A Woman Rebels (1936)

That was an excellent one.

Really Surprised!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Directed by Mark Sandrich, with a screenplay co-written by Anthony Veiller, this above average, if dated, drama is about a young woman in (merry olde?) 19th century England who refuses to accept her position in the World imposed on her by her father. Some years later, Katharine Hepburn in the title role becomes an outspoken advocate for women's rights. The plot includes a romantic angle, or two or three, with a provocative secret which humanizes Hepburn's character and keeps it from being an offensive piece of feminist propaganda.However, audiences of the time stayed away, leading Ms. Hepburn to be famously labeled "box office poison" before she would prove her critics wrong by establishing herself as one of the greatest actresses in the history of the medium.The cast includes several familiar actors and actresses including Herbert Marshall, Donald Crisp, Lucile Watson, and Van Heflin.A young Pamela Thistlewaite (Hepburn) tells her younger sister Flora (Elizabeth Allen) not to cry when their cold and tyrannical widower father, Judge Thistlewaite (Crisp), lectures them. He insists that their homely, serious governess (Eily Malyon, uncredited) teach them that, as women, they should accept their role as subservient inferiors to men. Another live-in servant, Betty (Watson), isn't so sure and resists the Judge's "orders" in passive aggressive ways. The Judge decides it's time to introduce his daughters to society so that he can select appropriate husbands for them. Pamela tells Flora that she must marry for love and, fortunately for her, she falls for a Lieutenant Alan Freeland (David Manners) of whom her father approves.Meanwhile, Pamela is swept off her feet by Gerald Waring (Heflin). They have an affair after which Waring confesses that he's a married man, afraid to divorce his wife for the scandal which would cause his father, Lord Gaythorne, to cut off his means. So, Pamela runs away to Italy with Betty to visit newlyweds Flora and Alan, who's stationed there.On their way, Betty and Pamela embarrassingly meet Thomas Lane (Marshall), a diplomat who turns out to be a house guest of the Freelands. Pamela and Thomas spend some quality time together before he and Alan must return to duty in England and at sea, respectively. Pamela confesses to Flora her love for Waring as well as her growing physical "condition".When Flora later learns that Alan was killed at sea and conveniently falls down the stairs, ending her own pregnancy, she suggests a "solution" to Pamela's predicament before she dies: Pamela can pretend that her baby is Flora's, that she's raising it for her departed sister.Returning to England with Betty and the child, also named Flora, Pamela is pleasantly surprised by Thomas, who assists them with getting a goat (e.g. for fresh milk) aboard their boat. She then tells him that she plans on living alone and working, a foreign concept at the time. Actually, Betty lives with her, effectively raising young Flora through the years.Eventually, Pamela finds work writing for a women's magazine, which up to that point had never employed a woman! Her relationship with Thomas blossoms to the point that he proposes but, fearing a scandal which might ruin his career if anyone were to find out the truth about young Flora, she gently declines, though they remain friends through the years. The magazine she works for publishes articles about cooking and sewing until one day, when its editor (Lionel Pape, uncredited) is ill, inspired by a penniless woman in a similar predicament who kills herself, Pamela writes a scathing article about the puritanical society that "caused" it. Rushing in to stop the presses, the editor is surprised to learn that, instead of he being arrested, London's women are clamoring for more issues of the magazine. Hence, Pamela becomes the voice of the oppressed woman and is so successful that she eventually establishes her own magazine.Meanwhile, young Flora (Doris Dudley) has grown up. Irony of ironies is the fact that she falls for Gerald Waring Jr., meaning the truth of Flora's parentage is bound to come out.Perhaps the weakest part of the film is this final third act which includes a meeting between Gerald Sr. and Pamela for the first time in 20 years that leads to consequences she couldn't possibly foresee, even though its ending is decidedly upbeat if perhaps a bit too pat.

