Spitfire

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.