Sylvia Scarlett (1935) User Reviews

Odd film that plays with gender issues

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 21 January 2007]

Androgeny is a quality that some of the biggest of our great stars possessed: Garbo, Dietrich, Grant, Vanessa Redgrave, to name a few, and of course, Katharine Hepburn. In "Sylvia Scarlett," she plays a young woman masquerading as a young man for part of this rather strange film that can't make up its mind what it is. The movie also stars Cary Grant, Edmund Gwenn and Brian Aherne. Gwenn is Henry Scarlett, an embezzler who has to high-tail it out of England fast. When his daughter Sylvia insists on going along, he tells her everyone will be looking for him with his daughter, so Sylvia becomes Sylvester by cutting his hair and donning mens' clothes.

On the boat, the two meet Jimmy Monckley, a con man, and eventually team up with him for a series of cons. Then a flirtatious maid friend of Jimmy's joins them and they become vaudevillians in one of the film's more bizarre twists. Henry, a widower, marries said maid and winds up obsessive and jealous (with, one suspects, good reason since she makes a pass at Sylvia as Sylvester). One night at a performance, the cast meets an artist, Michael Fane, whom Sylvia falls for, and she ultimately reveals himself to him as a woman.

The plot of this film changes more than the sexes, with Hepburn inexplicably staying a boy once she and her father have made their escape to France. There are some great scenes - the con in the French park, with Sylvia pretending to be a destitute boy who can't speak English, and the scene where the dress she stole on the beach so she could make her big reveal to Michael is recognized by the owner. Also, the act they perform is amusing. It probably would have been better to stick with the con angle and have the script go from there, but it goes from that to the performance angle to a love triangle etc.

Katharine Hepburn makes both an excellent boy and young woman in the throes of first love, and Cary Grant has an early, uncharacteristic role as an absolute thief and heel who is also somewhat abusive. His persona would change, and he would find it difficult to convince anyone later on to let him go back to this type of character who is not redeemed at the end. But his good looks and charm make him a natural rogue. The underrated Brian Aherne, who it appears wound up taking a back seat to Errol Flynn, is marvelous as Michael. He's romantic, sexy, and gives the role a light touch.

Directed by George Cukor, "Sulvia Scarlett" is a dizzy film that's not a wild comedy (which it probably should have been) or a drama or a love story. It's remembered today for Hepburn's cross-dressing. A shame, because it could have been remembered for more than that.

Paging W. Shakespeare!

[laursene · 5/10 · 28 August 2009]

Not a great movie, or even a very successful one in conventional terms, but quite fascinating to watch. A lot of people are put off by the semi-deliberate artificiality of the acting and the fanciful nature of the story, at least up to the moment where Hepburn reveals herself as a woman to Aherne.

But I think this is the point. Cukor (and Hepburn) were striving for something a bit like A Midsummer Night's Dream (which Hollywood was filming around the same time). A bunch of con-artist misfits meet up and then find a spot for themselves as a sort of traveling commedia dell-arte stage act. They fetch up in an artists' colony in Cornwall, where they are presumably more accepted than elsewhere. A kind of 1930s Forest of Arden.

There, Sylvia's masquerade is not scandalous but amusing. And just as there's actual enchantment in Shakespeare's play, the manner in which Hepburn is revealed as a woman to Aherne (an artist, of course) suggests that on some level she wasn't just masquerading. She literally is transformed back from a boy to a girl, who has to be taught once again what a girl (they never say woman in the movie) behaves like. Instead of appearing threatening to conventional notions of gender, the film underlines Sylvia/Sylvester's vulnerability and innocence.

The gay angle is clear: The theater, and the world of artists, is where Hepburn and her companions (impecunious, emotionally unstable father; odd, flighty servant girl; amoral con artist) are accepted and not judged, where her masquerade isn't a crime but an artistic achievement. Sylvia Scarlett is an effort to make American audiences embrace and find the charm in ways of life it officially rejected.

The whole concept is pretty stagy, but of course Cukor and Hepburn both came from the theater.

But while it all must have looked doable good on paper, it doesn't really work on screen. The script undermines it, for one thing: the plot is full of holes and soon after the big scene with Aherne, the enchantment and strangeness start to drain out of the story, which turns into conventional girl-meets-boy. The only remaining question is whether Kate will find up with Cary or Brian, and that just doesn't hold much interest.

One reason for this is Cukor. He was a fine director of actors, and with a good script he could make a marvelous picture. But he wasn't a great visual artist, like Ford or Welles or Hawks, who could often take mediocre writing and make it sing on screen. This is the highest-concept film he ever made, except possibly Justine late in his career, and he doesn't really have the knack for it. The broad playing and semi-Shakespearean humor never really work the way they should, and Cukor can't seem to make Sylvia's father, the darker character in the whole thing, mesh with the rest.

I wonder if the story wouldn't have been more at home in the silent cinema, where there was more latitude for enchantment and masquerade and make-believe? How would FW Murnau (Sunrise) have handled this material, for example? Hepburn herself is at her best and most entertaining in her scenes as Sylvester. She's acrobatic and rambunctious and fun to watch. The other characters treat her as a sort of adorable boy, kind of like Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. Very much in keeping with the deliberately theatrical atmosphere the movie tries for. Once Hepburn puts on a dress again, however, she tends to subside into that familiar Hepburn wonderfulness that can be annoying in some of her other films. The rest of the cast is just fine.

Could this have been a better movie? David Thomson suggests that another director and star (Hawks and Stanwyck, perhaps) could have made it work. Perhaps - but it would have been more conventional. I doubt that anyone else would have opted for the enchanted-forest, Midsummer Night's Dream approach that makes it so interesting. Again, I think it would have had a better chance in the silent era.

