So... what kind of movies do I usually end up watching alone- at 1:29 in the morning- while I debate whether to eat or not to eat one more of the 100 tamales we made on Christmas? Well, I'll give you a hint. It has Katharine Hepburn in it. A young Katharine Hepburn. In her MGM golden girl days.
Okay, since I know she made quite a few movies that fit that criteria I'll give you two more clues:
It has Carey Grant in it. (I seriously love Carey!) And it takes place in the city of brotherly love. Which wouldn't be that big of a deal except that it's sorta in the title. Ding! Ding! You got it, right?
If you guessed The Philadelphia Story then you are correct! (And if you didn't you get 1000 points just for reading my blog in the first place). So, this 1940 George Cukor directed classic is playing while I sit here with my two dachshund mix dogs at my feet, everyone else is in bed and my two tamales are heating up in the microwave.
If you've never seen it then please find yourself a way to find it in our Blockbuster extinct world because it is so good. And I mean good, in that way that no Angie Jolie, ScarJo or Natty Portman film ever could be. Something about black and white film paired with over the top sets and lines like, "Hey there, fella!" that make you wish women still wore lounge wear evening gowns and sequined hair snoods. Hepburn plays opposite Grant as former husband and wife who are both society types that hate but secretly sorta really still love each other and play cat and mouse when Grant plots to ruin Hepburn's wedding by bringing journalists along who want dirt about the society queen. Whew! What a MacGuffin, right? (See Alfred Hitchcock if you're not hip to that lingo, baby!)
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| Hepburn during her early MGM days trying to fit the Glamour Girl image |
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| Promotional pic for The Philadelphia Story. |
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| The African Queen, arguably Hepburn's most infamous role, in her resurgent middle age years. |
It's odd to see Katharine H in her youth before her other well known spinster films with Bogie or Spencer Tracy. I mean, c'mon- it's nearly 2015 and there she is! On Turner Classic Movies with her flawless wrinkle free skin, glamour girl wardrobe and 1940s S curls... it almost makes you forget that she became more famous for her films after age 40. But that's what I love about Hepburn. She was never the classic beauty, even by 1940 MGM standards- she didn't have the curves, or the sex appeal or the pin up image that was so essential to becoming a Betty Grable or a Marilyn Monroe. But what she did have was humor and confidence- and bite! And that's why I love her!
You can tell even back then that she was a bit flat chested and wide nostril-ed but she could deliver an insult to Carey Grant like Cleopatra- and she could laugh in that Connecticut guffaw in a way that made you believe three men could all be in love with her.
I first saw her films more than a decade ago when I was a teenager and in need of self esteem and confidence- (weren't all of us?) I remember my mom making me watch a whole array of movies on the pity party days when I lamented my slow metabolism or lack of a prom date- Houseboat with Sophia Loren, The Seven Year Itch with Marilyn, That Touch of Mink with Doris Day, Desk Set, The Philadelphia Story and The African Queen with Hepburn and so on. While watching Marilyn, Doris and Sophia only made me feel more wide hipped and ungraceful- watching Katharine H was different. She didn't possess some ethereal beauty or grace, heck I think she even actually tripped in a few films and she certainly never danced to choreography like a Ginger or Rosemary of her day. But that's why you root for her over and over.
She doesn't make pretty look easy she makes witty look pretty. Smart look pretty. Funny look pretty. And sarcastic look sexy. And when she hit middle age she didn't fade away into obscurity to make room for the next pretty young thing- instead she played the spinster to quirky, gawky, howling with laughter perfection. And she became even more popular than ever. So popular that if it wasn't for TCM many of us would forget she ever actually played the pretty young thing. Or at least reinvented it to suit her.
So thanks, Kit Kat. Because even at 30 I like to remember that something besides pretty can be pretty.
Maybe I make bedhead and tamales at 2 am look pretty. And even if I don't- it doesn't matter. Because I'm not a Marilyn. Or a Betty. Or even a Judy.
I'm a Katharine.
And that means I can make my own rules.
Tamale kisses,
The Vintage Snob
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