A Star Is Born-Katharine Hepburn’s Morning Glory

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

 

Morning Glory, starring Katharine Hepburn, Adolph Menjou, Douglas Fairbanks, Junior, 1933   

Funny how some film cycles run for guys like me who like to watch old-time black and white films and review them in a space like this. Quite by accident the film under review, Katharine Hepburn’s Academy Award-winning performance in Morning Glory, and the previous three films I have reviewed are all set in New Jack City (alright I know New York City but black and white times or now you had better have jack if you want to live there, or dream about making yourself a name there). They are all slightly different takes from hobo Meet John Doe down and out to bright guy goes to town Mr. Deeds Goes To Town to melodramatic East Side, West Side about life on the upper crust to this film about a naïve wannabe actress Eva Lovelace who wants to take the town by a storm.

The Broadway part of town anyway, the stage, the legitimate stage they called it then to compare it with crass Hollywood. Eva from nowhere Vermont decided like a million guys and gals before her to flee the confines of small-town anywhere and see the bright lights of the city, of the great white way. She though is strictly from amateur night, strictly from hunger too as she tries to get that first little break that will set her on the road to stardom. A road that is filled with corpses of those who failed.    

But not our gal because she had spunk, had a little talent too, but mostly she had an overweening desire to do what it took to get a shot at the stars-including in pre-Code Hollywood off-stage bedding the big Broadway producer (Adolph Menjou) and putting a spell on her acting coach and an up and coming young writer and director. Eva will as fate would have it get her big chance when an older established star got on her high horse and made one too many non-negotiable demands and left in a huff-leaving the show without a lead. No problem. Quick study Eva slated for a small role from the smitten director (Douglas Fairbanks, Junior) and the rest was history. Well not quite history because in the end, end of the film anyway, fame and fortune don’t give him all she wants. What did she expect. Like I said that road is filled with corpses and the ghosts of the faded past. I don’t know whether her performance was 1933 Oscar-worthy but the cautionary tale was still worth telling.