Le Petit Ministre

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.

This was the last film version made of this delightful story based on James Matthew Barrie's first major successful novel and play, and it is long overdue for a modern remake, done with similar charm, beauty, and simplicity, please.

Here we find a timeless tale of a fresh-faced, youthful pastor boy, direct out of seminary, who loves his mother and has affection for his congregation, but who finds himself flaunting convention by falling in love against his will with a wild, beautiful gypsy girl. You could no more imagine this girl sitting quietly in a church praying than you could imagine Ted Kennedy becoming a Republican.

Gavin the minister, though he is "little" in physical size, is not small in courage or intellectual honesty. He knows he is falling in love with this girl, but can't seem to help himself. He fights his feelings, but still he is attracted, like a moth to a flame. She tricks him and teases him in their first encounters, yet he still comes back for more. There's just something different about this Babbie that he cannot resist (and one senses the gypsy girl feels the same way about Gavin). We see their relationship growing, the congregation begins to suspect something is distracting their beloved new minister from his duties, and an inevitable confrontation is in the works.

I won't give away any more, but go rent the video sometime or catch it on AMC or TCM, especially if you wish to see Katherine Hepburn in one of her most poignant, humorous and delightful performances (she even sings, too!). Kudos also to the late John Beal, who was perfectly cast as Gavin Dishart, the little minister. And an A-plus goes to Max Steiner for his lovely background musical score. Also, read the book by JMB when you get a chance; one can't put it down.

John Beal is the new minister at a small church in Scotland. He comes across Katharine Hepburn, who seems to be a wild gypsy girl and falls in love. He does not know she is the ward of the local laird, and affianced.

Miss Hepburn was riding high at RKO at this point, having come off an Oscar for MORNING GLORY and the huge financial successful of LITTLE WOMEN. Within a few years her career would take a tumble and she would be labeled box office poison. For the moment it's a solid film version of J. M. Barrie's popular play, with a supporting cast that includes Alan Hale, Beryl Mercer, Donald Crisp, and Andy Clyde. Director Richard Wallace had his cast speak in stage-Scottish accents that I occasionally found baffling. However, the choice of properties seems to have been right in the then-current sweet spot of Miss Hepburn's star persona.

Co-star John Beal had made his screen debut only the previous year, and this was his third movie performance. He would appear in more than a hundred movies and television shows over the following sixty years before dying in 1997 at the age of 87.

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.

I really enjoyed this sentimental antique. Hepburn and Beal are terrific. Movie music fans should not miss this early Max Steiner score. I had never heard of it. It's one of his earliest through-composed soundtracks. I loved the meticulous scoring and varied arrangements of the folklike love theme, which is fully stated in the opening credits (a one minute burst of romantic fervor) and is then interpolated and altered throughout the film, first returning when Hepburn says "I do believe you've liked me all the time" to which Beal replies with the question that sums up the film's theme "Can a man like a woman against his will?". There's a great sequence where Hepburn shines a lantern through the minister's living room window. Listen to how Steiner punctuates the flashes of light. As with all good symphonic scores the love theme returns finally to tie everything together, but not before we've heard it played on everything from solo violin to bagpipes.