Katharine Hepburn won her first Oscar for her most brilliant performance, as Ada Love, who calls herself Eva Lovelace for the stage career she desperately tries to ignite in New York, having arrived from a small Vermont community, where she didn’t fit in. At her suggestion an elderly actor, Robert Harley Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith, warmly grandpaternal with a fleeting hint of residual lust) gives her lessons; at Bob’s suggestion and that of his business partner, playwright Joseph Sheridan, producer Louis Easton gives her a chance on Broadway that doesn’t, however, pan out. Although she once held contempt for such work, to survive Ada becomes a stock company player, descends to vaudeville and worse; fear seeps in, all but drowning her shattered confidence. She is in love with Easton, who beds her once before discarding her, while Joseph, knowing she doesn’t love him, keeps secret his love for her. Understudy to the temperamental star of one of Easton’s shows, who walks out on opening night, Ada becomes a luminous Broadway star—but, possibly, only this once.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is sensitive and exquisitely tactful as Joseph. Wonderful, too, is silent film star Helen Ware, who as wardrobe woman Nellie Navarre provides an instance of someone who was all the buzz for a while on Broadway but proved “just a morning glory.”
Beautifully written (by who remains unclear; some sources cite Zoë Akins as the scenarist, while others say the script derives from a play of hers), and just as beautifully directed by Lowell Sherman, Morning Glory, which is episodic, quiet, open-ended, fades out on a burst of poignancy as Ada summons bravado to insist she isn’t afraid of what may follow her opening night triumph: the optimism of youth braving the uncertainties of the Depression.
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MORNING GLORY (Lowell Sherman, 1933)
By grunesKatharine Hepburn won her first Oscar for her most brilliant performance, as Ada Love, who calls herself Eva Lovelace for the stage career she desperately tries to ignite in New York, having arrived from a small Vermont community, where she didn’t fit in. At her suggestion an elderly actor, Robert Harley Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith, warmly grandpaternal with a fleeting hint of residual lust) gives her lessons; at Bob’s suggestion and that of his business partner, playwright Joseph Sheridan, producer Louis Easton gives her a chance on Broadway that doesn’t, however, pan out. Although she once held contempt for such work, to survive Ada becomes a stock company player, descends to vaudeville and worse; fear seeps in, all but drowning her shattered confidence. She is in love with Easton, who beds her once before discarding her, while Joseph, knowing she doesn’t love him, keeps secret his love for her. Understudy to the temperamental star of one of Easton’s shows, who walks out on opening night, Ada becomes a luminous Broadway star—but, possibly, only this once.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is sensitive and exquisitely tactful as Joseph. Wonderful, too, is silent film star Helen Ware, who as wardrobe woman Nellie Navarre provides an instance of someone who was all the buzz for a while on Broadway but proved “just a morning glory.”
Beautifully written (by who remains unclear; some sources cite Zoë Akins as the scenarist, while others say the script derives from a play of hers), and just as beautifully directed by Lowell Sherman, Morning Glory, which is episodic, quiet, open-ended, fades out on a burst of poignancy as Ada summons bravado to insist she isn’t afraid of what may follow her opening night triumph: the optimism of youth braving the uncertainties of the Depression.
Tags: Katharine Hepburn
This entry was posted on August 9, 2008 at 4:17 am and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.