real believers. I may not be one myself, as far as praying for healing goes, anyway, but I know a few. She was right on target. When she asks Mr. Fleet (Ralph Belamy) "Do you believe, Mr. Fleet?" he answers "Maybe not like that, but when I hear you, I believe more." I saw exactly what I've seen before...not just superstition or ignorance. (This was well into the film, after he'd gotten to know her quite well.)

Katherine Hepburn ridiculous as a hillbilly? Well she convinced me. She well demonstrated that early on she could live in the skin of the person she was playing. I could describe the scenes but don't want to give any spoilers.

I recommend the film to real film-lovers but not to those eyes that aren't able to take the trip. I'm not a sentimentalist, but I do know when to let myself go where the makers of the film intended to take me, and this was one of those times. I gave it a 10.

Casting Stones

[wes-connors · 4/10 · 2 July 2008]

Mountain hillbilly Katharine Hepburn (as Trigger Hicks) is a religious back-woods laundry woman. "Going on 18", she begins to attract male attention, and responds by throwing rocks. The arrival of a dam-building construction crew triggers dreams of romance in Ms. Hepburn. She quickly attracts the attention of suave engineer Robert Young (as John Stafford), who flirtingly hides his marital status. Supervising engineer Ralph Bellamy (as George Fleetwood) is also interested in Hepburn, but for different reasons; Mr. Bellamy wants to know more about Jesus Christ, whom Hepburn worships.

After Hepburn employs the power of prayer to heal a child, neighborhood folks suspect she is a witch.

If it weren't so serious, "Spitfire" might be more amusing; it is an atypical and wildly inappropriate vehicle for its star, who is thoroughly unconvincing. Of the leads, Mr. Bellamy performs best. However, the best characterization is essayed by Sarah Haden (as Etta Dawson), who appeared in George Cukor's stage version, along with Louis Mason (as Bill Grayson). Will Geer (as West Fry), "Grandpa Walton" in the 1970s, has a small role. An unexpected ending helps.

**** Spitfire (1934) John Cromwell ~ Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Bellamy, Robert Young

words would normally fail me....

[smithypete · 5 August 2004]

This would have to be one of the oddest films ever, so much so, I taped it, re-ran about five times and still could not make my mind up. What on earth was the studio/director/writers et al up to ? Then suddenly it hit me, it was an early joke movie someone dreamed up; something like how do we stop immigration into the States, easy, we'll convince the would be newcomers that all Americans are like this ? and thus they'll all return to their native lands. No surely not. Perhaps it was the studios way of pacifying a would be investor who had millions, but a very bad storyline ? Well I do know that Katherine Hepburn became the worlds most incredible actress because she had enough gumption to do silly jobs like this one and rise so far above it that the 'sum of the parts became greater than the whole' Trigger, ah luvsyer gal. (please tell a foreigner whether there actually are/were people like these hill-billies in the US of A) Do you want to see this anomaly ? rent it buy it steal it even. If it gives you something to think about, then good, that's entertainment, I think.

BAD.

[xan-the-crawford-fan · 3/10 · 8 July 2021]

There are no other ways to describe this film but...bad. It's terrible. Katharine Hepburn is, if you hadn't figured it out already by the time you scrolled down to the bottom of the reviews on this page to read mine, miscast. To call her awful would be an understatement. Think of how bad she was in Christopher Strong and Morning Glory, then combine them and add three more bad performances by her.

Her regular Bryn Mawr accent combined with an obvious fake hillbilly drawl is so bad it makes Bette Davis's atrocious English accent in Of Human Bondage look natural. Country slang was not in Hepburn's vocabulary, and like with most of her films before Stage Door, she seems to have forgotten that she is quite a good actress (with very little variety, as proven by films like this and Dragon Seed, but still quite good. I will give her that.)

The story isn't even worth mentioning. Katharine Hepburn is a witch or something, who lives in a shack in the woods, and one day steals a sick baby, somehow manages to nurse it back to health, then when it goes back to its parents it dies, and so on, but Hepburn's "powers" are really due to a stack of prayer cards she carries around with her.

I hate to sound crass, but the film would have been much better if the village people had stoned her to death for her sorcery (and her awful attempt at an accent...gah, mah eahrs).

This is one of those "They don't make them like this anymore...and thank goodness!" films.

Thoroughly enjoyed this one.

[cherimerritt · 10/10 · 17 June 2013]

The human characteristic Hepburn plays best and for which I love her most is total indifference to anyone else's opinion of her. In this one, she plays it out as well as she did in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, except as a YOUNG woman, and at the OTHER end of the social continuum.

Mountain girl Trigger Hicks (Hepburn) seems eccentric and odd to her neighbors, and apparently superstitious and ignorant to other reviewers, but her self-awareness and absolute confidence in her own perspective and insights into others' hearts and motives made perfect sense to me. The person I saw was exactly the same as the person Mr. Fleet (Ralph Belamy), the Chief Engineer who has gone there to build a damn, is seeing; a person who is wise beyond her years, stable in her emotions, and a keeper ...one you would regret losing, having met her.

My love for Hepburn is not what influenced me to give this one a 10. My love for people who've found what matters most in life is. If that's what matters to you, you'll enjoy this film and I recommend it highly.