Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67767 in VHS
• Published on: 1987
• Format: Black & White
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 84 minutes

Customer Reviews

Katharine Hepburn masquerades to win the man she loves
The 1937 film "Quality Street," based on a minor turn of the century play by Sir James M. Barrie, was part of a string of period costume dramas Katharine Hepburn made in the 1930s such as "Mary of Scotland" and "A Woman Rebels." Having successfully played a Barrie heroine a few years earlier in "The Little Minister," Hepburn again has to play a woman who adopts a disguise to win a man. Hepburn plays Phoebe Throssell, who has been courted for several years by Dr. Valentine Brown (Franchot Tone), who never quite gets around to actually proposing. When the Napoleonic Wars begin he goes off to join the army and is gone for ten years, during which time Phoebe and her sister Susan (Fay Bainter) are forced to turn their home into a school to survive. In 1805 Captain Brown returns form the war and fails to recognize Phoebe. To get her revenge on his bad manners, Phoebe masquerades as the young and vivacious Livvy, her "neice." Apparently Phoebe looks the part of an old maid so much that Brown is fooled; at least that is how this story plays out and we have to go along with it.

"Quality Street" was directed by George Stevens, who had directed Hepburn in "Alice Adams," the first film in which the actress plays off her persona. A silent film version of the play was made in 1927 with Marion Davies, who actually would have been closer to the character's age ten years later when this film was made. The story is mildly humorous and what works is due more to the efforts of the cast rather than the story. Bainter does a nice job as the mousy sister and Estelle Winwood has a nice supporting part as Mary Willoughby. Hepburn's performance will either strike viewers as overly mannered, with lots of fluttering and hand-wringing, not to mention some classic early examples of mouth-quiverings, or an attempt to broaden the differences between Phoebe and "Livvy." Part of the problem is that Tone's Brown never seems worth the wait of an entire decade, but Phoebe still wants him so we pull for her and are not disappointed with the results.

Still, it is not surprising that "Quality Street" was one of the films that helped put Hepburn on the infamous distributor's list of "Box Office Poison." After completing "Quality Street" Hepburn was released from RKO and returned to the stage to star in a new adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." She returned to RKO and negotiated a four-picture deal, but only two were ever made: "Stage Door" and "Bringing Up Baby." Although these were both first rate pictures, the "Box Office Poison" label resulted in her being subjected to professional humiliation by being offered a role in the minor film "Mother Carey's Chickens," so Hepburn bought out her contract, made one picture with Columbia ("Holiday") and then went on stage to do "The Philadelphia Story." After that came the film version with MGM and the fateful pairing with Spencer Tracy in "Woman of the Year." By the end of her career Katharine Hepburn's reputation in Hollywood took a definite turn for the better.