A Woman Rebels (1936)

This 1936 RKO film stars Katharine Hepburn as a young woman who rebels against the social mores of Victorian England. She begins by defying her autocratic father (a not so nice Donald Crisp), has a baby out of wedlock, and becomes a crusading journalist. It really was ahead of its time! To enjoy this film, you must like "old Hollywood" movies -- those in the era just before GWTW and the watershed year of 1939. This is one of those truly old films, although not as primitive as some film from the early '30s. Nevertheless, the plot is a good one.This was the film debut of Van Heflin, and I have never understood just how became a popular film actor. I still don't after seeing his first film. On the other hand, it was interesting seeing a young Herbert Marshall, long a favorite of mine. Elizabeth Allan -- why was she this homely in this film...she usually was quite attractive...perhaps the hair style. Katherine Hepburn does very nicely here, but be sure to remember how she looked as a young girl at the beginning of the film, compared to the mature lady at the end of the film...a remarkable transformation.Interesting photography of coastal Italy...or as we call it, Carmel, California. ;-) Very worth watching to see why this (and a couple of other flops) made Hepburn "box office poison". I can see why it may not have been popular back in 1936, but it wears well, and is great if you're a fan of either Hepburn or Marshall.

In the pantheon of feminist films that Katherine Hepburn did in her career, A Woman Rebels definitely belongs. Even though this Victorian costume drama failed at the box office, seen today it's manifesto for the feminist cause and altogether proper for the daughter of a suffragette to have brought to the screen.Kate and her sister Elizabeth Allan are being raised as proper Victorian ladies by their widowed father Donald Crisp which means no rights at all. Liz dutifully accepts her lot, but not Kate. Liz accepts David Manners a young naval lieutenant as a husband picked out by Crisp, but Kate has a fling with Van Heflin that's left her pregnant. And Heflin's engaged to another proper Victorian lady to boot.Kate goes off to Italy to live with her sister while Manners is on duty. Allan is also expecting, but after Manners is killed in action, Allan dies of a broken heart. On Allan's deathbed she and Hepburn decide to raise Hepburn's expected as her niece rather than her daughter.Back in the United Kingdom, Hepburn goes to work for a woman's magazine and under her direction the publication becomes a feminist manifesto for its time. Still old sins have a way of coming back to haunt one and they do Kate in a most peculiar way.Herbert Marshall is in A Woman Rebels as Kate's faithful suitor and British nineteenth century diplomat. He looks earnest and faithful much like a pet collie, but in fairness the role isn't all that much. One can certainly see what attracted Hepburn to A Woman Rebels. It's very message was parlor talk in the Hepburn household when she was growing up. Still the film does have a lot of unresolved situations, mostly due to the Code being firmly in place now and flexing its censoring muscles.Kate's co-star Van Heflin was pretty unknown at this time and she would pick him to co-star with her as well as Joseph Cotten in The Philadelphia Story when Hollywood pronounced her box office poison. Though she didn't pick him for the screen version, she was the one who got him an MGM contract when she went there and from there Heflin became a star.A Woman Rebels is a story which probably would have been better told now than back in the day. Perhaps someone like Gwyneth Paltrow will take up where Kate the Great left off.

Apart from a wonderful plot, superb acting from Katherine Hepburn, Herbert Marshall as a charming leading man, as a historical film costumer, this one goes on my A-list.I've only seen about 3/4 of the film -- caught it on Turner classic movies channel and got hooked. Don't know what the costuming in the early part of the flick was like, but from the time I tuned in, which covered the mid to late 1860s through the 1890s, I was VERY impressed.The 1930s and 40's "golden age of Hollywood" was not a particularly good era for accurate costuming in film -- the artistic/visual impact generally seemed to trump any concerns about authenticity. And the 50s, 60's and 70's got broadly worse.This film stands out from the 1930's crop BIG time.The 1865-1870 period is difficult to get right and is seldom portrayed -- elliptical hoops, small bonnets, tailored details -- all presaging the "first bustle era" of the early 70's but not yet at the bustle stage. Costume Designer Walter Plunkett gets it right and designed some lovely, authentic gowns. The film seems to flash forward pretty rapidly to the late 1870's to early 1880s "natural form" era and then the 1890s, so both bustle eras are missed out, but the periods he covers, he does RIGHT.Ironically, this is the same Walter Plunkett famous for his gorgeous, yet woefully inaccurate costumes for Vivian Leigh in Gone With the Wind -- however, if you look at that film, the costuming for Melanie Wilkes and the supporting & background women is actually pretty good, as are the various male civilian outfits. Alas, the stuff that's most remembered is the stuff that's wrong - Scarlett's clothes and the godawful uniforms. Suggests to me that the great Plunkett richly deserved his reputation, DID understand historical costuming and must have been working to some broader artistic judgement call on the part of either the director / production designer or producers on GWTW.With no such constraints on "A Woman Rebels", he did a phenomenal job.-- Kathryn Coombs Historical Wardrobe, Ltd Historical Entertainment, LLC

*Spoilers*With a tempting cast of Kate Hepburn and Herbert Marshall, and a strong title to boot, this movie was a frustrating disappointment. The actors seemed cast adrift in a ship without a rudder. "Woman Rebels" was shown as part of the recent TCM special on Kate Hepburn's birthday, with early pre-code movies from the 30's and 40's, when she was already in her mid-twenties, and it followed the 1933 Dorothy Arzner classic "Christopher Strong." Now THAT is a movie with a solid script and a director who knew what she wanted to say and what to do with her stars. It's no accident that the director was a woman.In "Woman Rebels," the story, which is pretty simple but appears to have been written by committee (three writers are credited), still left certain details dangling, such as why does her stern and unforgiving father (Donald Crisp, here woefully underused and misdirected) appear only in the beginning and inexplicably at the end? or exactly whose baby was she raising, and why aren't we(or she) clear about it? Or take the casting; besides the principals, Hepburn's "daughter" is played by an actress (Elizabeth Allen) who, when grown up, looks older than her aunt (Hepburn) who is supposed to be twenty years her senior. That bothered me constantly. As for Herbert Marshall, he is given a simpering one-dimensional role, supposedly of a diplomat, that relegates him to merely standing in the wings commiserating, while Kate does her "rebelling" by running her newspaper and commenting on social issues. The latter is all well and good, but the context is so limited, and the supporting roles all so weak that we are pained to watch her.One wonders how Hepburn accepted this role after putting in such a sterling performance at age 26 (and only her second film) for Arzner in "Christopher Strong." That movie should have been named "A Woman Rebels," instead of giving the title, as others have noted, to Kate's love interest-- her friend's father, a gentleman also ultimately and sadly too weak in character to match her strength (wouldn't you guess that he would ask her to give up flying and not care a hoot that she might be pregnant?) The daring plot of "Christopher Strong" must have been startling at the time, and even today, it can be viewed with some wonder at the taste and delicacy with which it was done. Reviewers mention that Kate's role in that was modeled after Amelia Earhart, but I believe it is closer to Beryl Markham ("West with the Night") in its daring and literate spirit. Juxtaposing that 1933 film with "Woman Rebels" makes one rue the fact that even after taking ten steps forward, only three years later she would have to take fifty steps backward. Hepburn would have to wait almost ten years to be paired with Spencer Tracy before making a recovery film worth her salt.