Sylvia Scarlett

''Sylvia Scarlett'' is a 1935 American romantic comedy film starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, based on '' The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett'', a 1918 novel by Compton MacKenzie. Directed by George Cukor, it was notorious as one of the most famous unsuccessful movies of the 1930s. Hepburn plays the title role of Sylvia Scarlett, a female con artist masquerading as a boy to escape the police. The success of the subterfuge is in large part due to the transformation of Hepburn by RKO makeup artist Mel Berns.

This film was the first pairing of Grant and Hepburn, who later starred together in ''Bringing Up Baby'' (1938), '' Holiday'' (1938), and '' The Philadelphia Story'' (1940).

Grant's performance as a dashing rogue sees him incorporate a Cockney accent and remains widely considered the first time Grant's famous personality began to register on film. (Grant used the Cockney accent in only a few other films, notably 1939's '' Gunga Din'', 1943's '' Mr. Lucky'' and Clifford Odets' '' None but the Lonely Heart'' in 1944.) Cockney was not, however, Cary Grant's original accent. He was born and grew up in Bristol, which has a very different accent from that of London, where he only spent part of two years in his mid-teens working with a Vaudeville troupe. In the U.S., by sixteen, he began to attempt to sound more American to broaden the range of theatre roles for which he could be cast a decade before he ever appeared in a Hollywood "talkie".

Synopsis

Sylvia Scarlett ( Katharine Hepburn) and her father, Henry (Edmund Gwenn), flee France one step ahead of the police because, while employed as a bookkeeper for a lace factory, he was discovered to be an embezzler. While on the channel ferry to London, they meet a "gentleman adventurer", Jimmy Monkley (Cary Grant), who partners with them in his con games.

Cast

Reception

After a disastrous test screening, Cukor and Hepburn reportedly begged producer Pandro Berman to shelve the picture if they agreed to make their next film for free. According to RKO records, the film lost a whopping $363,000, and thus began a downturn in Hepburn's career (causing her to be branded "box office poison") from which she would eventually recover.

In a review published two days before his death, Andre Sennwald of ''The New York Times'' wrote, "With what accuracy Compton Mackenzie's novel has been transferred to the screen this deponent knoweth not. But the film has a sprawling, confused and unaccented way of telling its story that might easily be the result of too literal a dramatization of just that sprawling kind of book." ''Variety'' said, "Despite good production values and some strong performances, 'Sylvia Scarlett' is not a reliable candidate for public favor. The story is hard to get. It is puzzling in its tangents and sudden jumps plus the almost poetic lines that are given to Miss Hepburn. At moments the film skirts the border of absurdity and considerable of its mid-section is downright boresome." The review added that "Cary Grant, doing a petty English crook with a Soho accent, practically steals the picture."

'' Harrison's Reports'' stated, "The material in the two novels, from which this story was supposedly taken, could have made an outstanding picture. But it was altered radically and was weakened, with the result that it has made an uninteresting comedy. The story is far-fetched and somewhat unpleasant. And the fact that Miss Hepburn goes through most of the picture in male attire may disappoint her followers." John Mosher of ''The New Yorker'' was positive and found that despite Hepburn's difficult role, the picture was "charming, sparkling with the feeling that Compton Mackenzie gave his novel of romantic vagrants. Indeed, it is that part of the film with Hepburn in breeches that is best. When at last she puts on skirts and is a girl again, and a girl in love, she is more like most of the movie heroines we have known, and the fantasy fades out in an almost perfunctory happy ending." ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' declared, "A very entertaining film. Parts of the story are a trifle illogical but the direction, acting and some very delightful photography make it seem almost possible."

A Turner Classic Movies article suggested that the film's themes of sexual politics were ahead of its time and that the film's reception has improved over the years. In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the '' Chicago Reader'' included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.

The film is mostly known for its queer elements, with Hepburn's character continuing to do drag even after it is not necessary anymore for the character, which ''"confused and disconcerted in equal measures."'' It is considered that the sexual ambiguities and gender misunderstandings of the films were too daring for the time period, which made the audiences fail to see the humor in cross-dressing and mistaken identity. It also resulted in movie audiences walking away from the movie, especially since it was insinuated or shown that both male and female characters were attracted to Hepburn's character, in and out of drag. While in drag, Sylvia is kissed by a woman and Monkley comments that he'd made "a proper hot water bottle" when they are changing to go to sleep. At the same time, Fane shows more interest in Sylvia while in drag, and losing it after she revealed she is a woman.

Some have argued that "Gender as a separate concept from sexuality or physical sex wouldn’t come about for another twenty years, so audiences had no context for Sylvia’s odd apparel" throughout the movie. Nevertheless, the film is considered one of the few of the Golden Age of Hollywood to represent queerness respectfully. It is now seen as "a monument to the sapphic impression Hepburn left in Hollywood", with the film implying "that Sylvia might stay as Sylvester forever", even as she enters a relationship with a man. Some, on the other hand, have considered that ''"these deliciously cheeky invitations are met with sexual panic and a predictable retreat into befrocked femininity"''."Bi-Polar Gender-Blender: 'Sylvia Scarlett'" (2002)
sensesofcinema.com. Accessed May 18, 2022.

See also

* '' Sinister Street''

References

External links

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Historic reviews, photo gallery at CaryGrant.net

''Sylvia Scarlett''
at Virtual History

{{Compton Mackenzie

1935 films
1935 romantic comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American black-and-white films
Cross-dressing in American films
1930s English-language films
Films scored by Roy Webb
Films about con artists
Films based on British novels
Films based on romance novels
Films directed by George Cukor
RKO Pictures films
1930s American films