Sylvia Scarlett is notable for the talent involved (Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and George Cukor) and for touching the aspects of gender identity in 1935. Hepburn (name above the title- she is a big star even before the age of 30) is Sylvia who is often called Sylvester in the film as she quickly cuts her hair short and disguises herself.
Hepburn plays Edmund Gwenn’s daughter. This is more than a decade before Gwenn plays Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and it is fun to see him as a fallen gambler and swindler here.
Wipe edits—this is the year after It Happened One Night
Playing with gender for laughs in some scenes (Hepburn going into the ladies’ room dressed as a young boy) and for drama in others. Hepburn’s Sylvia kisses both sexes during the film.
Cary Grant is the mini revelation here. He is not yet “Cary Grant” – his trademark persona he found in 1937’s The Awful Truth. But here he is far from lost like he looked in Blonde Venus (1932) or She Done Him Wrong (1933). In those films, he is a pretty face and not much more. Here he looks like a twenty-year character actor veteran. His Jimmy Monkley is like a cockney Honest John from Pinocchio. Some of the best scenes in the film are of Grant, Gwenn and Hepburn playing grifters—they have a great little scam in the park. There is drinking, song, energy (Hepburn) and laughs (Grant).
The story is rather rambling and rudderless though and it goes on total life support when Gwenn and Grant drop out for 20 minutes (this is a short film- 95 minutes) in favor of Brian Aherne as Michael Fane. Hepburn has great presence (Cukor loves her, they have seven archiveable films together including this one- plenty of closeups to accentuate her skill)– but she is not enough to carry the film (and poor Aherne) without Grant especially.
This is part of Hepburn’s famous “box office poison” era
First of four collaborations (all in the archives) between Hepburn and Cary Grant- Bringing Up Baby and Holiday in 1938 and The Philadelphia Story in 1940.
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