Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

A young woman traveling with her smuggler father poses as a man for reasons that are not clearly explained. Apparently just cutting her hair short convinces everyone that she's a male, although she still looks very much like a woman. Hepburn and Grant would go on to make "Holiday" and "The Philadelphia Story" with director Cukor, but this first effort is a disaster. The stars seem to be trying hard but the script is so bad that this film is painful to sit through. Thankfully, this laugh-less comedy did not end their careers. Actually, it can't decide if it's a comedy or drama. It seems as though the plot was made up as they went along. There's no narrative flow. A disappointment.

"Sylvia Scarlett" is like a screwball comedy that can't commit to being a screwball comedy.Hepburn spends much of the first part of the film disguised as a boy so that she and her father (Edmund Gwenn), who are on the lam because of Gwenn's gambling debts, will be less conspicuous. They meet up with a Cockney shyster played by Cary Grant, who falls for Hepburn once he realizes she's actually a girl. Brian Aherne, playing a handsome gentleman the three come across during their travels, falls for her too. The finale involves a zany chase in which Hepburn and Aherne take off after Grant and Aherne's girlfriend in an attempt to get them back, only to discover once they've set off that they really like each other and don't much care about finding the disloyal lovers.The fact that the film takes on gender issues at ALL makes it a curio worthy of interest, but just WHAT the film wants to do with those gender issues is never clear. Hepburn plays the character like a tomboy who's uncomfortable in her feminine skin, which is completely at odds with the girly girl she portrays in the film's very first scene. The film is never especially funny, but its overall tone is too lighthearted for the dramatic moments to make much of an impact. The editing is ragged and jumpy, which makes me wonder if the studio did some injudicious hacking, leaving elements that that would have made the film make more sense on the cutting room floor.Critics and audiences have largely dismissed this film with an indifferent shrug, and I can't say that I blame them.Grade: C

Legendary flop from director George Cuckor and stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Edmund Gwenn concerns a young woman from Paris and her wily con-artist father taking it on the lam from police, eventually hitching up with a traveling vaudeville show with the girl disguised as a boy. Good-looking production based on Compton Mac Kenzie's book, but strident and shrill. Cuckor fails to modulate the scenes in a way that would endear these characters to the audience, and the resulting fiasco seems like an overly-quirky inside joke. Hepburn survives it with her sense of humor intact, but Grant is especially poor as a Cockney chap who gets involved with the sneaky twosome. A meandering, confounding misfire. *1/2 from ****

George Cukor must have had lots of fun directing Katherine Hepburn,(Sylvia Scarlett) and Cary Grant, (Jimmy Monkley) in this comedy about Sylvia Scarlett making believe she was a boy with her hair cut very short and her father, Edmund Gwenn, (Henry Scarlett). Henry and Sylvia were forced to leave London, England because Henry had stolen a large sum of money from a firm he had worked at and so father and daughter decided to become con-artists and steal and rob people. However, every time Sylvia tried to pull off a heist, she would goof up and ruin the entire plan. Jimmy Monkley joins the team and does not realize that Sylvia is not a boy and this group of crooks get themselves into all kinds of problems with plenty of laughter. Great Classic 1936 film.