Too bad, however, that someone didn't try again!

Is she, or isn't he?

[lugonian · 6/10 · 6 April 2001]

SYLVIA SCARLETT (RKO Radio, 1935/released early January 1936), directed by George Cukor, and starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Brian Aherne, is a movie that was somewhat ahead of its time. In the early 1970s during the so-called "nostalgia boom" era, I kept hearing about this being the worst Katharine Hepburn movie ever made. Because of that reputation, I became curious. Could it really be that bad? In a TV documentary about classic movies I saw many years ago, Hepburn was interviewed and said the majority of the theater patrons walked out long before the movie was over. Today it has gained a reputation as a "camp classic." Well, I finally got to watch this curious item for the first time on public television's WNET, Channel 13, in New York City in 1977 as part of the Katharine Hepburn Film Festival, which aired every Saturday night. After watching it, I kept wondering if this was supposed to be a comedy or drama. I guess a combination of both.

As for the plot, which opens in Paris, Henry Scarlett (Edmund Gwenn) commits larceny and takes off aboard ship with his daughter, Sylvia (Hepburn). To put the authorities off the track, she decides to cut her long hair and accompany him disguised as Scarlett's son, "Sylvester." They later meet up with a fast-talking swindler named Jimmy Monkley (Cary Grant) and travel with him around England like gypsies, making some easy money by cheating the public. Later, Sylvia, still disguised as Sylvester, encounters Michael Fane (Brian Aherne), an artist, and becomes interested in him, to later abandon her disguise to win him over.

Of the entire cast, Cary Grant comes off best in a very offbeat role, cockney accent and all, thus stealing every scene he's in. He even gets the closing shot sitting in a train compartment laughing himself silly after looking out the window and seeing Sylvia running off with Michael. Also in the cast are Natalie Paley as Lily, a Russian adventuress who tries to nab Henry Scarlett for herself, causing tragedy for him; and Dennie Moore as a daffy servant girl.

In spite of its reputation, SYLVIA SCARLETT is more interesting to see today because of the premise of a woman masquerading as a man/boy which pre-dates the more recent, VICTOR/VICTORIA (1982) with Julie Andrews. But let's not forget the 1933 MGM drama, QUEEN Christina in which Greta Garbo's character is mistaken for a young lad by an ambassador from Spain (John Gilbert), but at least that masquerade didn't go on for the entire movie. Unfortunately, Hepburn's version is an idea that might have looked good on paper, but not on screen. She does make a convincing boy, so to speak, in spite of her height, but I wonder how she felt about it years after it was made. A box office bomb at the time of its release, Hepburn and Grant did get to work together in screen again in three more comedies, BRINGING UP BABY (RKO, 1938), HOLIDAY (Columbia, 1938) and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (MGM, 1940). SYLVIA SCARLETT, which formerly played on American Movie Classics prior to 2000, can be seen on Turner Classic Movies, or as a video/DVD rental. (**1/2)

another great Hepburn/Grant collaboration

[SeanOSea · 8 April 1999]

There seem to be some very common unfortunate negative feelings about this film ("SS"), which I think are mostly a clash of expectations with execution. The film presents two great stars in unexpected roles with unexpectedly complicated characters and quirky humor.

This is an interesting platform for Hepburn's developing style, moving her from relatively straightforward "strong female" roles (Christopher Strong, The Little Minister 1932-1934) to more multifaceted personas where Hepburn has to interact more with her femininity (Alice Adams, Quality Street 1935-1937). Sylvia's concern with her sexuality is very disconcertingly captured by the alternatingly coquettish and belligerent Hepburn.

Cary Grant's role in SS is a dark type he didn't get to do often enough, but excelled at. Grant has in this movie a truly unredeemable side that can't be whitewashed by just putting on nice clothes or changing his accent--a side he perfected in None But The Lonely Heart.

The movie also has great virtue as a cultural island in rather intolerant times. The faint undertones of male (Sylvester and Michael Fane) and female (Sylvia and Maudie and Lily) homosexuality are subtle and effectively done, and of course the transvestitism is diverting: the scene where Hepburn meets the owner of her dress is a classic.

Overall, the humor and characterizations in SS are pointed in so many directions that it's hard to figure out whether the movie is deep or ditzy. I have my doubts--the change from con-men to vaudevillians would be hilarious if it weren't so bizarre--but I vote for the former. This movie deserves its place beside Bringing Up Baby, Holiday and The Philadelphia Story as an enduring work of the Hepburn/Grant collaboration.

Sylvia/Sylvester

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 20 January 2011]

If one can believe it, "Sylvia Scarlett" was director George Cukor's favorite film. His reasoning has to do more with the fun he, and the crew, were having, rather than what comes out in the movie. Watching again, after not seeing it for some time, the film appears not to have aged gracefully, in spite of the remastered DVD of the original 1935 RKO production.

The action takes place in more naive times, something that is hard to believe today's audiences would respond to the basic premise of the film. We are asked to believe that Sylvia comes to London impersonating a young man, following a good for nothing father. Jimmy Monkley, the man Henry Scarlett meets on board, turns out to be a rat in disguise trying to cash on illegal smuggling into England.

Monk, as Jimmy is called, is instrumental in getting Sylvester and Henry into all kinds of schemes that do not produce the money they live to survive. Monk decides to team with an old flame, Maudie, and tour the countryside in a sort of ill-conceived vaudeville act. The inane attempts of the quartet to amuse the local gentry signals the end of the group, but fate intervenes in the person of Michael Fane, who takes a fancy to Sylvia, when she throws away her Sylvester disguise.

