Movies from the Heart—Sylvia Scarlett

Last week we looked at a film that blended comedy with romance. This week we’ll look at a film that’s a little harder to classify.

Is it a film about a girl who flees from France to England with her father, as he’s been embezzling funds and is escaping the law? So it’s a drama.

Or is it about a girl who dresses as a boy to help her father escape the law? So it’s family film.

Or is it about a con man who stumbles on the “boy” and father and, after trying to con them, decides to join them and con together? So it’s a caper.

Or is it about a girl, disguised as a boy, who falls for a man… who thinks she’s a boy? So it’s a romance.

Well, of course, it’s all of those things.

Sylvia Scarlett [1935], by Gladys Unger, John Collier and Mortimer Offner, was considered a bit of a strange film when it came out. A woman dressing up as a man? People didn’t actually break down the cinema house doors trying to get in. In fact, the doors remained pretty much unused. The film was SO badly received that the lead, Katharine Hepburn, was labeled “Box Office Poison” after it came out. She and the director, George Cukor, went to the studio and offered to make their next movie FREE for the studio. But the studio head was so angry at what he considered an abysmal film, that he said, “Don’t bother.”

But it’s an interesting film—complicated and, viewed from a more modern perspective, kind of a hoot.

In this trailer for the film, we see “Sylvester” being teased by Maudie, a maid who’s a friend of Jimmy’s—the con man who’s joined her and her father. The scene then moves to Sylvester in a room with Jimmy where he and she will be sharing… making undressing to get down to her skivvies a bit of a dilemma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lc8dy9dmco

So there are fun moments and silly shenanigans, and then she meets a local artist, Michael—who’s a bit of an aristocrat—and falls for him. She goes back to the caravan she’s sharing with her father and Jimmy and Maudie, steals some women’s clothes, and goes back to Michael. He’s taken with her and asks her to pose—and she feels she’s making some headway with him and then Lily, an attractive aristocrat, shows up and Sylvia is pretty much ignored.

But things turn… super dramatic at this point. Sylvia’s father, deserted by Maudie, commits suicide. Jimmy runs off with aristocrat Lily and Sylvia and Michael pursue them—but mid-pursuit, realize they’re in love with each other.

Following?

Yeah, complicated. And maybe a really good example of what happens when you try to do too much in a film. Granted, the film is way more interesting to watch today than it was in the ‘30s, but it’s still a bit like watching something that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be.

I’m not saying you should be boring and do JUST a comedy/romance or a caper/romance, but probably not a good idea to do a drama/comedy/caper/tragedy/romance!

Next week, a period drama romance—A Woman Rebels.

Copyright © Diane Lake

22Oct23

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