Movies from the Heart—A Woman Rebels

From last week’s mad cap film, Sylvia Scarlett, to this week’s period romantic drama, A Woman Rebels [1936] by Anthony Veiler and Ernest Vajda. One of the side notes is that it’s the second film that cemented actress Katharine Hepburn's reputation as box office poison.

Here’s a peek at the film through a trailer that shows the main character, Pamela, in a kind of throwaway scene where she interacts with a stubborn donkey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODHy4YyNhY

While not integral to the plot, it’s the “meet-cute”—the scene where we see how our potential couple meet one another. And the scene does—very much—establish Pamela’s character. She won’t wait around for things to get done, she’ll jump right in and try to solve them herself. And she’s not going to be intimidated by men, she’s going to stand up to them and, in this case, tell them to move along. But the scene plays out by also telling us that if she’d only been patient all of her effort in trying to move the donkey wouldn’t have been necessary! So a kind of a slap, there at the end, to a woman daring to do things on her own.

It's interesting how the studio tried to sell the film. And one way to look at that is to look at the ads that were placed for the film in newspapers—to get the moviegoers into those seats!

“A drama carved from the throbbing heart of a woman who dared as desperately as she loved!” So that ad is trying to appeal to two aspects of this character, her “daring” side gets the one word—that she “dared”—but her romantic side gets four times as many—“throbbing”, “heart”, “desperately” & “loved”—so we know we’re seeing a love story.

Another ad: “A love story that speaks from the deep heart of one glorious woman to the secret hearts of all women!” So how are they trying to appeal? Well, they’re only appealing to women, aren’t they? Unless they hope to tempt men in with the “secret hearts of all women” line—hoping men will want to uncover just what the secret heart of a woman contains. But overall, this is trying to appeal to the woman who loves a love story—and perhaps has a secret love of her own.

And just one more: “She’s glorious… as a Woman in Arms?... He’s magnificent… as the Man She Adores.” Well, this is an odd one. You’d think this was advertising a woman who goes to war. But that’s not this film. Overall, this ad just comes off as making me think this is a movie about a gutsy woman… though I would be expecting her to be fighting in a war! So, yes, ads can be misleading!! Something to remember when you next decide to head to the movies!

Next week, a terrific film from 1937—It’s Love I’m After.

Copyright © Diane Lake

29Oct23

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