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Baffling and divisive, Sylvia Scarlett is certainly a film that will never be forgotten. The two most notable things about it are that firstly it's considered one of the most unsuccessful movies of the 1930s, whilst secondly it was the first pairing of super stars Hepburn & Grant. Who from here would go on to make three further, and better, movies: Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938) & The Philadelphia Story (1940).
Sylvia Scarlett puzzles in what it wants to be, it constantly shifts in tone to the point where one doesn't know what mood is needed to be in so as to enjoy it. Certainly if you needed a pick up it has moments of levity, but then it's also capable of dragging you down. It's also often absurd, and not in a screwball entertaining way either. While come the last half hour it's almost in the realms of fantasy and just a little hard to understand. The cast are fine, and by all accounts it was a real happy shoot (according to Cukor one of the best he worked on), but the bonkers narrative makes it something of an annoying watch.
It has fans, but in spite of Grant being my favourite actor, I'll never be one of them. 4/10
Henry Scarlett (Edmund Gwenn) commits a bit of larceny and is forced to flee France with his daughter Sylvia (Hepburn) masquerading as a boy. Along the way they meet up with Jimmy Monkley (Grant), a cockney ne'er-do-well. In London they start doing some creative swindling, hooking up with a Maudie Tilt (Dennie Moore), a daffy servant girl who becomes Henry's wife. Meanwhile, Slyvia becomes enamored with handsome young artist Michael Fane (Brian Aherne), who, of course, thinks she is a boy. But when Michael starts to fall for Lily (Natalie Paley), Sylvia has to become a woman again to get the man she loves (pretend for the sake of argument that she is going to end up with the guy who gets third billing in the movie).
"Sylvia Scarlett" is based on the 1918 Comptom MacKenzie novel "The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett," but this ends up being Cukor's film and a charming story about vagabond thieves. Hepburn's androgyny does not strike contemporary audiences as being all that odd while Grant is playing the character closest to his own younger days of any in his entire career and stealing all the scenes. Gwenn and Moore are delightful as the less than suitable parental figures for the gang. Certainly compared to other cross-dressing comedies that have been made over the years, "Sylvia Scarlett" actually ends up being relatively realistic. Note: Natalie Paley was actually a Russian princess, the daughter of the Russian Grand Duke Paul, who was an uncle of the late Czar Nicholas, which would make her a cousin of the tragic Anastasia).
True the androgyny is extremely real, and Hepburn looks awkwardly like a man in this movie. Read more
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