Sylvia Scarlett
 |
| Sylvia Scarlett | |
|---|---|
| File:Poster of the movie Sylvia Scarlett.jpg | |
| Directed by | George Cukor |
| Written by | Compton MacKenzie (novel) Gladys Unger John Collier Mortimer Offner (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Pandro S. Berman |
| Starring | Katharine Hepburn Cary Grant Edmund Gwenn Brian Aherne Natalie Paley |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date | December 12, 1935 |
Running time | 90 min |
| Language | English |
Sylvia Scarlett is a 1935 romantic comedy film starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, based on The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett, a novel by Compton MacKenzie. Directed by George Cukor, it was notorious as one of the most famous unsuccessful movies of the 1930s. Hepburn plays the title role of Sylvia Scarlett, a female con artist masquerading as a boy to escape the police. The success of the subterfuge is in large part due to the transformation of Hepburn by RKO make-up artist Mel Berns.
This film was the first pairing of Grant and Hepburn, who later starred together in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940). Cary Grant's performance as a dashing rogue sees him incorporate a (rather unconvincing) Cockney accent and remains widely considered the first time Grant's famous personality began to register on film. (Grant only used the Cockney accent in a few other films, notably 1939's Gunga Din and Clifford Odets' None but the Lonely Heart in 1944.) Cockney was not, however, Cary Grant's original accent. He was born and grew up in Bristol, which has a very different accent from that of London.
Plot
Sylvia Scarlett and her father, Henry, flee France one step ahead of the police. Henry, while employed as a bookkeeper for a lace factory, was discovered to be an embezzler. While on the channel ferry, they meet a "gentleman adventurer", Jimmy Monkley, who partners with them in his con games.
Cast
- Katharine Hepburn as Sylvia Scarlett
- Cary Grant as Jimmy Monkley
- Brian Aherne as Michael Fane
- Edmund Gwenn as Henry Scarlett
- Dennie Moore as Maudie
See also
External links
- Sylvia Scarlett at IMDb
- Entry at Turner Classic Movies
- Historic reviews, photo gallery at CaryGrant.net
- Pauline Kael analysis
- Sylvia Scarlett at Virtual History
Template:Katharine Hepburn filmography
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