Katherine Hepburn stars in this zany comedy from 1935 directed by George Cukor. Hepburn & her father, played by Edmund Gwenn, decide to return to Blighty (from France) after Gwenn's debts have finally caught up w/him. Upon arriving they meet a Cockney con man, played Cary Grant (in his first pairing w/Hepburn) & they decide to make a go out of fleecing people (using an innocent con, we see Hepburn pretend to be a homeless French boy begging the gathered denizens for spare change which works until things get loused up). They then get a pair of caravans & hit the show circuit plying musicals upon the masses where they meet an artist, played by Brian Aherne, & his annoying Russian girlfriend & quickly become chummy. Hepburn fancies Ahern enough to ditch her boy persona (she's unusually athletic & sports a short coif) which stuns Aherne but he still has to contend w/his nagging Russkie mate & after she nearly drowns at a beach (Hepburn save her by the by), she soon has eyes for Grant when he nurses her back to health. When they turn up missing, Aherne & Hepburn join forces to find them strengthening their attraction for each other but will they act on it? Silly in the extreme but hugely likeable, this effervescent froth goes down easily w/Hepburn particularly beguiling as the winsome tomboy out to have her way in a society which would normally shun & ignore her. Grant is also a star in the ascendant (who would go on to make 3 more films w/Hepburn) as his comic likeability shines through even when he's not being especially nice.
Review of Sylvia Scarlett
