Forn55

I daresay this review will mark me as irremediably old-fashioned in my tastes, but I cannot, for the life of me, find either wit or humor (and yes, this movie touts itself as a comedy) in a movie the principle dialogue of which consists of the two word expression "f... you," or variants of the same. Appalling. I lasted about 30 minutes before walking out. Caveat emptor.

Appallingly bad. This mish-mash of new-age sentiments and zingy, slangy one-liners wrapped up in special visual effects has about as much to do with Kipling's wonderful adventure book as the Kardashians have to do with Oxford University. It's directed in a campy, wanna-be-cool style that can best be described as neo-faux Hollywooden car-chase. It uses animals instead of crash cars, but it boils down to much the same thing.

Why (oh, why?) do film makers take wonderful books and trash them? Why do they take a genuinely moving tale and turn it into cotton candy? This movie is the cinematic equivalent of junk food.

In director George Stevens, RKO Pictures had a craftsman behind the camera who was known for his ability to elicit sensitive performances from his actors. In Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray and Hattie McDaniel, RKO had actors who were on the verge of being major stars. Stevens would go on to direct several remarkable movies including "A Place in the Sun," "I Remember Mama," and "Swing Time." Hepburn, MacMurray and McDaniel would go on to be... well, Hepburn, MacMurray and McDaniel. Given the level of talent at work on "Alice Adams," it's an inexplicable puzzle this movie turned out to be so god-awful. The fault, perhaps, lies in the story, by Booth Tarkington, from which the movie script was adapted. Tarkington's slice-of-life explorations of small-town, mid-western mores in the early years of last century have not weathered the intervening decades very well. "Alice Adams" follows the career of a young woman of modest means with gigantic social aspirations. In the title role, Hepburn gives an outrageously mawkish performance -- half tremulous maiden, half calculating man-trap. It's not attractive in the least. Pathos morphs quickly into bathos and rather than feel sorry for the sweet young thing, the viewer is more likely to want to shake her. We don't believe, for a second, that Fred MacMurray's character -- a decent and honorable young man -- could fall for such a chatty twit. The cast of the movie includes Fred Stone and Ann Shoemaker, who do their best with essentially one-dimensional characters, but the movie mopes and languishes on to its contrived (happy) ending and the moviegoer is ready for it all to finish long before it actually does. If you're a Hepburn or MacMurray fan, see "Alice Adams" just to be able to say you have seen it. Then, you'll never have to see it again for as long as you live.