As a comedy, "Sylvia Scarlett" was perhaps a naughty idea of the creators that probably did not get the audience it went after. Katherine Hepburn, deemed box-office poison, has some good moments in the comedy. A cockney speaking Cary Grant shows why he was going to go far in his American career. Others in the film include Brian Aherne, Dennie Moore, and Edmund Gwenn. George Cukor direction cannot hide the problems with the screen treatment it got.

It's a Boy, It's a Girl, It's Katharine Hepburn

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 13 October 2008]

"Sylvia Scarlett" is like a screwball comedy that can't commit to being a screwball comedy.

Hepburn spends much of the first part of the film disguised as a boy so that she and her father (Edmund Gwenn), who are on the lam because of Gwenn's gambling debts, will be less conspicuous. They meet up with a Cockney shyster played by Cary Grant, who falls for Hepburn once he realizes she's actually a girl. Brian Aherne, playing a handsome gentleman the three come across during their travels, falls for her too. The finale involves a zany chase in which Hepburn and Aherne take off after Grant and Aherne's girlfriend in an attempt to get them back, only to discover once they've set off that they really like each other and don't much care about finding the disloyal lovers.

The fact that the film takes on gender issues at ALL makes it a curio worthy of interest, but just WHAT the film wants to do with those gender issues is never clear. Hepburn plays the character like a tomboy who's uncomfortable in her feminine skin, which is completely at odds with the girly girl she portrays in the film's very first scene. The film is never especially funny, but its overall tone is too lighthearted for the dramatic moments to make much of an impact. The editing is ragged and jumpy, which makes me wonder if the studio did some injudicious hacking, leaving elements that that would have made the film make more sense on the cutting room floor.

Critics and audiences have largely dismissed this film with an indifferent shrug, and I can't say that I blame them.

Grade: C

Kate makes a darling boy!

[HotToastyRag · 6/10 · 11 November 2017]

I'll start with the bottom line: Sylvia Scarlett is the film that dubbed Katharine Hepburn "box office poison". However, when you watch the movie, you wonder how that was possible. She's adorable!

After her mother's untimely death, Katharine Hepburn and her father Edmund Gwenn leave France and head to England. Teddy has racked up some pretty heavy gambling debts and needs to leave the country, but when he tells his daughter he has to leave her behind lest he be recognized and arrested, she comes up with an idea. Kate cuts her hair and changes her name from Sylvia to Sylvester; surely her father won't be recognized with a young man as his traveling companion! Along the way, they cross paths with a charming Cockney conman, played by Cary Grant, a flirtatious maid, Dennie Moore, and a respectful artist, Brian Aherne. While they band together and enter the con-game, Kate falls in love and longs to be worthy of Brian—even though he believes she's a boy! It's a pretty cute story, and a lot of fun to see Kate, Teddy, and Cary work off one another. It's no great surprise that Kate makes an excellent boy, since her thin frame, beautifully angular face, and slightly masculine voice help mask her true identity. She looks absolutely adorable—or handsome, if you prefer—in her short haircut, and even though the film didn't do well at the box office, it's a definite must-see for Katharine Hepburn fans!

A Great Disappointment

[JimmyCagney · 2/10 · 24 August 2008]

First of all, let me tell you I'm not a stranger to movies of the 30's. I love films of that era, I admire Katharine Hepburn and I truly consider Cary Grant as one of the greatest actors ever. These facts are the reasons why I was really interested in watching this movie, however these same facts don't give me the permission to excuse and admire every movie of the 30's I watch and find average (or in this case way below average!)

SPOILERS BELOW! Let's start from the script. What kind of a story is this? It seems to me that after the 3 leading characters are being introduced to us, the writers had absolutely no idea as to there the plot should turn to. So they try hard to write down whatever comes to their mind in a desperate effort to create a standard 80 minute long feature.

Some examples: 1) What is the reason why Sylvia cut her hair short and becomes Sylvester? Because her father tells her it is much easier for the authorities to trace an old man with a girl than if he was with a boy. So, what does she do? She cuts her hair...and every problem is solved, even if this means they are able to make it to another country with no papers of Sylvia as Sylvestro. A hair cut was enough.

2)How about Jimmy Monkley? He creates all the mess at the harbor just because he is carrying diamonds on his heels. As if there was a chance that when he opened his suitcase the diamonds would come out of his shoe. What about his second encounter with the Scarletts? He reveals them his secret takes out of his pocket a very large bundle of money and buys them out. And then, 5 minutes later, when they are in London, he is completely broke and so are they.

3) The affair between Henry Scarlett and Maudie. Without any clue, we suddenly watch Henry dreaming and yelling out Maudie's name as if he were her "beau", and when he wakes we suddenly realize by the way he is treating her, that he really is her boy. Completely ridiculous. We never saw not even one hint that something was going on between them until that dream sequence. And it is even more ridiculous considering the fact that Maude is slightly older than his daughter, who is a witness of all this the whole time.

4) Maude's disappearance. Maude didn't fit in the story. That was obvious. But making her disappear on a rainy night, without a further explanation on her whereabouts, is stupid.

5) Henry's death. Henry was a terribly written character. So as the plot evolved something had to be done with him. in order to give Scarlett the chance to end happily the story. So what do we do? We through him off a cliff, Scarlett mourns desperately (about 5 seconds) and 3 minutes later she is all full of nerve and joy chasing Cary Grant.

6) How about the Russian girl? We get convinced she loves desperately the painter, yet at the end of the movie she uses him only as an argument to persuade Jimmy on going to Paris. And how the hell did Sylvia come to the conclusion that she tried to kill herself by drowning? Did you notice anything I didn't? Just because she couldn't swim?

7)The painter (Michael Fane) is equally funny (in a bad way) as a character. He gave Sylvia his car cause he couldn't drive with a hurt finger? Lord have mercy! He loved the Russian girl, yet in 5 days he forgot her and came to be deeply in love with Sylvia dressed as a boy?

