Gloire éphémère

MORNING GLORY (RKO Radio, 1933), directed by Lowell Sherman, stars Katharine Hepburn in her third feature film and one she was born to play. The story involves Eva Lovelace (Hepburn), an aspiring actress from Vermont who comes to New York City in hope to get an acting job in the theater. While at an employment office, she comes across a veteran actor (C. Aubrey Smith), a theatrical manager (Adolphe Menjou), and a young playwright (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) who, at first, thinks she's "daffy." Eventually, the leading lady (Mary Duncan) of the upcoming play walks out on opening night because the producer refuses to meet her salary demands. Then Eva, the understudy, is given her big opportunity to take her place. After her stage performance (which is not presented on screen), Eva steals the show and becomes an overnight success. Now in love with the playwright (Fairbanks), Eva comes to realize then and there that a career and a relationship cannot mix, which places her in a dilemma.

While Hepburn won her first Academy Award for her performance here, I personally feel her role as Jo March in LITTLE WOMEN (RKO, 1933) was far better suited for her and should have gotten the award for that one instead. And like the character of Eva Lovelace, no one can be Jo March but Kate Hepburn. The story elements to MORNING GLORY does echo Kate's early stage origins. In spite of some scenes where she, at times, overacts, this is HER movie from start to finish. In a TV documentary on Kate's movie career, it was said that Constance Bennett was scheduled star as Eva Lovelace, but when Kate read the script, she saw herself as that character and got to play her instead. Kate is, however, convincing when she changes from naive youth to a mature woman. The movie includes some very witty dialog to help the story along. Great bit: The exchange between Mary Duncan and Geneva Mitchell outside Menjou's office, "You've gained."/ Response: "I'll soon be your size, my dear!" Another memorable scene is Kate's reenacting the "Romeo and Juliet" balcony scene at a dinner party. Kate and Adolphe Menjou later appeared in STAGE DOOR (RKO, 1937) with Ginger Rogers, which improved over MORNING GLORY. Both have the elements of looking like a filmed stage play, but the 1937 production presented more characters and a plot that moved at a faster pace.

MORNING GLORY, which was distributed on video cassette in the 1980s, first by Nostalgia Merchant and later through RKO Radio Home Video, played regularly on the American Movie Classics cable channel prior to 2000. MORNING GLORY was remade in 1958 as STAGE STRUCK with Susan Strasberg and Henry Fonda, but while both versions can be seen from time to time on Turner Classic Movies, it appears that MORNING GLORY happens to be the better known of the two. (**1/2)

In only her third film, Katharine Hepburn gives a lovely performance as a skinny, aspiring actress coming to New York from a small Vermont town convinced she will become a star. From the opening scenes where she stares admiringly at portraits of famous actors in the theater lobby, and then nervously starts her chatterbox conversation with C. Aubrey Smith in producer Adolphe Menjou's outer office, you are compelled to root for her because of her exuberance. But the climb to stardom is not that easy, she learns, failing in a small role Menjou gives her, taking menial jobs in vaudeville to keep from starving until she can get a break. When she does get the break of a lifetime, replacing the star who quit on opening night when her financial demands were not met, Hepburn is filled with fear of failure once again.

I loved the famous scene where Hepburn gets slightly drunk at a party given by Menjou and recites the "to-be-or-not-to-be" soliloquy from Hamlet and the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. So did the guests, who applauded, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who fell in love with her. The supporting cast were all excellent, but I particularly liked Helen Ware playing Hepburn's costumer, who was briefly once a famous star, but faded quickly, like a morning glory.

If you are interested in credit errors, note that Menjou's onscreen character name credit is given as "Louis Easton," but when you see it printed throughout the film it is spelled "Lewis Easton."

Story about Eva Lovelace (Katharine Hepburn) a stagestruck girl who comes to NY determined to be a great actress. She learns quickly that it isn't that easy and falls in love with producer Louis Easton (Adolphe Menjou) who doesn't love her. And writer Joseph Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) DOES love her but she doesn't have a clue.

The story is VERY old and the movie itself is incredibly stagy (it's based on a stage play--and it shows) but it is worth watching. It's well-directed and cast and Hepburn is just incredible. She won her first Academy Award for this and it's easy to see why. She never strikes a false note (even during a drunk scene at a party which could have been done very badly) and she's young and beautiful. Also Menjou is very good (as usual) and Fairbanks is just so-so but he WAS an incredibly handsome young man.

