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| MARY OF SCOTLAND (1936) |
An RKO Radio Picture
B&W, 123 minutes
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CAST
Mary Stuart: Katharine Hepburn
Earl of Bothwell: Fredric March
Elizabeth Tudor: Florence Eldridge
Darnley: Douglas Walton
David Rizzio: John Carradine
Morton: Robert Barrat
Leicester: Gavin Muir
James Stuart Moray: Ian Keith
John Knox: Moroni Olsen
Ruthven: William Stack
Randolph: Ralph Forbes
Throckmorton: Alan Mowbray
Mary Beaton: Frieda Inescort
Huntley: Donald Crisp
Lindsay: David Torrence
Mary Livingston: Molly Lamont
Mary Fleming: Anita Colby
Mary Seton: Jean Fenwick
Burghley: Lionel Pape
Donal: Alec Craig
Nurse: Mary Gordon
Messenger: Monte Blue
Maitland: Leonard Mudie
Arian: Brandon Hurst
Lexington: Wilfred Lucas
Kirkcaldy: D'Arcy Corrigan
Douglas: Frank Baker
Faudoncide: Cyril McLaglen
English Fisherman: Lionel Belmore
His Wife: Doris Lloyd
His Son: Bobby Watson
Sir Francis Knellys: Robert Warwick
Judges: Ivan Simpson, Murray Kinnell, Lawrence Grant, Nigel De Brulier, Barlowe Borland
Sir Francis Walsingham: Walter Byron
Sergeant: Wyndham Standing
Duke of Kent: Earle Foxe
Du Croche: Paul McAllister
Chatelard: Gaston Glass
Nobleman: Neil Fitzgerald
Prince James: Jean Kircher and Judith Kircher
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CREDITS
Director: John Ford
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Scenarist: Dudley Nichols
Based on the Play by: Maxwell Anderson
Photographer: Joseph H. August
Art Director: Van Nest Polglase
Associate Art Director: Carroll Clark
Set Decorator: Darrell Silvera
Editor: Jane Loring
Assistant Editor: Robert Parrish
Sound Recorder: Hugh McDowell Jr.
Musical Score: Nathaniel Shilkret
Orchestrator: Maurice De Packh
Costumer: Walter Plunkett
Makeup Artist: Mel Burns
Special Photographic Effects: Vernon L. Walker
Assistant Director: Edward Donahue
Miss Hepburn's Hairdresser: Louise Sloan
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SYNOPSIS
Mary Stuart's return to Scotland from France, in 1561, sparks Elizabeth Tudor's fear of a Stuart claim to her throne.
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CRITIQUES
"...although Katharine Hepburn's Mary Stuart shines brilliantly through most of the film's two-hour course, we were conscious of definite defects in her characterization. She may be a courageous Mary, perhaps a valiant one, but scarcely a fighter who gives no quarter and asks none."
- Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times, 1936
"Not a vintage year for Katharine Hepburn films; this was one of her three box-office duds, and it deserved to fail. The picture drips prestige. John Ford directed, and Dudley Nichols adapted the Maxwell Anderson play. And poor Fredric March was enlisted to play the fighting Scotsman Bothwell, who loved Mary and proved to be her undoing. The film is performed in a horribly high-flown style, with everybody posing against the fake-looking backgrounds and reciting lines that are so bad there's no way to say them without sounding affected. March also tries to manage an accent; it's probably Scottish, but all you can be sure of is that it's a mistake. Hepburn tries for an exalted, romantic manner of speech, and she goes in for a lot of openmouthed radiance and fluttering eyelashes. (You can see why she became box-office poison for a while.)"
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"A better film than its reputation would suggest, marvellously shot by Joe August, and with Ford making striking use of the imposing RKO sets even while remaining strangled by the arty ambitions of Maxwell Anderson's play (which contrives to reduce history to a novelette chronicling the jealous rivalry that drove Elizabeth Tudor to destroy Mary Stuart). One electric sequence - a hellfire sermon delivered by Moroni Olsen as John Knox - shows the extent to which Ford remained uninvolved elsewhere by the polite conventions of historical costume drama, but the performances are fascinating in their careful, slightly stilted way, and it looks terrific."
- Tom Milne, Time Out
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COMMENTARY TRACK
"I liked working with Jack Ford very much; he and I were great friends. But he was as unsuited to that material as a director as I was unsuited to Mary of Scotland as an actress."
- Katharine Hepburn
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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:
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Lobby card
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Lobby card
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Katharine Hepburn
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Fredric March, Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn, Fredric March
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Douglas Watson, Katharine Hepburn, John Carradine, Frieda Inescort
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Fredric March, Katharine Hepburn
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On the set: Victor McLaglen, Katharine Hepburn, John Ford
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