I could go on forever, but I've made my point. As I watched the movie more and more I had the idea that no one from the creative team really knew what they wanted to do. The characters are made from paper, their feelings and sentiments are completely absent (did Jimmy ever love Sylvia? One moment it seems so, 2 minutes later he runs away with the Russian girl), the dialogue is terrible (I recall the scene where Sylvester becomes Sylvia again and pays a visit to the painter and it gives me the creeps.) Never before have I seen such a terrible conversation. Remember guys, it's 1935 we're talking about, not 1925. The age of the movie is no excuse, 2 years later "The Awful Truth" would be filmed.. A final word about the direction. George Cukor has always been a great director, one of the best artists of his era. However, he also seems to be swept by the total stupidity of his material. At the final scene, the train stops exactly 1 second after the painter pulls the emergency break. And as if this weren't enough during this whole sequence, the outside background from the windows remains the same, as if no one from the crew ever noticed or cared for the fact that it was obvious the train was never moving.

I apologize for the size of the comment and I also apologize if some of you fellow lovers of the movies of the 30's find this comment embarrassing or disturbing..but this is truly my view on "Sylvia Scarlett". Thank you for your time.

Not for everyone, but what a film this is!

[gaityr · 8/10 · 21 August 2002]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** SYLVIA SCARLETT was the last of the four Grant/Hepburn collaborations that I had left to watch, and I must say that I approached this film with some trepidation. Being a huge fan of both Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, I had frequently read that this film was an oddity, a deserved obscurity, and most certainly nothing like the other three films they had done together (BRINGING UP BABY, HOLIDAY and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY--two classics and one that should be just as well-known). Having gotten to know the Hepburn and Grant personas (dazzlingly self-assured and undeniably charming respectively) through their other films, I was worried that their very first film together might spoil that image I had of them.

I certainly had due cause to be worried! Now that I've seen the film for myself, I have to say that SYLVIA SCARLETT is quite evidently *not* on the same level as the other films. Hepburn isn't a polished young heiress, whether madcap or not; Grant doesn't play a debonair young gentleman best suited to stealing hearts both on and off screen. And yet SYLVIA SCARLETT isn't the worse off for that. In fact, it shouldn't be *expected* to be like the other films--for one thing, SYLVIA SCARLETT isn't particularly mainstream, and explicitly doesn't trade on the marketable aspects of either Hepburn or Grant. The fact that Hepburn spends more than half the film as a young boy is distinctly odd and subversive, even about 70 years down the road. (For some reason, male cross-dressing has always been somehow less taboo-filled than female cross-dressing.) Even harder than it is with other Hepburn and Grant vehicles (the two of them always appearing modern or timeless), you just cannot believe that SYLVIA SCARLETT was made in 1935.

The film's plotline runs as follows (with spoilers ahead, so be forewarned): To stay by her father's side, Sylvia Scarlett (Hepburn) insists that she will be 'rough and hard', like a boy, and becomes Sylvester Scarlett. Father and 'son' encounter Jimmy Monkley (Grant) on the passage over to England, and decide to join forces and be conmen together. 'Sylvester' somehow always manages to botch up their efforts and finally gets 'his' way--to make the merry company live a honest life--by putting up performances as a small troupe. Complications ensue when 'Sylvester' meets Michael Fane (Brian Aherne), the man who makes 'him' want to be a woman again. Unfortunately, Michael is embroiled in a relationship with Lily Levetsky (Natalie Paley), a woman who shows Sylvia just how little she knows about being a girl. After the death of her father, Sylvia is determined to continue on with 'Monk', until she rescues Lily from the sea (why Lily was almost drowning is never made clear) and Monkley makes off with her. Sylvia then accompanies Michael on a search for Lily and Monkley, both believing that the other person wants someone else (i.e. Michael believes Sylvia wants Monkley; Sylvia believes Michael wants Lily), but both of course realise the inevitable--that they have fallen in love and don't *want* anyone else.

This all adds up to a pretty bizarre film, what with the addition of scenes or lines that were destined to become cult classics (the girl-on-girl kiss between Hepburn and Dennie Moore; or Michael blithely saying that he feels a bit 'queer' when looking at 'Sylvester') and the fact that however mannishly Hepburn comes across in her usual roles, she still isn't entirely believable as a young lad... and when appearing onscreen with her short hair, dainty dress and 'feminine' affectations, as a young girl either! SYLVIA SCARLETT is perhaps most notable for recognising the typical ambuiguity in Hepburn's own character between her feminine charm and masculine behaviour, and realising it on film. It is probably the only film she made in the 1930s that fully acknowledged this aspect of her persona, and in fact traded on it to benefit plot and character.

Quite aside from this, however, I also like the subtle point the film was making--that it is possible to play a part so well that you identify yourself with it. In the hastily-cobbled together first scene in the film between a completely weak and girly Sylvia and her father (Cukor claims RKO forced him to add this in in post-production), you realise how playing 'Sylvester' has really turned Sylvia 'rough and hard', and that it is easy for her to use 'Sylvester' as a mask while interacting with others. A great example is when 'Sylvester' is drunk, and points at her father and Monkley in turn, saying "He's a crook... he's a crook...", then pointing at herself and also saying 'He's a crook too'. Sylvia is telling the truth--*she* is not the crook; the personality she has assumed, Sylvester, is.

The film has many unanswered questions as well--you're never sure what Monkley's intentions toward Sylvia were. I like to believe that he'd spirited Lily away to finally give Sylvia a chance with Michael... out of kindheartedness, or better yet, love. But it's also fully possible that Sylvia herself got it right when she said that Monkley would do anything to get Lily to himself.

