A Year with Kate: Christopher Strong (1933)

ICYMI - New Series! - Episode 2 of 52

In which Katharine Hepburn plays another British lady, and her acting gets better even if her accent doesn’t.

If Katharine Hepburn has one problem in her early career (besides her infamous intractability) it is her inability to be anything other than herself. That odd quality that made her a star in A Bill of Divorcement also plagued her through her career. She’s too stubborn to be an ingénue, too young to be a dame, too androgynous to be a femme fatale and too fascinating to be a character actor. What then to do with her? Once she hits MGM she definitely hits her stride, but sadly that is seven years, twelve movies (and for us, twelve very long weeks) away.  First we have to get through the trial and error period of Kate’s career, where she tried on many hats.

The next hat is this:

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A Year with Kate: A Bill of Divorcement (1932)

In which two ingénues are introduced...

A girlish debutante in a white gown floats down the stairs and into her waiting beau's arms. Gracefully, they glide around the dance floor sharing quips and quiet smiles. Thus is the world introduced to Katharine Hepburn in A Bill of Divorcement in 1932. It's a pretty enough entrance, but somehow inauspicious for Kate the Great. It is just so entirely Movie Ingénue Ordinary. The girl floating down the stairs could just as easily be Jeanette McDonald or Joan Bennett. Considering who Katharine Hepburn was and who she became, one would expect her to come striding into the room like a Greek goddess. Katharine Hepburn would make many more striking and characteristic entrances later, so for now we'll settle for this beautiful-if-ephemeral debut of the ingénue, and proceed with my own introduction.

My name is Anne Marie, and Katharine Hepburn is my idol. The first movie I ever saw her in was The Philadelphia Story. Kate was powerful and witty. She wore pants and still looked glamorous. To an awkward tomboy in middle school, she was everything. This idolatry only intensified as I grew. But recently, while perusing IMDb, I discovered two shocking things: 

1. I have only seen a third of Katharine Hepburn's movies
2. There are exactly 52 of them. 

This presents me with an exciting opportunity: "A Year with Kate"... 

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Curio: The Conde Nast Collection

Alexa here. In searching for holiday gift ideas this year, I keep coming back to The Conde Nast Collection. For a reasonable price (under $150), you can buy photographic prints of the work of some amazing photographers, including Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst and others.  Their collection from Vanity Fair is especially fine when it comes to the world of cinema. I've chosen some standouts to entice you if you feel like beautifying your walls or someone else's for Christmas... 

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Kate, Barbra, and Oscar Part 2: The Diva

Anne Marie with the second half of the two-part post on the Best Actress tie for 1968. Part One is here if you missed it.

The audience of the 41st Academy Awards roared its approval when Ingrid Bergman announced that Hollywood newcomer Barbra Streisand had tied Katharine Hepburn for Best Actress in a Leading Role. But though Streisand has since achieved immense popularity and icon status, this win is still questioned by some. After all, Hepburn was a giant among giants, giving the performance of her career in The Lion in Winter alongside a stellar cast with a sizzling script. Barbra was certainly the best part of an otherwise unremarkable musical. As a highly fictionalized version of famous vaudevillian Fanny Brice, Stresiand packed a ton of charm, chatter, charisma, and chutzpah into one role. But is that enough to warrant an Academy Award?

Actually, yes it is...

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Kate, Barbra, and Oscar Part 1: The Queen

As a bit of context for the impending Supporting Smackdown (get your votes in), we'll be celebrating 1968 daily at Noon for the rest of the month. Here's Anne Marie on a favorite Oscar moment.

It was the night of April 14th, 1969. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was packed with stars for the 41st Academy Awards. When it came time to award the Oscar for Best Actress, presenter Ingrid Bergman stuttered with shock as she announced that two women had tied. Her surprise was understandable; there had been no tie in the acting branch for over thirty years. Barbra Streisand, only 26 years old, tripped over her sparkling sailor suit as she approached the podium to accept her Oscar for Funny Girl. Katharine Hepburn was characteristically absent for her historic third win, so the director of The Lion In Winter accepted on her behalf. This joint win was more than just a peculiar footnote in Oscar history. This was a rare case of the Academy getting it exactly right twice with one award.

As has been extensively documented here at The Film Experience, the Academy is often maddeningly predictable in its awards-giving. However, at its best an Oscar can be a celebration of an explosive newcomer on the cusp of an incredible career (e.g. Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind) or a salute to a seasoned veteran for a risky performance at her artistic peak (e.g. Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire). In 1969, both happened: Katharine Hepburn won for the second time in a row for a virtuosic, against-type performance as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion In Winter, and Barbra Streisand won for her instantly-iconic turn as Fanny Brice in her very first film, Funny Girl. While these two women can share that Oscar win, they certainly cannot be confined together to a single blog post. If you'll forgive my fangirl squeals of excitement, I'll start with Hepburn.

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