Evening star., 1933-11-27


Nav AtOltl story has been given tllc
best of everything. Each costume. each
chair, each headdres5 and haircut,
everything except the tall, wide trees
of Concord, Mass. which are impossible
to reproduce. have been fashioned with
extreme care and with enormously sat
isfying results.
AS a fu.ther good measure, along
comes Max Steiner and offers the
screen play a musical score which is
not only sentimentally and atmosphere
cally correct. but which leaves you
humming that air which must have
sprung from Civil War DAYS and which
pursueS you in the mind long hours
after the film is over with.
Sets, music, costumes and tie play
ers thus being all that they should be,
nothing remains but the story ITSELF
something which the country apparent
ly knows backwards. In this We have
to renig. being probably one out OF
three persons who has not read the
original book. Having heard it dis
cussed however, at the age OF nothing
by swarms of sisters, aunts. cousins
ana WIldllClS, We llluot dOLHI w q oiAoAAe
knowledge of the gentle vicissitudes OF
10. AMY. Meg and Beth four names
which after time became the signal
for wild revolt
AS the screen presents them, however,
currently at R-K-O Keith's, in the per-
sons of Miss Hepburn. Joan Bennett,
Frances Dee and Jean Parker, they
become considerably more than toler-
able. Not only that. their trials and
tribulatlonS, minus so much as one
small gin glass. or hoot from an auto
mobile, or a callous bit Of of-stage
grooming make this one of the years
most remarkable films. 1t is sweet and
it is sentimental-it drips with that
wealth OF goodness with which Miss
Alcott clothed her little women-but 1t
is refreshing in substance, brllllantIy
acted. and so unlike anything else that
you are apt to see on the screen that
it may be recommended as not only
first-rate entertainment, but as some
thing which is a genuine film classic.
It's strength is due, of course, mainly
to Katharine Hepburn, an actress who
is alternately good looking. ugly, soft.
harsh, severe and emotional. Were it
not for her amazing ability to jump
from bruSqeeness into smile which
seems to embrace the whole world, the
picture would lack that something
which Miss Hepburn has at her elbow
tips, and which it is impossible to de-
fine. Her face at times is long and lean
and angry looking, and in another in
slant it is handsome, warm and strik-
ingly appealing, with an expression that
resolves itself into very near beauty.
Miss Hepburn becomes more and more
amazing as the picture progresses.
Growing up from that young. i'm
passioned girl who throws snowballs at
Mr.. Laurence's easement windows and
plays Roderigo with much eclat in the
midst Of falling scenery and sister
actress Joan BennetD who refuses TO
faint except on something as soft as
horsehair, she becomes at first a rebel
lious lady of II or 10 Summers end
then eventually delightfully."- talented
and graceful young woman whose
knowledge and virtue are aided enorm-
ously by the kindly professor who
teaches her the ways of music and the
intellectual life of a great city.
The later tragedy Of losing sister
(Beth. of course, expires to the means
and grcaus of an audience which IS
sudiblv moved to tears) and of finding
that Amy has marched off with the
boy whom she might have married.
makes 10 ever more Of gentle philoso-
pher and joy to her family. And IN
the end. along comes the professor in
a rainstorm and becomes her one and
only for life.
All through this Miss Hepburn's way of
shading her performance convinces you
that she is not an actress who is good
merely by chance That she has aquired
charm and subtelty of expression, as
we'll as wide-eyed beauty when she be-
comes bright and alive by attention to
detail and much thought and practice,