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| QUALITY STREET (1937) |
An RKO Radio Picture
B&W, 84 minutes
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CAST
Phoebe Throssel: Katharine Hepburn
Dr. Valentine Brown: Franchot Tone
Susan Throssel: Fay Bainter
Sergeant: Eric Blore
Patty: Cora Witherspoon
Mary Willoughby: Estelle Winwood
Henriette Turnbull: Florence Lake
Fanny Willoughby: Helena Grant
Isabella: Bonita Granville
Arthur: Clifford Severn
William Smith: Sherwood Bailey
Ensign Blades: Roland Varno
Charlotte Parratt: Joan Fontaine
Lieutenant Spicer: William Bakewell
Postman: York Sherwood
Student: Carmencita Johnson
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CREDITS
Director: George Stevens
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Scenarists: Mortimer Offner, Allan Scott
Based on the Play by: Sir James M. Barrie
Photographer: Robert De Grasse
Art Director: Van Nest Polglase
Set Decorator: Darrell Silvera
Editor: Henry Berman
Sound Recorder: Clem Portman
Musical Score: Roy Webb
Orchestrator: Maurice De Packh
Costumer: Walter Plunkett
Makeup Artist: Mel Burns
Assistant Director: Argyle Nelson
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SYNOPSIS
Phoebe Throssel, whose beau Dr. Valentine Brown courts her but never quite gets around to proposing, is startled by his sudden departure for the Napoleonic wars. He is gone for ten long years, during which time Phoebe and her sister Susan turned their home into a school and themselves into old-maid schoolteachers. Upon his return in 1805, Captain Brown fails to recognize his former sweetheart, whose bloom of youth is somewhat faded. To win him back - and get a dash of sweet revenge - she masquerades as the flirtatious Livvy, her own nonexistent niece.
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CRITIQUES
"Three short years ago Katharine Hepburn rocketed to screen heights, but a succession of unfortunate selections of material has marooned a competent girl in a bog of box office frustration. There probably is no one in pictures who needs a real money film as much as this actress."
- Variety, 1937
"It is a play depending for its sweet and mild humor upon quaint customs of the past, and for its drama upon romance taken from a scented album. Miss Hepburn does this sort of thing so well that she seems to belong in it....Speaking for myself, I am beginning to be a little tired of seeing Miss Hepburn in such roles and I see no reason why the public shouldn't begin to tire also."
- Archer Winston, New York Post, 1937
"It isn't really so long ago - though it seems like another age - that the heroine of a Hollywood movie could say, 'I could bear all the rest, but I've been unladylike.' It should be recorded that even in the 30s, the audience rejected this quaintness. Set in an English village during the Napoleonic wars, the film is from the James M. Barrie play about a street where gentlemen are an event, and where a dashing, gallant officer (Franchot Tone) devastates the maiden ladies. As in so much of Barrie, the sensitive, all-knowing woman (Katharine Hepburn) gets the vain, infantile male. Underneath all the twittering proprieties, there's a dismaying and rather grim view of human relations. The director, George Stevens, seems to lumber through some of the scenes - they turn stiff and silly; the picture was one of several costume romances that turned Hepburn into box-office poison, and one can see why - it's impossibly arch. Yet she brings surprising feeling to the stylized material - she does wonders with it, and she looks lovely in the Regency gowns."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
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COMMENTARY TRACK
"She became precious, and preciousness was always her weakness. I should have helped her away from that, and I wasn't strong enough. Quality Street was a precious play, anyway, full of precious people, and that infected her; I myself didn't have sufficient familiarity with the British background to save her."
- George Stevens
"Glorious cheekbones, and such style. I not only worked with her, I owe my career to her. I had a small part in
Quality Street and, unbeknownst to me, she went to one of the producers on the RKO lot and said, 'Give that girl a lead in a B picture. I think perhaps you've got something there.' And indeed it was through her that I got the first recognition on the lot as an actress. Because I was still a starlet. Oh, she's marvelous. Every day she would bring a picnic lunch for the entire company. That's where I picked it up, bringing the coffee with me for the cast when we're rehearsing. She always does that. She was a real housemother."
- Joan Fontaine, interview with John Kobal, 1968
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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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Franchot Tone, Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn, Franchot Tone
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Katharine Hepburn
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Fay Bainter, Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn, Franchot Tone, Fay Bainter
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On the set: George Stevens, Katharine Hepburn
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