In a final assessment, you probably wouldn't have a reason to seek this film out if you *weren't* either a fan of Hepburn or Grant to begin with, and were trying to watch all of the films either of them had ever made. Even then, you might not actually like it: it's especially hard when you know how the film came together, and that none of those involved (from director to leading actress) seemed to know what they were doing. Still, the actors alone are reason enough to catch this film--for Hepburn fans, she turns in a great performance as usual, and also does all of her own stunts... quite a feat, considering some of the things Sylvia/Sylvester does through the film. For Grant fans, this is truly one of the definitive moments in the formation of his screen persona--the charming slick fellow who you always want to believe has a heart of gold. But he also speaks with a perfect Cockney accent, and displays some of the dancing skills he must have picked up as a member of the travelling Pender troupe. They don't play their (stereo)typical roles, but perhaps *that's* a better reason to watch this film than any other.

If you're a fan of Hepburn or Grant, or just interested in seeing one of the most intriguing and revolutionary films of the 1930s, this is definitely a film worth seeking out.

Definitely worth seeing once

[smatysia · 7/10 · 8 October 2000]

Interesting. The premise of the movie fails because Katherine Hepburn looks much too feminine to pass as a boy. No one would be fooled by her, although perhaps I am applying modern standards to 1936. Having said that, Hepburn and Cary Grant turn in wonderful performances. I found it very interesting to see Grant, who later played mostly suave sophisticates or hapless, yet educated, comedic roles, going on in that Cockney accent. I thought he did it extremely well, but then I am American, so I probably don't have the ear for it that a Brit might have. This film is definitely worth seeing once.

A very odd curio where all the pieces don't quite fit together

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 26 January 2007]

This film should have been a lot better, but so often the writing was filled with holes, the acting (especially with Ms. Hepburn and Mr. Gwen) overdone and excellent actors wasted (in the case of Cary Grant). While it is still watchable, this isn't exactly a glowing endorsement.

The film begins in France where Edmund Gwen informs his daughter (Hepburn) he's being sought by the police for embezzlement. So, they sneak away to Britain--with Hepburn dressed as a young man to divert suspicion. While not the most convincing boy, this was believable enough. However, there was really no discernible reason for her to continue being a boy during the rest of the film. Inexplicably, she stayed in costume until she later fell in love with a Bohemian artist.

On the trip to Britain, Hepburn and Gwen fall in with con-man Grant. And, despite it appearing that the film would be about their criminal gang, all the sudden they abandoned their evil ways and started traveling about the countryside performing little song and dance shows. Why? I have no idea--especially since they don't appear to have much talent.

Also during this time, Gwen gets married to a lady and spends much of the rest of his screen time overacting and pretty much making a fool of himself. Some of this was deliberate, but most of it was just lousy acting. And, when he wasn't blubbering and acting foolish, Hepburn was doing much the same! Grant, while not overacting, was pretty much a cipher--giving an amazingly muted and uninspiring performance. He was there, but that's really about it! The only decent scenes in the film occurred when Sylvia fell in love with the artist. Their scenes together might have been the basis for a good movie--too bad everything leading up to it was so sub-par. Overall, this is a slightly worse than average film but I expected so much more with the talent involved. Ms. Hepburn was a good actress, but better parts were still a few years ahead.

Before Spencer, there was Cary...and this odd film

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 18 June 2006]

This is an odd film - definitely an odd one. Even in a period when the Hayes Office, the Breen Office, the movie code, and the Catholic Legion of Decency were still finding their feet, this film just stretched gender roles as far as possible. And the audiences of 1935, who tolerated MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, THE INFORMER, and many other films, would not tolerate this one.

The issue is whether or not the audiences of 2006 would tolerate it. I gather that we are better used to bi-sexual, homosexual, or transsexual genres in movies in the last half century, but having said that I keep realizing that many people aren't. I also note that of the four Grant - Hepburn films this one is the least revived (which is odd, because it was the first one made). I have a feeling that the fans of this film fall into three categories: those who enjoy the sexual suggestiveness of it's storyline, those who enjoy the two stars and their acting abilities, and those who like the director, George Cukor. Outside those three groups, there are many people who are probably (at best) indifferent to this movie, and (at worst) positively hostile to it.

I could understand part of the hostility. It is the crazy screenplay in the film. This movie never comes to grips with exactly what it wants to do. It starts off with a kind of "Dr. Crippen" situation (though actually not as serious), wherein Edmund Gwenn has committed embezzlement and must flee France with his daughter Hepburn - whom he disguises as a son to help his own escape disguise (this resembles Crippen's disguising his girlfriend Ethel Le Neve as a son when fleeing to Canada on the "Montrose"). Hepburn just barely passes as a boy (her bony face just makes it). Then they meet grifter Cary Grant, and join him in a series of con games.

First problem in script here - if Gwenn and Hepburn are fleeing the French authorities to get to England, doesn't it undercut their efforts to continue a criminal path with Grant? If they are caught (as they nearly are) the British police will return Gwenn to France, rather than probably ignore him if he just behaves himself in England. Of course, for them to get into a story involving Grant the script requires them to behave in line with him.

This was the first film that Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant appeared in together, and in the wake of the later Tracy series it has somehow gotten pushed slightly (not totally) into the shadows. It is similar to the series of musicals by Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier for Paramount in the early 1930s, that are slightly (not quite totally) in the shadows of the later musical series with Nelson Eddy. The later films (particularly BRINGING UP BABY and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY) are far more popular - despite the screwiness of the former those films (and HOLIDAY) have coherent plots. We aren't trying to figure out if the film is funny or sad, or if it's about con artists or small time performers. We don't have to worry in the later three films about allegory (the scene in SCARLET when they are performing in Comedia del Arte costumes, with Gwenn - growing jealous about his girlfriend's activities - dressed as "Pierrot" is definitely allegorical). One can say SYLVIA SCARLET is a film with something for everyone - question is does that make it a good film?

