Le Petit Ministre

It's 1840 Thrums, Scotland. Gavin Dishart arrives with his mother to be the new Minister in the rural town. The town is impressed with his righteous talk. Babbie (Katharine Hepburn) is a cunning irreverent gypsy and there is a town ban on the gypsies. She pranks them by inciting a revolt against imaginary troops and then the real soldiers arrive. At every turn, Babbie is able to trick Gavin until finally, he is able to proclaim his love for the gypsy.

It's silly that Hepburn is playing a gypsy and she is dressed like the most stereotypical gypsy. It is saved by her shear playfulness and the eventual explanation of the truth. Initially, she's the cat and Gavin is little more than her play thing. That's kinda fun. She broadly play acts and he falls for it every time. It turns into a romantic melodrama and she makes it work.

• Romantic drama based on the novel and play by J. M. Barrie, from RKO and director Richard Wallace. Gavin (John Beal) is the new minister assigned to a church in a small Scottish town, circa 1840. His youth and slight frame belie his fiery rhetoric and impassioned sermons. The locals chafe under the oppressive rule of Lord Rintoul (Frank Conroy), and a mysterious gypsy girl (Katharine Hepburn) gives valuable intelligence about the Lord's attempts to suppress revolt using armed troops. Gavin falls for the gypsy girl, but she has a secret that may doom them both. Also featuring Byron Foulger in his film debut.

Judging by the description, I was reluctant to watch this, as it doesn't sound like something I'd care for, despite the presence of Hepburn (for whom I watched) and a couple of the supporting players. I was surprised to find myself enjoying this, and more than the average viewer, judging by the IMDb score. I thought Beal assayed his role perfectly, a combination of youthful self-righteousness and naive social blunderer, and that Hepburn was strong, funny, attractive, and vibrant. Among the others, Alan Hale was a stand-out as the hulking town drunk looking for redemption. This was the sixth, and so far final, film version of the Barrie work.

Hmmmmm .... strange one, this. Though it was made as early as 1934, it is no less than the FIFTH film adaptation of J.M. (Peter Pan) Barrie's stage play. It is a simple love story, set in a Scottish hamlet in early victorian times. RKO do the period feel very well indeed (check out the churchyard scene) and we can forgive a few shaky Scottish accents.

Gavin Dishart is the handsome young man who has just been appointed minister to the church at Thrums. He meets Babbie, a mysterious gypsy girl, and suddenly his life is transformed, and some of his values need to be reappraised.

"The fall of man through the temptation of woman" is Gavin's improvised sermon, and it encapsulates the theme of the film. The light coquetterie between Babbie and Gavin is very well done, and for the young generation of 1934 this must have been a terrific date movie. Max Steiner, RKO's contract composer, provides the score.

John Beal is ideal as the innocent young pastor, and Katharine Hepburn is impressive in a gentler, less stridently feminist role than was usual for her. She is memorable in the scene where she takes off at an athletic sprint, trailing skirts behind her. Beal is great in the scene where Gavin rues the missed kiss. Wearyworld, the unpopular policeman, adds a touch of wry humour: actor Andy Clyde appears to be a genuine Scot, though his Glaswegian accent is wrong for this lowland village. He is, one would guess from his style of delivery, a veteran of the music halls. Alan Hale Snr. is Rob Dow, the local drunk. Wise, humane Doctor McQueen is played admirably by Donald Crisp.

Memorable images include the zoom-in on the fast-disappearing "irresponsible, light-headed gypsy" which informs us that Babbie may amount to more than she seems, and the dour faces of the three elders at Mrs. Dishart's door.

Verdict - curious early Hepburn vehicle with nice period atmosphere

Very rarely was Katharine Hepburn cast as the Scot she was by descent. Our most popular image of her was with that clipped Bryn Mawr accent, cool, elegant, and sophisticated. She only played two Scots in her life Queen Mary Stuart who if truth be told was more French than Scots and the gypsy waif in The Little Minister.

This was certainly an unusual project for Kate requiring her to adapt a Scottish burr to her speech. She also plays the mysterious gypsy girl who stirs the elders of that Presbyterian congregation more than they realize. She certainly stirs the new minister in town, John Beal who's come to live there with his mother Beryl Mercer.

In an odd way Kate's character of Babbe is like the ditzy heiress in Bringing Up Baby, wreaking havoc wherever she goes, but charming Cary Grant as she does John Beal here. If James M. Barrie had twisted the plot in a Somerset Maugham direction, Kate's Babbe could easily have been a Scottish Sadie Thompson. Turn that one over in your mind.

But she's a lot more than she seems as Beal and the rest eventually find out. Beal does well as the earnest young man in his first parish, trying hard to do the right thing, but hormones just seem to be getting in the way. They'll do that. Good thing Kate was not a Sadie Thompson character.

The Little Minister is based on a novel by James M. Barrie about an unfamiliar time for Americans. I'm sure the film did well in the British Isles for RKO where they would have been more familiar with the history and mores of the time. Still it's an unusual part for Katharine Hepburn, her devoted fans would be the first to agree.

Its tender sentimentality is out of fashion today, of course, and has been for decades. But that's the point -- and that, for me, is the beauty of this film: it's positively luminous with an innocence and understated nobility that put our postmodern "edginess" to shame. I have to wonder if we've lost the capacity to experience and appreciate such rarefied sweetness of feeling. A sadly neglected film, with one of Katharine Hepburn's incomparable early performances -- radiant, charmingly quirky, and more emotionally expressive than a dozen Garbos. Sad, too, that co-star Robert Beal never crashed into the upper ranks of stardom; I saw tremendous potential in that performance.