A Year with Kate: Stage Door Canteen (1943)

Episode 19 of 52 of Anne Marie's chronological look at Katharine Hepburn's career.

In which Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, and a stripper walk into a bar…

Ain't you heard? There's a war on! Two years into the Second World War, Americans were fulfilling their patriotic duty, finding ways to serve and protect. The message at the front: fight back the enemy. The message at home: support our troops! But how does a movie star fulfill her patriotic duty? The answer came in the form of the Stage Door Canteen (and its West Coast cousin the Hollywood Canteen, which would get movie treatment in 1944). Any serviceman in uniform could come to the Stage Door Canteen, eat and dance for free, and maybe catch a glimpse at the stars, who volunteered to bus tables, play host, and entertain the servicemen free of charge. Stage Door Canteen was produced by the American Theatre Guild (distribution by RKO), and boasted 48 huge stars and 6 boisterous big bands to entertain the troops and boost morale at home.

Unfortunately, time marches forward, and of the 48 stars formerly so easily recognizable, most have been forgotten to time and old Looney Toons caricatures. Even I, expert though I am, as knowledgeable as I am humble, only can name about half without first scouring IMDb. However, I know that all of you are just as geeky as I am--if not moreso. So, instead of just listing my top 10 favorite cameos from this film, I've created a brief quiz. How many of these 11 stars can you name? (The first one is a gimme.)

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Tyrone Power Centennial. Can We Get a Biopic, Please?

Behold the beauty of young swashbuckler Tyrone Power. Though I'm not really a fan of Zac Efron, may I propose a Power biopic starring the young hunk? Just look at the photos and marvel at how easily Efron could do it, aesthetically that is. And, anyway, all classic stars deserve biopics, if only to reintroduce them to modern audiences.

Today marks the romantic leading man's 100th birthday so we'll celebrate after the jump with a Beauty Break and a few notes on his career. 

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A Year with Kate: Keeper of the Flame (1942)

Episode 18 of 52 of Anne Marie's chronological look at Katharine Hepburn's career.

In which I'm not entirely sure what's going on but it seems to involve boy scouts and fascism.

So, you’re a major studio with a bona fide hit on your hands. You’ve thrown two Academy Award winners, neither a matinee idol in their own right, into a romantic comedy, and the sparks between them burst with unexpected chemistry. The result is a commercial and critical smash that will garner two Oscar nominations and one win (for Best Screenplay). Clearly, another movie between Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn is desired. The next question is: how do you follow an immediate classic?

If your answer is “with a heavy-handed, jingoistic melodrama about fascism,” then you’re crazy, but you’re also right. The tonal about-face from the lighthearted Woman of the Year to Tracy and Hepburn’s next film, Keeper of the Flame, is severe enough to cause whiplash. [more...]

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A Year with Kate: Woman of the Year (1942)

Episode 17 of 52 of Anne Marie's chronological look at Katharine Hepburn's career.

In which Tracy and Hepburn explode on screen in a dynamic maelstrom of celluloid chemistry.

What sparks great star chemistry? Katharine Hepburn, an actress who was all angles and independence, bottled that lightning not once, but twice, with two men who were polar opposites: Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy. Near the end of Bringing Up Baby, Grant’s character tells Katharine Hepburn “...in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but, well, there haven't been any quiet moments.” This stuttering sentence sums up the banter-based rapport between Hepburn and Grant that played through their four films together. Watching Grant and Hepburn is watching two master comedians play a scene - glamorous, theatrical, loud, and wonderful. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are the complete opposite: authentic, intimate, sexy, and sweet.

Woman of the Year, the first Tracy/Hepburn film, is full of those “moments of quiet” abolished from Bringing Up Baby. But, oh! how loud a quiet moment can be! The electricity crackling through those moments between Kate and Spencer isn’t born of perfect comedic timing or a well-written script. It is one of those undefinable energies, like the always elusive “star quality,” that you know as soon as it hits you like a bolt of lightning.

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Seasons of Bette: Dark Victory (1939)

Seasons of Bette had a headache last week but is feeling much better now, thank you. Herewith, your catch-up episode on Dark Victory (1939)

it was the ghastliest feeling, everything went fuzzy. 

Fallen out of order, have I. That's awfully dreadful of me given that the great revelation of both Anne Marie's brilliant A Year With Kate and my own intermittent Seasons of Bette series is that you can actually watch a movie star grow in power and nuance and embrace of their own specificity if you watch their films chronologically.

This is true, at least, of the studio system where stars were invested in for the long haul rather than dabbled with for a few months at a time if agents, lawyers, producer, directors and stars could agree on a one-time contract. The old system had its drawbacks of course, giving thespians less agency in their own filmography and less ability to test their range in different genres and with left turn character types. Despite that, and even because of it, it was uniquely ideal soil for the true movie stars to grow like majestic redwoods. You know the kind of superstar I'm talking about: they are emphatically always themselves no matter how well they play any particular character. [more...]

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