Willful, independent-minded Katharine Hepburn (as Pamela Thistlwaite) grows up in Victorian England, alongside her pretty sister Elizabeth Allan (as Flora Thistlewaite). When stern father Donald Crisp (as Byron Thistlewaite) presents his young lasses to polite society, they quickly pair up and get pregnant. Ms. Hepburn makes it with young Van Heflin (as Gerald Waring), while Ms. Allan fetches dashing David Manners (as Alan Freeland).Then, tragedy strikes their lives… Most of the original cast is disposed with; in a storyline that seems, at times, to be presented "in code". Still, it's possible to discern what's going on, if you're paying attention. Basically, Hepburn is raising her sister's child as her own, due to Victorian-era sensibilities. Over the years, Hepburn grows into a successful feminist writer. Important cast members joining the "soap opera" are Herbert Marshall (as Thomas Lane) and Doris Dudley (as Flora "Floss" Junior). Hepburn's "dark secret" rears its ugly head, after a couple of decades.It is most astonishing to see Ms. Dudley, playing Hepburn's daughter, look more like her mother, when they share the screen. How is it that nobody noticed? The production looks first class, at least. And, most of the acting is valiant; particularly effective is Mr. Heflin, in his film debut. But, the good story idea in "A Woman Rebels" is so poorly executed, it's a travesty.*** A Woman Rebels (1936) Mark Sandrich ~ Katharine Hepburn, Herbert Marshall, Van Heflin

In the pantheon of feminist films that Katherine Hepburn did in her career, A Woman Rebels definitely belongs. Even though this Victorian costume drama failed at the box office, seen today it's manifesto for the feminist cause and altogether proper for the daughter of a suffragette to have brought to the screen.Kate and her sister Elizabeth Allan are being raised as proper Victorian ladies by their widowed father Donald Crisp which means no rights at all. Liz dutifully accepts her lot, but not Kate. Liz accepts David Manners a young naval lieutenant as a husband picked out by Crisp, but Kate has a fling with Van Heflin that's left her pregnant. And Heflin's engaged to another proper Victorian lady to boot.Kate goes off to Italy to live with her sister while Manners is on duty. Allan is also expecting, but after Manners is killed in action, Allan dies of a broken heart. On Allan's deathbed she and Hepburn decide to raise Hepburn's expected as her niece rather than her daughter.Back in the United Kingdom, Hepburn goes to work for a woman's magazine and under her direction the publication becomes a feminist manifesto for its time. Still old sins have a way of coming back to haunt one and they do Kate in a most peculiar way.Herbert Marshall is in A Woman Rebels as Kate's faithful suitor and British nineteenth century diplomat. He looks earnest and faithful much like a pet collie, but in fairness the role isn't all that much. One can certainly see what attracted Hepburn to A Woman Rebels. It's very message was parlor talk in the Hepburn household when she was growing up. Still the film does have a lot of unresolved situations, mostly due to the Code being firmly in place now and flexing its censoring muscles.Kate's co-star Van Heflin was pretty unknown at this time and she would pick him to co-star with her as well as Joseph Cotten in The Philadelphia Story when Hollywood pronounced her box office poison. Though she didn't pick him for the screen version, she was the one who got him an MGM contract when she went there and from there Heflin became a star.A Woman Rebels is a story which probably would have been better told now than back in the day. Perhaps someone like Gwyneth Paltrow will take up where Kate the Great left off.

The sins of the father shall be visited upon his children, and upon his children's children. Katharine Hepburn plays a woman who was a bright, curious child whose father stymied that curiosity because she was "just a girl". Later in life, Hepburn's illegitimate daughter, whom she raises as her niece, is a bright, curious child, whose curiosity Hepburn stymies whenever said curiosity would reveal her illegitimacy. There's wonderful hypocrisy at work in Hepburn's character, but the film absolutely fails in addressing the issue. Very disappointing.Also infuriating is the handling of the character of the father, who is strict and regimented at the beginning of the film and is reduced to being a near-weeping milksop, comforted by and comforting his loving daughter, near the end. Where was he during the raising of his granddaughter? Were I Hepburn, I wouldn't let him near her, but if that's the case, how did they become reconciled by the end? It makes no sense.