Michael_Elliott Sylvia Scarlett (1935) ** (out of 4) After her father (Edmund Gwenn) gets into some trouble, Sylvia Scarlett (Katharine Hepburn) decides to sneak him out of France. She decides to dress up as a boy named Sylvester and before long they meet Jimmy (Cary Grant) and the three "men" are out getting whatever money they can. When Sylvester meets Michael (Brian Aherne) "he" finally has the desire to come out as the woman she really is.SYLVIA SCARLETT is a really, really strange movie and it's even stranger when you consider the era that it came out. Apparently reviews were mostly negative when the film was released but it seems over the years more people have discovered the film and it has become somewhat of a cult movie. With that said, I personally found it to be rather boring, unfunny and I honestly didn't find too much here to enjoy.The biggest problem I had with the film is that it didn't make me laugh and I thought the story was rather stupid to say the least. I mean, once the daughter and father are out of France there's really no need for her to pretend to be a man. I'm not sure what the point of her remaining a man was but it just doesn't add anything to the picture. I'd argue that the lack of laughs are a major problem but another is the fact that Sylvia and Michael characters have no chemistry at all.Speaking of Hepburn, she's game in the film but I honestly wouldn't say this was a "good" performance. Both Gwenn and Aherne are decent in their supporting parts but it's Grant who easily steals the picture with his charming and good-natured performance. The film's most memorable scene is when a woman, thinking Hepburn is a man, comes onto him and the two kiss, which has to be one of the earliest examples of this in a Hollywood picture.

mmallon4 The sheer bizarreness of Syliva Scarlet is largely what keeps the film afloat. Watching it you certainly must question what everyone involved was thinking.Sylvia "Sylvester" Scarlet (Hepburn) is supposedly French and can speak only a little English or so the movie claims despite the fact that she speaks perfect English throughout the entire film nor are the reasons why Sylvia must dress in drag really make much sense but I digress; I could go on listing the inconsistencies present in this film. It's not hard to see why this film became a cult classic instead of falling into obscurity. Firstly there is Katharine Hepburn cross dressing, although with Hepburn's masculine facial features the idea that anyone would mistake her for a man is more convincing than some other cross dressing movies. This makes the movie full of homosexual undertones; most prominently in the scene in which a woman played by Dennie Moore clearly expresses an attraction towards Sylvia, unaware she is a woman in drag; commenting that her skin is as smooth as a girl's and kisses her after drawing a Ronald Coleman moustache on her. Make of that what you will.On top of that Cary Grant sprouts a cockney accent. Along with Hepburn and her father played by Edmund Gwenn they make for an enjoyable trio of not very good con artists who don't adhere to the philosophy Syliva proposes at one point in the film, "Why don't we all get jobs and go to work". I'm not sure if I can even distinguish the film's moments of humor between intentionally and unintentionally funny. Either way, the whole thing is ridiculous, funny stuff. In fact I could have given this film a higher score but I felt the romance dominated second half slowed the film's pace; I guess you could say the film started to drag (bad dumb tiss). Sylvia Scarlett is one of those films which has to be seen to be believed. The first film of the Kate and Cary quadrilogy can be classified as many things but "forgettable" isn't one of them.

writers_reign It's difficult to imagine the story conferences on this one which is neither fish nor fowl, equally difficult to imagine the talents involved - Grant, Hepburn, Cukor - signing on for something so bizarre unless one or more of them had seen and admired First A Girl which featured the cross-dressing motif and/or The Good Companions which featured a group of touring concert-party performers. There's virtually no attempt at credibility from start to finish with characters being introduced then vanishing more or less as they please. It is always going to be interesting to see Hepburn and Grant in anything and THIS Grant is light-years away from the urbane, sophisticated light comedian persona by which he is best known; here he plays a cockney would-be lovable rogue in what may well be a dress rehearsal for his similar role in None But The Lonely Heart almost a decade later. Before we have time to adjust to one plot-line i.e. the three scammers, we are into another, the strolling players, with neither fully satisfying. Worth one viewing for Grant-Hepburn buffs but won't stand up to a second.

moonspinner55 Legendary flop from director George Cuckor and stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Edmund Gwenn concerns a young woman from Paris and her wily con-artist father taking it on the lam from police, eventually hitching up with a traveling vaudeville show with the girl disguised as a boy. Good-looking production based on Compton Mac Kenzie's book, but strident and shrill. Cuckor fails to modulate the scenes in a way that would endear these characters to the audience, and the resulting fiasco seems like an overly-quirky inside joke. Hepburn survives it with her sense of humor intact, but Grant is especially poor as a Cockney chap who gets involved with the sneaky twosome. A meandering, confounding misfire. *1/2 from ****