See it for Hepburn. And it is short (about 72 minutes).

It's a tired old story - maybe not so tired in 1933 - about a young hopeful, Eva Lovelace (Hepburn) who comes to Broadway in search of fame. Kate's character is just so naive and so forward - and broke yet proud - that she is captivating. I can't think of anybody else who played it just like this so early in the talking film era.

She bursts in on producer Joseph Easton's (Adolphe Menjou) office thinking because he actually said a few kind words to her in passing that there was some kind of professional connection there. She has several completely forward conversations in his office with complete strangers, and some react positively and some negatively. But it establishes who Eva is as a character.

Playwright Joe Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is in love with the girl from first sight. Easton uses her one night and casts her aside, although from the set up it doesn't seem to be something he planned. Eva is just so naive that she thinks that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Easton is such a coward he doesn't want to face her again.

RKO spent money on the stars for this one - they didn't rely on their stock company to populate it except perhaps for Hepburn who was under contract for several years and made her worst films for them. Only after she got away from RKO did she become great. But wasn't that true of everybody except for perhaps Robert Mitchum, Astaire, and Rogers?

The dialogue is very creaky, some of the scenes are too long, in particular the last one. And after watching it I was puzzled that Hepburn actually won her first Oscar for this, but not Alice Adams. So I looked up her competition. Only two other Best Actress nominees that year - Diana Wynward for the lead in one of the most puzzling Best Picture winners of all time - Cavalcade, and May Robson in Lady for a Day. So she won in a weak year.

If there had been Best Supporting Actress awards that year, I'd nominate Mary Duncan as diva Rita Vernon who is a completely obnoxious person who thinks her fame will last forever even though she is rounding the top of the hill. She trades catty remarks barb for barb and simply doesn't know what to do when confronted with the guileless Eva.

Lowell Sherman directed this one, and he got good performances out of everybody involved. I don't think I've seen a 30s film without a gimmick in it in which Fairbanks Jr. Looked better.

Historical accounts of the 1932-33 Academy Awards claim that there was only polite applause when the Best Actor and Best Actress awards were presented. Charles Laughton won Best Actor for his performance in "The Private Life of Henry VIII," and the guests at the awards ceremony were not pleased that the Academy chose a (gasp!) non-American. Katharine Hepburn won the Best Actress prize for her performance in "Morning Glory," and the tepid response to her win was due to the fact that the actress had already made herself unliked among Hollywood circles. Hepburn of course would go on to have perhaps the single most illustrious career ever for a movie star, and whether or not she was ever truly liked, she became one of the most revered and respected actresses in the business.

But based on her performance in "Morning Glory," it's easy to see why she turned people off. She's just weird. That weirdness was likely interpreted as unique, and she certainly delivers lines in the film in a way that no actress had delivered lines before her. I have to believe it's this uniqueness that won her the Oscar. But as a performance, it's pretty dreadful, though the movie around her is such an afterthought that I don't know that anyone could have done much with it.

Hepburn plays Eva Lovelace, a naive, stagestruck kid who comes to New York with ambitions to be a serious actress and annoys everyone so much that they just give in and give her her big break even if there's no logical reason for doing so. (I'm sure that's how the show business world really works). I don't know whether to blame the writing, directing, or Hepburn herself, but Eva comes across as mentally unhinged rather than innocent, and the film gives us no conceivable reason that a theater impresario (Adolphe Menjou) and a renowned playwright (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) would be so infatuated with her, let alone allow her to just sit around their offices and homes all the time while they go about their business. Despite being innocent and haughty and above it all, she falls into bed easily with Menjou and then becomes obsessed with him, until the end when, on a dime, she pivots and realizes that she's a woman scorned. Nothing in this movie makes narrative sense, and you want to see Hepburn punched in the face more than you want to see her character make it on Broadway.

I had the most fun with Mary Duncan, an actress I'd never heard of, who plays a Broadway diva, and I was struck with how much sex appeal Douglas Fairbanks had. Why on earth Hepburn's character didn't fall for him instead of Menjou is just one of the nonsensical plot developments this film wants us to swallow.

Grade: C-