Because I like George Cukor (who later would work with both Grant and Hepburn to better effect), and see that Hepburn and Grant and Brian Ahearn and Gwenn are giving their all to their parts, I am willing to say I'm favorably impressed enough to give this an "8" out of "10". But I will maintain that this odd little movie is not one meant for large audiences or for huge popular approval.

Androgony before it's time

[ndisabat · 7/10 · 15 August 2006]

Sylvia Scarlett is not as bad as many claim it is. However at the time some of the ideas in the movie such as cross dressing where not considered appropriate and/or funny in 1936.

Hepburn plays Sylvia Scarlett, living with her father in France at the beginning of the film. After her mother's death, her father tells her that he's gambled away all of their money and that the only hope they have lies in his profiting off of the lace Syliva's mother leaves her.

Refusing to stay behind, Sylvia decides to go with her father to England dressed as a boy. Cutting her hair very shortly and dressing in men's slacks and jackets, she passes along as a very young boy.

Grant, aka Jimmy Monkley, a cockney scoundrel and thief, joins the father/daughter(son) team and they soon begin a series of cons (everything from Hepburn pretending to be a poor penniless French lad to get charity, to trying to steal from Monkley's friend Maudie (who happens to work as a maid in a rich home).

After a series of misfortunes as con artists, the three, joined by Maudie, decide to go on the road and perform as roadside performers.

On the road, Hepburn meets and falls for Michael Fane. He's very attracted and drawn to her as a boy, but when she reveals she's a girl, he simply cannot stop laughing at her.

Natalie Paley plays Fane (Brian Ahrene's) cruel girlfriend.

There's a great scene where Paley is torturing Sylvia's father (who is drunk and in a stupor thinking Maudie is cheating on him) and Hepburn comes right up to her and smacks her in the face. Very funny in my opinion.

After Sylvia reveals herself to Fane she gives up dressing like a boy, while her father goes mad after Maudie leaves him suddenly.

Hepburn and Grant are now on their own until they find Paley's character trying to drown herself. Hepburn and Paley did the actual stunts and the current almost knocked them out to sea in reality.

Monkley and Paley's character take off together while Fane and Scarlett go after them, at the same time finding that they have real feelings towards each other.

The movie as a whole isn't the greatest, but there are individual scenes that are very good, and Hepburn is great throughout it, even if just to look at. The New York Times remarked back in 1936 that Hepburn was "better looking as a boy."

eh.

[zygimantas · 5/10 · 5 October 2005]

You can't really love this picture, to be honest, though I really do want to love anything with Hepburn. In fact, this was the first time I ever caught myself thinking she'd put in a second-rate performance, but that's arguable - some will say that her boyishness actually was well done, and I can't entirely disagree with that.

The truth is that this movie is bursting with melodramatic affectation, and that is rather off-putting to us who are so used to the post-Brando state of character representation. We have to believe that the actor IS the character for the whole thing (writing, characterization, acting, everything) to be a success. If we are embarrassed by what we perceive as a bad performance, the whole thing's in danger of being embarrassing. Now I am no expert on 30s cinema, but I have seen a lot of this kind of thing originating from that decade and I kind of reckon it was the expected style of performance, still left-over from the silent days when body language was all a performer had. Knowing what Hepburn would be capable of bringing later, I think it can't be that she relied on the melodrama like a crutch - instead it's my feeling that she was too easily by Cukor's direction, since many of the other cast members act similarly.

The script is also weak, as it relies on the audience using their imagination far too much in order to fill in the gaps we assume exist in the novel. A good writer/director team will indicate passage of time more fluidly than this; we are left with a lurching sensation, like weeks or months have passed for the characters but not for us, and some might even be confused by the sudden shift of action. If it hadn't been for this clumsiness, I would have given the picture another star for scope.

The film gets the five stars I gave it for Cary Grant's performance, which is one of the best of his career, a superb, well rounded job, and of course it is good enough to deserve a recommendation for the film, even if everything else about it was not-so-good.

Grant Steals a Rather Laughless Film

[Michael_Elliott · 2 April 2017]

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

** (out of 4)

After her father (Edmund Gwenn) gets into some trouble, Sylvia Scarlett (Katharine Hepburn) decides to sneak him out of France. She decides to dress up as a boy named Sylvester and before long they meet Jimmy (Cary Grant) and the three "men" are out getting whatever money they can. When Sylvester meets Michael (Brian Aherne) "he" finally has the desire to come out as the woman she really is.

SYLVIA SCARLETT is a really, really strange movie and it's even stranger when you consider the era that it came out. Apparently reviews were mostly negative when the film was released but it seems over the years more people have discovered the film and it has become somewhat of a cult movie. With that said, I personally found it to be rather boring, unfunny and I honestly didn't find too much here to enjoy.

The biggest problem I had with the film is that it didn't make me laugh and I thought the story was rather stupid to say the least. I mean, once the daughter and father are out of France there's really no need for her to pretend to be a man. I'm not sure what the point of her remaining a man was but it just doesn't add anything to the picture. I'd argue that the lack of laughs are a major problem but another is the fact that Sylvia and Michael characters have no chemistry at all.

Speaking of Hepburn, she's game in the film but I honestly wouldn't say this was a "good" performance. Both Gwenn and Aherne are decent in their supporting parts but it's Grant who easily steals the picture with his charming and good-natured performance. The film's most memorable scene is when a woman, thinking Hepburn is a man, comes onto him and the two kiss, which has to be one of the earliest examples of this in a Hollywood picture.

