Pour un baiser

...Well, this film is chock full of boisterous shyness! Look at us we are so shy! And it gets very annoying in short order. It's about a street in England in 1805 - Quality Street - that has nobody but spinsters living there. No explanation of this is ever given. Every time a man appears all of the curtains part, and the residents all stare. In fact, anytime somebody new appears on the street they all stare.

The residents we are introduced to are ridiculously introverted and repressed, yet they are also passive aggressive and spend their time being nosey about others since they have no real lives of their own. The Throssel sisters are two people living on this street, young Phoebe (Kate Hepburn) and her older sister, Susan (Fay Bainter). Phoebe has some hope of being taken away from all of this when she meets a young physician, Valentine Brown (Franchot Tone), who seems interested in her, but when he comes to her house for a big announcement, it is that he has joined the army to fight Napoleon.

Phoebe declares that Brown is the one she loves, she is not interested in entertaining any other suitors, and then she throws herself into the work of running a school with her sister. Ten years pass and although Phoebe is only 30, she looks much older than that. Thus when Val (Valentine) returns from war, he is visibly shaken by her changed and wilted appearance and seems to recoil. After he leaves, Phoebe shakes down her hair, puts on an ornate gown, and begins to prance around as though she is 20 again. In the process, she seems to transform back into her 20 year old self. It's rather ridiculous - kind of like the 60s movie where a secretary takes off her glasses, shakes down her hair and is suddenly a go-go dancer, but I digress.

The problem is that Val returns suddenly and sees her like this and Phoebe is embarrassed by her behavior, so a servant identifies her as Livy, Phoebe's niece. Val is entranced, and now Phoebe is forced to keep up the ruse of being two people. The complicating factor is that the existence of this relative that nobody ever knew existed is noticed by the nosey neighbors, they don't believe that Livy is a real person, and they set out to prove that Livy and Phoebe are one in the same. Complications ensue.

Besides belaboring the issue of the residents of Quality Street being repressed but nosey, there are just no real likeable characters here. Phoebe should have cleared up this matter from the start but she doesn't, and Val is clueless as to what he means to Phoebe and seems to forget what time and age do to people. It does get pretty amusing in the last act, but it's a tough hard slog to get to that last act.

Quality Street is a contrived romance, with a small cast, on a set that looks like a play stage, with few visual impacts and in B&W. So, why did we enjoy it so much? The cast, down to the overplayed smaller parts, all does a great job. The ensemble cast brings spirit to even the small parts, the dialogue is clever, and the asides and glances make it fun. We particularly enjoyed the set and period behaviors as great insights on life in the early 19th century. Hollywood did a great job in establishing this period essence through effective use of hints and props. If you like Hepburn, you will enjoy this moral story, with feminine strength in an unforgiving society. Worth a relook!

I was about to go to bed one night and was watching a movie on TCM. The movie I was watching had just ended and Quality Street started to play. I was so charmed by this movie that I had to stay up quite late and finish watching it. I just couldn't make myself push the off button on my remote:) Katharine is quite charming as Phoebe and plays her niece quite well too. I honestly don't think Katharine looks too old, as other reviews have stated. Franchot Tone is very handsome as the gullible soldier. A good supporting cast as well. It is a light, entertaining romantic comedy. Just as long as you think this while the movie plays, it won't disappoint.

For her second time in a James M. Barrie role, Katharine Hepburn starred in a remake of Quality Street. Hepburn had previously played a little Scot's minx in The Little Minister also for RKO.

Barrie did right by her again, she was well cast as one of the Throssel sisters of Great Britain of the Napoleonic Era. She and sister Fay Bainter look like they're doomed to be spinsters. Bainter has resigned herself to that fate, but Hepburn still has hopes.

But when she thinks Franchot Tone might be popping the question, he's only around to tell her he's doing what Admiral Nelson expects of every man, his duty to England. In 1805 he enlists in the army and Hepburn and Bainter go on teaching school.

Ten years go by and when Tone doesn't at first recognize Hepburn when he returns, she thinks her prime has passed. But she'll teach Tone a lesson by impersonating her own made up niece. And what a niece, a naughty flirt who entrances all the young blades returned from the wars and doing a job on Tone's ego as well.

Quality Street has a quality history, it was first performed on Broadway by the immortal Maude Adams in 1901 and then made a silent film in 1927 starring Marion Davies and Conrad Nagel. I can certainly see why William Randolph Hearst thought this a good role for Davies. She could be both a crinolined heroine and also use her comic talents as well. Hepburn also gets to use her full talents playing one role straight and imitating a fictitious person at the same time.

Quality Street got an Oscar nomination for Best Musical Score. If it sounds familiar the theme was recycled later on for the frontier film Rachel And The Stranger. It was even given words that were sung on record by that film's star Robert Mitchum.

And George Stevens after doing Alice Adams with Hepburn was assigned this one as well. He'd do even better the third and last time he worked with Hepburn in Woman Of The Year.

Quality Street is a good film, but I'm sure that Depression Era audiences found a Victorian Era comedy a bit dated.

The original play was set in the early 1800s during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. This is a very cute, funny comedy if you understand that it describes a time when a woman's future was defined by her looks, youth, fertility, and chastity. With the destruction of monastic life in England, the only future for a woman at the time of the play was marriage.

The witty cast and script made the film a lot of fun. Seem to recall reading that the Hollywood actresses of that era wanted to be in this movie, and I can see why - it was a hoot. Especially Eric Blore, who always turned in a good performance.

Western culture at the time of the play valued fertility in marriage highly, and men tended to want wives who were rounder than Miss Hepburn. Other than that, her performance was wonderful as always.