Last night I received an e-mail from Andrew over at Encore Entertainment (if you're not already a reader I highly recommend popping over and browsing through his excellent reviews and encyclopedic knowledge) reminding me that today would have been Katherine Hepburn's 104th birthday. As a tribute he has asked for fellow bloggers to just briefly mention our favourite Hepburn performance, a tribute to the first thing that comes to mind. I can honestly say that was tough - I love Hepburn's work, only a couple of days ago I was extolling her comic skills in The Philadelphia Story to a colleague and The Lion in Winter remains close to one of my favourite films of all time.
However what came to my head first was "They don't make actors like that anymore", and I guess that's as good an epithet as any. 
Throughout her career (and even when out of the media spotlight) Katherine oozed class, proudly stood up for her gender and fought every step of the way to ensure her career went the right way. Blessed with a deeply sardonic voice and unique Bryn Mawr cadences (an attribute I can't remember her ever trying to hide) Hepburn was as much a star as the breathy European actresses like Garbo and Dietrich, clearly breaking the mode of the fluffy ingenue packaged by the studios that the American cinema goers were more used to.
Indeed she had to fight commercial and critical failure during the late thirties due to her unconventional style, but that resilience and fortitude we see so rarely today pushed her back to Broadway for "The Philadelphia Story", the success of which firmly sealed her in the public conscience.
The rest, as they say, is history. Unafraid to be herself Katherine racked up 12 Oscar nominations and an unparralleled 4 wins, her collaborations with Spencer Tracy (and their offscreen romance) are legendary, she has a body of work that shames most actresses of the time let alone stars of today. 
And in this modern age of celebrity culture, of plastic interchangeable actresses and forgettable female roles I doubt we'll ever see her ilk again.
Thursday, 12 May 2011
Katherine Hepburn - Always a Lady
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Long Day's Journey into Night
1962. Dir: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Dean Stockwell and Jeanne Barr. ●●●○○
Written by Eugene O'Neill in the 1940's, this semi-autobiographical play was first released and produced following his death in 1953. The play was a huge hit and it often regarded as his finest work - praise indeed for the writer of The Iceman Cometh.
The plot, or what there is of one, follows the Tyrone's over the course of the day as they fight and pick at each other and turn to their own habits and rituals for comfort.
There are some additional issues for a transfer from stage to screen tat you don't have with other films, especially when the action all takes place in a single set. In some adaptations there will be additional characters, in other the action moves to different locations. In Night Sidney Lumet merely opens up the house - we see the garden and the dining room, but other than that it's purely as the play is presented.
It's a brave decision, and I think the right one. The spare room and the Doctor's office are described almost as other worlds so it would have been a let down to actually see them. On the other hand this decision makes the film feel very stagey. There's even one device at the end where the camera pans out to reveal the set as a faraway stage. This whole staginess makes the film more boring than it has any right to be.
If Boris Kaufman (cinematographer of such masterpieces as On the Waterfront and 12 Angry Men) had been given more rein to have fun like the point when the camera follows Katherine Hepburn around as she circles the room then the whole film would be improved. Perhaps if the set was interesting this could have helped, but, as Hepburn's character repeats many times it's not a home and it certainly gives no clues to indicate the places is lived in and enjoyed.
All the performances hit the right notes. Katherine Hepburn milks the slow descent into morphine induced madness but only in keeping with the charcter and Ralph Richardson makes a superb hammy miser in a performance that may just be a touch close to home. Making a huge impression as the youngest son with Consumption, and the character that stands in for Eugene himself, is Dean Stockwell.
Stockwell had been a child actor who was now graduating to adult parts, and his performance here is superb as his watches the rest of his family get drunk or high and desperately try to avoid talking about what's really wrong with themselves by blaming everyone else around them. It's certainly a wonder why Stockwell didn't get more film work, looking at his CV it seems TV was a greater calling so a potential matinee idol was lost there.
To conclude I would say that the dialoigue is riveting, the performances good and the haunting piano score of Andre Previn effectively evocative, but Long Day's Journey into Night fails to escape from it's stage past and the overall package is less than the sum of it's parts.
