John Beal

(On Cable TV, March 2020) Look, I am a simple man: I see Katharine Hepburn looking gorgeous as a curly-haired gypsy, I like. Alas, the rest of The Little Minister is a letdown after seeing Hepburn at perhaps her all-time sexiest. It does help that, as an early dramatic role for an actress who hadn’t yet mastered her full range, this is a film that seems to run for a long time on empty conventionalities. Set in a rather strange nostalgic small-town in rural Scotland, the film is adapted from a J.M. Barrie novel (yes, the author of Peter Pan) as a somewhat serious drama with comic relief, none of which apparently reflects the source material, nor Hepburn’s then-range in romantic comedy. While there’s some heat between Hepburn (who’s not really a gypsy, but a noblewoman passing as a gypsy for some freedom) and John Beal playing a reverend taken by her wild-girl charm, the rest of this pleasant film feels both long and familiar in its take on 1840s Scottish romance. It’s not quite a misfire, even though it tarnished Hepburn’s status at the time as “box office poison.” Still, I like what I like—Hepburn is there, playing up her perennial rebellious persona and that’s quite enough for me.

(On Cable TV, September 2021) We head over to rural Scotland in The Little Minister, and perhaps more strikingly to a young and radiant Katharine Hepburn as a local noble who enjoys passing as a lower-class gypsy girl in order to go against the action of her betrothed. In walks a young minister who catches her eye while he’s having a hard time integrating in the close-knit community. There’s a fair amount of Scottish mythology at work here, especially in its depiction of a small village with its quirks and issues. But Hepburn stands tall in a role almost custom-fit to her later personas: a liberal rebel out to tweak the establishment and a strong-willed woman who could be as determined as she was beautiful (and considering that mid-1930s Hepburn was a world-class beauty, that’s saying a lot). Everyone else pales in the rest of the film, especially considering that the execution of the plot is duller than it ought to be – reportedly more serious than the whimsical novel penned by J. M. Barrie (yes, “Peter Pan” Barrie), the film often feels laborious and forced. This is even more apparent when Hepburn shows up and seems to be playing something far more interesting. It’s not one of her finest films of the 1930s, but she frequently looks amazing and is clearly shoring up her distinctive screen persona. As such, The Little Minister remains a must-see for Hepburn fans, even if everyone else will have a harder time getting through it.