Alice Adams
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Movie Reviews of Alice Adams
Movie Review: Top ten list
Summary: 5 Stars
Dont miss it! Superbly cast and sensitively directed, this moving adaptation of the Booth Tarkington novel of the same name is splendid. It is unfortunate that the director and star were forced by studio heads to tack on the "happy ending" in the film. We don't quite know what happens to our heroine at the end of the book, which is in keeping with how she needfully undergoes change and realizes her character flaws. Surely, Miss Hepburn must have loved making this one. It is a human odyssey that is heart-breaking and honest. Hats off to Mr. Tarkington for a marvelous story. Do not miss it. It is early film-making at its best.Movie Review: Classic Hepburn
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like old black and white movies, you will enjoy watching some of the greatest actors in this classic drama.Movie Review: Sweet and full of feeling
Summary: 4 Stars
The success of Alice Adams hinges largely on Katharine Hepburn's performance, and she does a fine job bringing life and spirit to the part. Alice admires the beautiful and rich daughters of the wealthier families in her town; she longs for their life of privilege, fashionable clothes, and charming suitors. Her own family lives in a modest house; her father isn't a driven and ambitious type, and her brother doesn't behave respectably. Alice attends a social ball wearing an old dress, and puts on a brave face as hardly anyone looks her way. Then, miraculously, a wealthy and affable young man, Arthur Russell (Fred MacMurray), asks her to dance.
From that point, Alice tries to fool Arthur into thinking that her family is well-off. When he visits, she meets him out on the porch. She talks about all the language, dance, and music lessons she was supposedly gifted with as a child, and makes excuses for why her family's home doesn't look all that splendid. And among these rambling made-up stories are the real kernels of truth about Alice's character - her loneliness and naivete, her bold dreams and self-consciousness. While it's true that she's adopted some of the same values as the more genteel families, she's sympathetic in how she stands up for her family in the moments when it truly counts, and how she's kind and soothing to her parents as well, particularly her loving but often unassertive father (played wonderfully by Fred Stone).
Fred MacMurray, as Arthur, isn't given a role with great depth, but he brings to it what he can. His job is to be a dream, an ideal, and he plays Arthur with a certain inscrutability, so when the end of the movie comes, and Alice seems resigned to a life filled with more responsibility and less romance, his continued presence on her porch didn't strike me as particularly unrealistic (no more so than similar events in other romance movies).
As for Hepburn, she made me feel for her character, so that even while Alice was being foolishly pretentious, I felt kindly towards her (and at times embarrassed for her). I was moved towards the end, when - with her grand romance seemingly ended - she pushes aside her pain and stands up for her father. Hepburn renders a character who is naive, full of love and fancy, and refreshingly different in key ways from the more fashionable young ladies in town.
Movie Review: Gee Whiz!,
Summary: 4 Stars
I don't think Katharine Hepburn ever looked cuter and was more appealing than in this film. One often forgets the fresh face and beauty she had when she was young.
This film starts off wonderfully for 20 minutes, then bogs down a bit for an hour and then rallies brilliantly in the last 20 minutes. That last part is so good that made the film not only worthwhile to view but one to keep and watch every few years.
It bogs down when Hepburn starts her deceiving scheme and nervously yaks and yaks and yaks trying to impress her boyfriend (Fred MacMurray). The deceit involves her trying to hide her social status, something that must have meant a lot more back in the early '30s than it does today.
Critics comment about how the dinner scene is a "classic" and the highlight of the film, but I didn't think it was all that great, although Hattie McDaniel is funny. It's what happened afterward that made it a memorable film to me.
Although Hepburn and Fred MacMurray are the stars of this romance-comedy, Fred Stone almost steals the show. Playing Hepburn's dad in the film, he was both hilarious at times and very sad....and always interesting. He gives an unbelievably powerful speech to his boss near the end of this film.
Another plus for "Alice Adams" is the direction. This is early George Stevens, but just about any film that man directed is top-notch, including this one.
Without giving away what happens in the story, the film does present a nice message of forgiveness and reconciliation and sports one of the stronger feel-good endings I've ever seen on film. Hepburn's last words in the movie are "Gee Whiz!!" That bygone innocent reaction to MacMurray's comment that he loved her says a lot about how movies and times have changed.
Movie Review: "A poor little rose for your thoughts."
Summary: 4 Stars
Katherine Hepburn plays the ever upward-groping main character in this movie based on Booth Tarkington's novel, and she is excellent. From the wrong side of the tracks, Alice is in a constant pursuit to make it over to the right side. A wealthy man (Frd MacMurray) enters her life, and she tries to hide her real background from him; the results, of course, are disastrous (yet funny). The picture is a very faithful rendition of the book, and in both (though more so in the movie) we wait for Alice's great (and deserved) fall, but it doesn't come. There is also a subplot with her father and overbearing mother, when the father gets in trouble when he strikes out for himself in business - all a bit schmaltzy. In fact, the last 15 minutes are just that because Hollywood insisted on a happy ending rather than having MacMurray making his getaway, as is expected and happens in the book. That's a real shame. But definitely worth a watch.