The 1935 “Alice Adams” was produced in black and white by RKO. The movie is based on the novel by Booth Tarkington. “Alice Adams” runs 99 minutes which is a little too long as parts are slow. The beginning twenty minutes and the ending twenty minutes make the movie more than worthwhile however. Gee Whiz!
Alice Adams is a social climbing young woman who is ashamed of her family, life, and home. Alice Adams is only at all likeable in comparison to her mother, played by long-time character Ann Shoemaker. Their ambitions plague head of the household Virgil Adams (played by Fred Stone), an honest man who is finally nagged into acting against his moral standards by his wife. Despite her pretensions she manages to find a man who loves her as she is, not as she wants to be. . . . .
. . . Katharine Hepburn in “Alice Adams” is not the mature, adult woman she became in later movies in the 1940s and 1950s when she starred as one of Hollywood’s top actress opposite Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, and Cary Grant. Nor is she the older, wise, sophisticated woman she became in later years when she starred opposite John Wayne in “Rooster Cogburn” and opposite Henry Fonda in “On Golden Pond.” In “Alice Adams” Katharine Hepburn is a young beautiful woman, she was twenty-eight when it was released, who seems frightfully small when dancing with Fred McMurray. Hepburn won four Oscars as best actress. First in 1934 for the RKO production of “Morning Glory,” then in 1968 and 1969 for “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “The Lion in Winter.” In 1981 she won her final award for “On Golden Pond.” In between the first and last win she had eight nominations. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) lists her as having won twenty-five awards and twenty-seven other nominations. Read the rest of my Review Stream Review
