Morning Glory

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Audience Member Historical accounts of the 1932-33 Academy Awards claim that there was only polite applause when the Best Actor and Best Actress awards were presented. Charles Laughton won Best Actor for his performance in "The Private Life of Henry VIII," and the guests at the awards ceremony were not pleased that the Academy chose a (gasp!) non-American. Katharine Hepburn won the Best Actress prize for her performance in "Morning Glory," and the tepid response to her win was due to the fact that the actress had already made herself unliked among Hollywood circles. Hepburn of course would go on to have perhaps the single most illustrious career ever for a movie star, and whether or not she was ever truly liked, she became one of the most revered and respected actresses in the business. But based on her performance in "Morning Glory," it's easy to see why she turned people off. She's just weird. That weirdness was likely interpreted as unique, and she certainly delivers lines in the film in a way that no actress had delivered lines before her. I have to believe it's this uniqueness that won her the Oscar. But as a performance, it's pretty dreadful, though the movie around her is such an afterthought that I don't know that anyone could have done much with it. Hepburn plays Eva Lovelace, a naive, stagestruck kid who comes to New York with ambitions to be a serious actress and annoys everyone so much that they just give in and give her her big break even if there's no logical reason for doing so. (I'm sure that's how the show business world really works). I don't know whether to blame the writing, directing, or Hepburn herself, but Eva comes across as mentally unhinged rather than innocent, and the film gives us no conceivable reason that a theater impresario (Adolphe Menjou) and a renowned playwright (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) would be so infatuated with her, let alone allow her to just sit around their offices and homes all the time while they go about their business. Despite being innocent and haughty and above it all, she falls into bed easily with Menjou and then becomes obsessed with him, until the end when, on a dime, she pivots and realizes that she's a woman scorned. Nothing in this movie makes narrative sense, and you want to see Hepburn punched in the face more than you want to see her character make it on Broadway. I had the most fun with Mary Duncan, an actress I'd never heard of, who plays a Broadway diva, and I was struck with how much sex appeal Douglas Fairbanks had. Why on earth Hepburn's character didn't fall for him instead of Menjou is just one of the nonsensical plot developments this film wants us to swallow. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Audience Member Katherine Hepburn won her first Oscar for this wonderful film about the theatre. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/21/21 Full Review steve d Nothing about it really works anymore. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member An early curiosity for Katharine Hepburn. She shows early promise in this flawed and familiar story about succeeding in the cold, tough world of the New York Theatre. Hepburn is supposed to be naive, but it's a bit much here. We never get a chance to see her brilliance as an actress, so we don't understand if her struggle is justified or not. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member By 1933 standards, this was a gem. Remarkably, it holds up well almost a hundred years later. Though there's not much of a plot, your interest is still invested in watching. There is a clear moral to this story, though, and that is that of the morning glory, here of Katharine Hepburn herself. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review jona i A fine film. Nothing beyond that. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Morning Glory

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