Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
(On Cable TV, July 2019) The historical record tells us that Sylvia Scarlett was a notorious flop upon release; that it had a legendarily bad test screening; and that it helped send Katharine Hepburn’s career in a slump that would take five years to correct. And certainly, it’s a film with its share of flaws—starting with a herky-jerky plot that’s unpredictable not because it’s particularly clever, but because it goes from one thing to another without much forethought. There are some intensely weird mood swings to the story, as it goes from comedy to the death of a main character to once more into comedy. But it’s also a film with many interesting things, especially from a modern perspective. The biggest of those is probably the presence of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, both of them young and dashing and still developing the persona that would follow them throughout their career. Grant’s charm is a bit subdued under a Cockney accent and a character meant to keep audiences either guessing or seething. Hepburn’s turn is far more interesting, as the tergiversations of the plot mean that she spends about half the film in drag, playing a young man. She goes from long tresses to a boy’s haircut, with makeup accents meant to highlight her masculine features. It’s not a bad look, and she does sell the illusion despite being, well, 1930s world-class beauty Katharine Hepburn. Brian Aherne also does quite well as a deliciously likable character absolutely unphased by the revelation that Hepburn’s character is, in fact, a girl. One can see, however, that depression-era America may not have known what to do with the gender-bending comedy of the film (complete with real same-sex kissing and proposed perceived same-sex cuddling). Director George Cukor keeps things moving, but there isn’t that much directorial prowess to the 90-minute film. The comedy is more a case of chuckles than outright laughter: it doesn’t go the extra mile and never makes the fullest use of the elements at its disposal. The ending is odd—satisfying at a basic romantic level, and yet a bit scattered in the way it gets there. It’s perhaps best to see Sylvia Scarlett as a curio, an early showcase for two legendary actors, and also an early example of queer cinema at a time when the Hays Code was starting to crack down on anything outside heteronormativity. (One notes that Cukor was homosexual and that Hepburn was widely rumoured to be bisexual.) By 1935 standards, Sylvia Scarlett may have been an odd flop—but today, it’s far more interesting than most other movies of the time.