MovieChat Forums > Morning Glory (1933) Discussion > Weird movie

Weird movie

posted 16 years ago by JaneSchmo
5 replies | jump to latest

I don't think it would be remembered if it weren't for an early Katherine Hepburn role.

The character is so corny, I half expected for her to turn out to be either insane or a con artist, ala All About Eve.

Fairbanks is a bad choice for the romantic love interest; he's so openfaced and so boyish, I couldn't help thinking that the real Katherine Hepburn would eat him for breakfast.

And, like in many old movies, it's very confusing whether she's having an affair with the producer or not.

[–] artistathome 16 years ago

Hepburn ruins it with the over the top acting. And I don't think it is just the writing or the type of acting back then. (She has been over the top in many movies.) And yes she is having a one night stand with the producer. Of course, or else why make all the veiled references to it? Shocking!

She makes this one such a sob story. Even at the end, when Eva gets what she wants, she is still whining about it.

I think she overacted a lot in the first 10 years. But she had many great performances later on.

I feel her best performance was in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. She was strait-forward and normal and wonderful. By then she had learned to tone it down big time. When she fires her asst for being racist, well, it was fabulous.

[–] HarlowMGM 15 years ago

Actually, Katharine Hepburn is excellent in most of her 1930's films but this one is one of her weakest from the decade, it's ironic she won the Oscar for it. I actually think she was badly cast - Eva is clearly an uneducated star-struck girl of no background and Hepburn clearly comes across as a well-off young heiress of obvious intelligence and that's wrong for the character.

On the other hand, she is fascinating in the role because she is so unusual and I think the Oscar voters were struck by that and confused a bewitching performance with a SUPERIOR performance.

Personally, I was surprised by how appealing Douglas Fairbanks Jr was in this. He's never been one of my favorites but here he is a decent and charming fellow, though his character lacks credibility. I find it difficult to believe an established playwright could be so intrigued by a star-struck girl like Eva, surely he had seen dozens if not hundreds like her before.

[–] lmchildress 15 years ago

I watched this movie and Stage Door back to back and it's interesting to compare them. Both roles are stage struck young women. The script was rewritten extensively from the play by Kaufman and Ferber. Hepburn's role originally was a young and penniless girl coming to the big city, but they obviously felt that Hepburn would play a slumming rich girl better. It may be that they learned that from her performance in Morning Glory. I really had no idea she was supposed to be a hick, but I may have missed that since I discovered that I was watching it for most of the movie with my earphones unplugged from my laptop, so I thought the sound quality was dreadful.... I obviously missed a lot. Anyhow, she wasn't believable if she was supposed to be a poor girl...

And I didn't even recognize Fairbanks for quite a while, he looked so young! I thought he did a pretty good job at a thankless role. Menjou was superb, as always, he did venality so well.

[–] Sproketer 13 years ago

The problem with the film may well be that we already see Miss Hepburn as the character imagines herself to be. We should have seen a young girl who is very full of herself, but hiding insecurities as she does by making up stories, and hopelessly naive and possibly a mediocre talent. At no point did I think she might NOT be what she is trying to tell everyone she is, a great actress. When she was proved to be great, it was a hollow victory, and it didn't help at the end that she might be a "morning glory." So her victory at the end was that she wasn't afraid of that possibility? Ho-hum.

[–] FranLovesBetteD 12 years ago

I saw this movie last night for the very first time, and I'm afraid I found it to be really disappointing. Guess I was expecting a great performance by Hepburn, as she got an Oscar for it, but it was just terrible for the most part. The only thing I found interesting was Mary Duncan's character and performance, and if I ever watch this movie again, it will be because just for her.

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