|
|
| A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT (1932) |
An RKO Radio Picture
B&W, 75 minutes
|
|
|
|
CAST
Hillary Fairfield: John Barrymore
Margaret Fairfield: Billie Burke
Sydney Fairfield: Katharine Hepburn
Kit Humphrey: David Manners
Doctor Alliot: Henry Stephenson
Gray Meredith: Paul Cavanagh
Aunt Hester: Elizabeth Patterson
Bassett: Gayle Evers
Party Guest: Julie Haydon
|
 |
CREDITS
Director: George Cukor
Executive Producer: David O. Selznick
Scenarists: Howard Estabrook, Harry Wagstaff Gribble
Based on the play by: Clemence Dane
Photographer: Sid Hickox
Art Director: Carroll Clark
Editor: Arthur Roberts
Sound Recorder: George Ellis
Music Director: Max Steiner
Piano Concerto by: W. Franke Harling
Costumer: Josette De Lima
Makeup Artist: Mel Burns
Assistant Director: Dewey Starkey
Technical Director: Marion Balderstone
|
|
|
|
|
SYNOPSIS
Feeling himself well, shellshock victim Hillary Fairfield, whose streak of latent insanity was brought out by the strain of the World War, escapes from an asylum. He returns home on the very day his wife Margaret, who has since divorced him, plans to remarry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
CRITIQUES
"Miss Hepburn's portrayal is exceptionally fine. As Sydney, before her father's arrival on the scene, she is looking forward to becoming the bride of Kit Pumphrey, but as soon as she discovers that there is a strain of insanity in her father's family she jilts Kit and encourages her mother to marry Meredith, explaining to Margaret that she will stay by her father. Miss Hepburn's characterization is one of the finest seen on the screen and the producers have been wise in not minimizing the importance of her part because Mr. Barrymore is the star of the film."
- Mordaunt Hall, New York Times, October 3, 1932
"Katharine Hepburn, who makes her screen debut here and who was last seen in New York on the stage in
A Warrior's Husband, gives a beautiful performance as the luckless daughter."
- William Boehnel, New York World-Telegram, 1932
"Mr. Barrymore, showing surprising restraint when you remember that he is a Barrymore playing a madman, is splendid as the escaped father, providing one of his finest cinema characterizations. Miss Billie Burke is youthful, radiant and moving in the brief role of the wife. The most effective portrayal of the film, however, is provided by Miss Katharine Hepburn, who is both beautiful and distinguished as the daughter, and seems definitely established for an important cinema career."
- Richard Watts Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 1932
"I liked the acting throughout; it's all very temperate and reasonable. Katharine Hepburn suggests the proper intensity without any undue trumpetings and alarums, and, with her general appearance of half Botticelli page and half bobbed-hair bandit, might well be the daughter of one of the old English families."
- The New Yorker, 1932
"She (Hepburn) has dignity and an instinct for underplaying an emotion which are as valuable as they are, in a film actress, novel. In her ability and good looks, Miss Hepburn has the makings of a star. All she needs is a little more familiarity with the microphone, some worthy roles and a firm determination not to let her producers exploit her as a second Garbo, a second Joan Crawford, or a second anything."
- Thornton Delehanty, New York Post, 1932
"This picture makes history. Not since Greta Garbo first lashed before screen audiences has anything happened like this Katharine Hepburn."
- Photoplay, 1932
"The dialogue has the creaky sound of classy, overcivilized theatre; the film is just barely adapted from Clemence Dane's play about a father and daughter doomed by hereditary insanity
- the kind of play in which the daughter is named Sydney Fairchild, her father Hilary Fairchild, and the daughter's boyfriend Kit. But as Sydney, Katharine Hepburn, in her film début, was like nothing that had ever been seen on the screen. It wasn't that she was good, exactly (in fact, her acting was mostly awful), but she was so angular and mannered, with her mouth a scar of suffering, that she was riveting. And John Barrymore, who plays the father, was a fairly riveting performer himself
- though his role here is drearily subservient. Young George Cukor directed, in the insulated style all too appropriate to the material."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"Skilfully canned version of Clemence Dane's terribly dated problem play about a shellshocked WWI veteran (possibly suffering from hereditary insanity) who returns from the asylum after 15 years to find his wife planning divorce and his daughter a stranger. Full of strangled sentiments and easy options, with a rather too carefully studied performance by Barrymore. But fascinating to see Hepburn's raw-boned talent already at work in her first film, and Cukor already responding to it."
- Tom Milne, Time Out
|
|
|
|
|
|
COMMENTARY TRACK
"Not the least of her gifts is intelligence. In A Bill of Divorcement she was most uncertain of screen technique. But she let no one know it. She watched herself carefully, felt her way cautiously and with that picture emerged as a top-rank film star, apparently in one easy lesson...but it was hard work for her."
- George Cukor
"I had taken a tremendous chance in casting Hepburn and in sticking to her despite the insistence of just about everybody in the studio except Cukor that she was impossible and would be laughed off the screen....The world knows that startling Hepburn face now, but when she first appeared on the screen in the rushes, there was consternation....'Ye gods, that horse face'...was the prevalent remark. Not until the preview was the staff convinced we had a great screen personality. During the first few minutes you could sense the audience's bewilderment at this completely new type...but very early there was a scene in which Hepburn just walked across the room, stretched her arms, and then lay out on the floor in front of the fireplace. It sounds very simple, but you could almost feel, and you could definitely hear, the excitement in the audience. In those few simple feet of film, a new star was born. It was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had."
- David O. Selznick
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Links are provided for information only, and are not endorsements. Please ensure that your player is compatible with the region or standard before purchase.
Region 2:
NTSC Standard:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Katharine Hepburn, John Barrymore
|
David Manners, Katharine Hepburn
|
Katharine Hepburn, John Barrymore
|
Katharine Hepburn, Billie Burke
|
John Barrymore, Katharine Hepburn
|
Katharine Hepburn, John Barrymore
|
Katharine Hepburn, Billie Burke
|
Katharine Hepburn, John Barrymore
|
Katharine Hepburn, David Manners
|
David Manners, Katharine Hepburn
|
Henry Stephenson, John Barrymore, Katharine Hepburn, Billie Burke
|
|
|