Scarlett Street.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 6/10 · 14 August 2017]

After writing my 1,500th review, I started looking for what movie to view next. Taking a look at BBC iPlayer, I spotted a star-studded RKO title,which led to me uncovering Scarlett's secret.

The plot:

Running away to England from France after getting involved in too many dodgy deals, widower Henry Scarlett decides to try and outsmart the police by getting his daughter Sylvia to dress up as a boy. Getting Sylvia's "Sylvester" act to work,the Scarlett's are soon joined by new partner in crime Jimmy Monkley and dizzy Maudie Tilt. Fooling everyone, Sylvia is shocked when Michael Fane fails to fall for her Scarlett fever.

View on the film:

Bombing in test screenings and at the box office,director George Cukor & cinematographer Joseph H. August is marked by emergency scars, from jarring, blunt edits to terrible overdubbing. Unsteady with the Comedy, Cukor still shows a flair for Melodrama, with needles of rain across the screen and crane shows to the edges of cliffs looking over how deep the Scarlett's have gone to cover their tracks.

Offering to do another film for free if the studio had left this on the shelf, Katharine Hepburn actually gives the standout performance as Sylvia Scarlett a.k.a. Sylvester,thanks to Hepburn clearing relishing the chance to mess around with her ladylike image as mischievous Sylvester. Avoiding the "Box office poison" tag Hepburn got from the movie, Cary Grant gives an unsteady performance as partner in crime Jimmy Monkley, with Grant showing his natural charm in the comedic scenes,but (with a poor fake accent) struggles to carry dramatic tension,in the opening of the Scarlett letter.

implausible but fun acting performances

[jbklingel · 7/10 · 18 January 2007]

Sylvia Scarlett is odd but interesting for all the great performances by these great actors--Edmund Gwenn, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne--and the two uncredited roles of the maid and the Russian woman with the French accent (who actually is some kind of Russian Copuntess.) Since I've seen a lot of Opera I can suspend a lot of disbelief. The movie is wildly implausible, but fun because of what the actors do with it. Grant is great, kind of mean and low class, but if you really want to see Hepburn's full range this is the movie to see. There is a lot of cross-dressing role playing by Hepburn that gives it a contemporary bisexual vibe. A very interesting oldie viewed in retrospect of what Hepburn and Grant's film personas subsequently became.

AN EARLY HEPBURN CHARMER...!

[masonfisk · 7/10 · 31 August 2021]

Katherine Hepburn stars in this zany comedy from 1935 directed by George Cukor. Hepburn & her father, played by Edmund Gwenn, decide to return to Blighty (from France) after Gwenn's debts have finally caught up w/him. Upon arriving they meet a Cockney con man, played Cary Grant (in his first pairing w/Hepburn) & they decide to make a go out of fleecing people (using an innocent con, we see Hepburn pretend to be a homeless French boy begging the gathered denizens for spare change which works until things get loused up). They then get a pair of caravans & hit the show circuit plying musicals upon the masses where they meet an artist, played by Brian Aherne, & his annoying Russian girlfriend & quickly become chummy. Hepburn fancies Ahern enough to ditch her boy persona (she's unusually athletic & sports a short coif) which stuns Aherne but he still has to contend w/his nagging Russkie mate & after she nearly drowns at a beach (Hepburn save her by the by), she soon has eyes for Grant when he nurses her back to health. When they turn up missing, Aherne & Hepburn join forces to find them strengthening their attraction for each other but will they act on it? Silly in the extreme but hugely likeable, this effervescent froth goes down easily w/Hepburn particularly beguiling as the winsome tomboy out to have her way in a society which would normally shun & ignore her. Grant is also a star in the ascendant (who would go on to make 3 more films w/Hepburn) as his comic likeability shines through even when he's not being especially nice.

what a waste of talent

[Fred-Rock · 2/10 · 27 July 2018]

You would think with Hepburn Grant and Gwenn all in this title there would be more talent transferred to the screen. The script is hardly worthy of these stars and the plot drags from boring to downright mind numbing. Hepburn's role as a girl disguised as a boy suspends belief in that you would think the other people in the movie would have figured it out long before she "reveals" herself as a female. Total waste of an evening.. and two stars from me was generous.

Unusual coming of age story

[manuel-pestalozzi · 8/10 · 25 June 2007]

The main problem of this movie is that it does not know what it wants to be. A comedy? A romance? A tragedy? Or a pre neo realistic drama? Somehow it constantly switches from one mode to another, some scenes have an obnoxious musical score, others are bleak and filled with an uneasy silence. In itself these scenes may work, as a whole the movie becomes a mess.

But there is a lot of interesting things that are going on which make Sylvia Scarlett a very unusual movie well worth watching. Basically it is a story about coming of age. The main character is a young girl, played by Kathatine Hepburn who might be just a little too old for the part (this problem constantly seem to creep up in movies with her). The circumstances of her turning from a girl into a woman are far from ideal. Her mother is dead, her father's a crook, and a very dumb and unsuccessful one too. They are on the run from France to Britain and there team up with another British working class crook, played by Cary Grant before he became, uh, Cary Grant, with a fitting British accent (his own?) to boot. It is a rather dark part, I must say, and he pulls it of very convincingly.

Coming of age here clearly also includes a sexual awakening. For her escape the girl dresses up as boy (Katharine Hepburn is very convincing and can show off her very good grasp of the French language). The Cary Grant character is a vaguely menacing presence and for his sake she does not reveal her true sex. The team of three are joined by the maid of a house they unsuccessfully try to burglarize (a great British actress who does not even seem to be in the credits!) and together they rather abruptly form a traveling circus. The relationship between Hepburn and Grant strangely anticipates the one between Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn in Federico Fellini's La Strada, between a sexually not clearly defined young girl and a sort of a boorish, menacing satyr.

