Already in only her second film and second year in Hollywood Hepburn displays all the assurance of a veteran. The plot is pure soap and Billie Burke, lovely though she looks, has an unfortunate habit of addressing her lines - especially in her initial scene with Colin Clive - to the middle distance whilst selecting a suitable expression to complement the dialogue. If Hepburn plays a pioneer of sorts - an aviatrix clearly modelled on Amelia Earhart - director Dorothy Arzner is also something of a pioneer standing virtually alone in a Hollywood dominated by male directors. For its time (1933) the exposition may have appeared slick; a group of 'bright young things' engaged in a treasure hunt are instructed by the hostess to find someone who has been faithful to his or her spouse for more than five years and someone who has never had a love affair. The first is easy for one of the guests who simply brings her father whilst someone else brings Hepburn; the age gap is as nothing and they embark on an affair doomed to end in tears. As I said it's world-class hoke but Hepburn makes it watchable.

Chiefly of interest as one of Katharine Hepburn's early RKO films, "Christopher Strong" is worth a look for her fans, yet other than that, it's pretty much just another melodrama. Hepburn plays a feminist flier who falls in love with the married man of the title, played by Colin Clive. Lots of tears and hand-wringing follows as the affair deepens. I like Hepburn in the role, she is always interesting to watch, but even now (as she did back then) she seems a bit too arch to really connect to the audience. I have no idea why she falls for Clive in this one. The man is as stiff as a board and not that attractive. Helen Chandler's performance as Clive's troubled daughter fascinated me. Chandler herself was an alcoholic, and she is unnervingly right for her role. Billie Burke also stars as the wife who Clive cheats on. It's a pre-code so we even get a bedroom scene of sorts, but the film reaches a very post-code solution by the end. All in all, a decent melodrama from Arzner, and a striking Hepburn (she wears the moth suit in this one) performance, but not really anything great here.

I'm not quite sure why the title of this film is not Lady Cynthia Darrington since the film rises and falls on the action of Hepburn's character and not on Colin Clive's title role of Christopher Strong.Clive is a most proper member of Parliament, probably a Tory, who through a treasure hunt, a la My Man Godfrey, he meets Hepburn who is a young titled woman who has an interest in aviation. In fact she's the British version of Amelia Earhart.Clive and wife Billie Burke have a daughter, Helen Chandler, who is something of a wild child. She's having an affair with the unhappily married Ralph Forbes. But before long it's Clive and Hepburn who get involved.Colin Clive gives us a perfect portrayal of a man going through midlife crisis when everything just seems to settle in a dull routine. He's so taken by Hepburn's vitality and independence that their affair has an inevitability about it.Dorothy Arzner one of the few women directors around at that point also gives us one of Kate's very first feminist icon roles. Her first film, A Bill of Divorcement, had Kate as a dutiful daughter who gives up her man to care for an insane father. Kate has some critical choices to make in Christopher Strong as well.What she does might not make sense to today's audience, but made perfectly good sense in post Victorian Great Britain. She and Clive make a wonderful pair of tragic lovers in a drama that while old fashioned still holds up.

None too subtle story of a famous aviatrix (Hepburn -- the movie calls her a "girl flier") in love with a married nobleman (Clive). They put off consumating their affair, even muttering to each other in one ridiculous scene about how "special" they are. Burke turns in a quality performance given a very standard mother role, giving her character the convincing quality it needs to withstand the transition from anger to frustration to final acceptance of the situation. A story that could not have been filmed this way 2 or 3 years later. Includes Hepburn in her infamous "moth suit." Clive does well, and Hepburn is great, but given how it's written and (especially) how she plays it, it's no surprise this film did nothing to improve her standing in the eyes of the more prurient elements in the audience. Perhaps, even, some of their later vindictiveness (including placing her on the list of so-called "box-office poison") could be seen as their own reaction to her character transferred onto Katherine Hepburn. Well directed and photographed. Unconvincing ending unhinges the movie in its final reel, but I guess last reel reconciliations by way of death were soon to be the rule in Hollywood (as they always had been in more conservative film centers), so it's good Selznick got in fairly early in the game. Will be remembered more by Hepburn's fans than by fans of good, solid movies, because she provides many of its most memorable moments.