IMDb plot summary: When her father decides to flee to England, young Sylvia Scarlett must become Sylvester Scarlett and protect her father every step of the way, with the questionable help of plenty others.
Directed by George Cukor. Stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Brian Aherne.
Sylvia Scarlett is a very, very early Katharine Hepburn film in which she is the daughter of a criminal who must go on the run, and so she disguises herself as a man to better serve him as his companion. Along the way, the two team up with Cary Grant, who plays another con man who agrees to help them. This was first brought to my attention on a TikTok about very early trans representation. While obviously this doesn't get too deep into that aspect of the story, given the time in which it was released, it does have some really fresh takes on gender, and coming from an actress like Hepburn, who was known for challenging stereotypical notions of gender, especially later in her career, it is a fascinating watch. Aside from that though, the film isn't great. The romance is not likable or believable. The actors make very inconsistent choices as to what accents they're going to have at any point in the story. And the whole thing is all wrapped up very abruptly in a happy romance ending, tacked on to what was a fairly dark melodrama up until that point. So it's more valuable as a piece of interesting film history and early representation of non-typical gender performance than as an actual film in and of itself.
How it entered my Flickchart:
🎥 Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
📊 Ranked #3209/4189 on my Flickchart
🎯 Flickscore™: 23
lost to Fahrenheit 451 (held at #2096)
lost to The Preacher's Wife (held at #3143)
beat Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (#3669 → #3670)
beat Pinocchio (#3405 → #3406)
beat The Other Sister (#3273 → #3274)
lost to A Mighty Wind (held at #3208)
beat Gangs of New York (#3240 → #3241)
beat Baby Boom (#3224 → #3225)
beat Victor/Victoria (#3216 → #3217)
beat Our Paradise (#3212 → #3213)
beat Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (#3210 → #3211)
beat Inherent Vice (#3209 → #3210)
No comments:
Post a Comment