Only when the girl meets an artist in a Cornish village, does she become aware of her feeling towards men and turns into a woman – only to be cruelly disappointed. The ending seems to be a Hollywood addition. It does not fit at all the rest of the rather sad story.

The Cornish village seems to be a kind of a colony of free wheeling artists, some kind of precursor of a hippie community. It really made me think of some movies of the 60ies and 70ies, like Easy Rider or The Long Goodbye. One of the greatest scenes has Hepburn dance over the village square to the artist's barn that was converted into a studio. The big doors are wide open, and inside there is a big table set for a kind of a banquet. It is all a studio set, of course, but the space flowing from the square into the interior is very impressive. Overall the set design department did a very good job for this movie.

Grant and Hepburn make up the deficit

[KDPeffley-2 · 7/10 · 14 September 2020]

Despite having a pretty dumb script, both Hepburn and Grant make up for this film's goofiness. Both Hepburn and Grant are charming and fun to watch. How can you not fall in love with Hepburn, and how can you not enjoy Grant? Forget the plot, and just enjoy these two great actors at the beginning of their craft.

A curio piece in more ways than one.

[hitchcockthelegend · 4/10 · 10 October 2010]

Sylvia Scarlett is directed by George Cukor and is adapted from the Compton Mackenzie novel called The Early Life And Adventures Of Sylvia Scarlett. It stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Edmund Gwenn & Brian Aherne. Plot finds Hepburn as Sylvia, who after her father (Gwenn) is discovered as being an embezzler, is forced to flee France for England; with Sylvia disguised as a boy so as to avert suspicion. On the channel ferry they meet Jimmy Monkley (Grant) who isn't shy of the odd con game himself. It could be a match made in grifter heaven?

Baffling and divisive, Sylvia Scarlett is certainly a film that will never be forgotten. The two most notable things about it are that firstly it's considered one of the most unsuccessful movies of the 1930s, whilst secondly it was the first pairing of super stars Hepburn & Grant. Who from here would go on to make three further, and better, movies: Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938) & The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Sylvia Scarlett puzzles in what it wants to be, it constantly shifts in tone to the point where one doesn't know what mood is needed to be in so as to enjoy it. Certainly if you needed a pick up it has moments of levity, but then it's also capable of dragging you down. It's also often absurd, and not in a screwball entertaining way either. While come the last half hour it's almost in the realms of fantasy and just a little hard to understand. The cast are fine, and by all accounts it was a real happy shoot (according to Cukor one of the best he worked on), but the bonkers narrative makes it something of an annoying watch.

It has fans, but in spite of Grant being my favourite actor, I'll never be one of them. 4/10

Very underrated; Grant steals the show

[robb_772 · 8/10 · 20 April 2006]

An extremely unusual little film from director George Cukor makes the odd transition from caper comedy to coming of age romance - and occasionally teeters back and forth between the two. The film was a massive flop at the box office (in order to make amends for the film's failure, Cukor and star Katharine Hepburn reportedly offered to make their next film for free), and the audiences of thirties just didn't seem to understand film's bizarre juxtaposition between gritty depression-era realism and dreamy Hollywood surrealism. In all truth, however, the film is enormously entertaining when viewed today, and its unusual tone will be better appreciated by modern audiences.

Although this is the performance that led her to be labeled by critics and theater owners as "box office poison," Hepburn is delightful in role that was quite offbeat for the time (this was 48 years before Barbra Streisand donned male drag in YENTL). Brian Aherne also delivers an endearingly off-kilter performance as Sylvia's love interest, and Edmund Gwenn is terrific in the difficult role of Sylvia's father, who must balance humor and pathos at regular intervals. Best of all is Cary Grant who flat-out nails his role as a cockney con man, and simply radiates with wit, sex appeal, and macho charisma. He alone would make the film worth watching, but, on the whole, SYLVIA SCARLETT remains a lost gem that was very much ahead of its time.

Sylvia Scarlett review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 1 July 2020]

After appearing in Alice Adams, Katharine Hepburn skips to her second alliteratively titled movie of 1935 unconvincingly disguised for much of the time as a young boy ("I know what it is that gives me a queer feeling when I look at you!" declares a straight-faced love interest Brian Aherne). Cary Grant is also on hand, playing against type as a dodgy Cockney geezer who at least only starts getting feelings for Hepburn once she dons a dress. It's an uneasy mix of comedy and drama that seems to lose focus once Hepburn comes clean about her gender.

An absolute mess

[cutter-12 · 3/10 · 18 January 2006]

I'm a Cary Grant fan, and a Hepburn fan, and this film was a chore of 95 minutes to get through. Maybe the worst picture Grant and Hepburn have on their filmographies. Contrived, fake, talky, addled, unfocused, unbelievable, and annoying pretty much sum it up.

Grant was of course born and raised in England until his early teens but his cockney accent here drops in and out worse than Kevin Costner's in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. And he plays an unlikable cad too which just doesn't work for Cary Grant. None of the characters in this are likable in the least. And the film deviates badly between comedy and tragic melodrama.

And some of the scenes are just unbelievable. Grant and Hepburn find Edmund Gwenn dead on the rocks, and after a moment of mournful reflection just leave him there and go about their business? Then moments later Brian Aherne's girlfriend is drowning in the surf and is rescued by Hepburn and Edmund Gwenn's body is not seen or mentioned again.

But none are more unbelievable than Hepburn playing a boy. She's not convincing whatsoever and so often physically gives you a creepy Michael Jackson vibe.

This is one of the very worst films of the 30's.