I got the DVD going by the review here and the three names, Hepburn, Grant and Cukor, all of which I had high regards. But after watching this, I completely agree with the first two, who desperately tried to stop the release and even offered to do a movie free instead. After that I looked at Cukor, surprised at the way the movie is messed up. The story isn't that weak, but the characterization and visualization had been horrible. While looking at it, I found that my confidence in Cukor was highly misplaced. When did he make his first good movie, I have started wondering. When I looked at the notable films, quite a few was with Garbo, and probably that was the difference, which I have given misplaced credit to the director. Probably the real great one was Camille (there I come across the precocious Thalberg's interference). Holiday was good, but again I can't give him credit, it was a polished version of the 1930, which wasn't bad, considering it was infancy of talkies. Phil story, I don't know, whether was independently done, if so, may be that and My fair Lady are the only ones, may be just a handful more. Well it gives me a lesson, not to have too much faith on reviews or scores (surprisingly another supposed to be even better scorer rotten tomato gives it very high score). Anyway, looking at the movie, unless the DVD has chopped off very significant portions, it is an uniformly bad movie, starting from the very start.The character of the father, played by Gwenn, was a miserably, and to unbelievable manner, created, and that wasn't necessary. Nor was the impersonation of Sylvia, into Sylvester. It had been done earlier, but with plausible, and irrefutable reasons (e.g. Marian Davies in Little Old New York, where inheritance of millions was at stake, which was in her, recently demised, brother's name and so she had to impersonate the brother). Here it is as weak as homeopathic medicine. The swindler, even before it is exposed, is skipping the country, and doesn't want to be a man & girl company ! By the time they wake up and find he has skipped, it would be already over. Then his flirting with the maid, or any of such things. I couldn't get why Grant was so chummy with the maid, and if they were old acquaintances, she ought to know something about him. Well, the list like this goes on and on. Not worth even the time spent on watching, Grant/Hep or no Grant/Hep. Probably this movie should have been allowed to disappear, to protect their reputation, leave alone releasing it on DVD.

Legendary flop from director George Cuckor and stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Edmund Gwenn concerns a young woman from Paris and her wily con-artist father taking it on the lam from police, eventually hitching up with a traveling vaudeville show with the girl disguised as a boy. Good-looking production based on Compton Mac Kenzie's book, but strident and shrill. Cuckor fails to modulate the scenes in a way that would endear these characters to the audience, and the resulting fiasco seems like an overly-quirky inside joke. Hepburn survives it with her sense of humor intact, but Grant is especially poor as a Cockney chap who gets involved with the sneaky twosome. A meandering, confounding misfire. *1/2 from ****

The main problem of this movie is that it does not know what it wants to be. A comedy? A romance? A tragedy? Or a pre neo realistic drama? Somehow it constantly switches from one mode to another, some scenes have an obnoxious musical score, others are bleak and filled with an uneasy silence. In itself these scenes may work, as a whole the movie becomes a mess.But there is a lot of interesting things that are going on which make Sylvia Scarlett a very unusual movie well worth watching. Basically it is a story about coming of age. The main character is a young girl, played by Kathatine Hepburn who might be just a little too old for the part (this problem constantly seem to creep up in movies with her). The circumstances of her turning from a girl into a woman are far from ideal. Her mother is dead, her father's a crook, and a very dumb and unsuccessful one too. They are on the run from France to Britain and there team up with another British working class crook, played by Cary Grant before he became, uh, Cary Grant, with a fitting British accent (his own?) to boot. It is a rather dark part, I must say, and he pulls it of very convincingly.Coming of age here clearly also includes a sexual awakening. For her escape the girl dresses up as boy (Katharine Hepburn is very convincing and can show off her very good grasp of the French language). The Cary Grant character is a vaguely menacing presence and for his sake she does not reveal her true sex. The team of three are joined by the maid of a house they unsuccessfully try to burglarize (a great British actress who does not even seem to be in the credits!) and together they rather abruptly form a traveling circus. The relationship between Hepburn and Grant strangely anticipates the one between Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn in Federico Fellini's La Strada, between a sexually not clearly defined young girl and a sort of a boorish, menacing satyr.Only when the girl meets an artist in a Cornish village, does she become aware of her feeling towards men and turns into a woman – only to be cruelly disappointed. The ending seems to be a Hollywood addition. It does not fit at all the rest of the rather sad story.The Cornish village seems to be a kind of a colony of free wheeling artists, some kind of precursor of a hippie community. It really made me think of some movies of the 60ies and 70ies, like Easy Rider or The Long Goodbye. One of the greatest scenes has Hepburn dance over the village square to the artist's barn that was converted into a studio. The big doors are wide open, and inside there is a big table set for a kind of a banquet. It is all a studio set, of course, but the space flowing from the square into the interior is very impressive. Overall the set design department did a very good job for this movie.

Sylvia Scarlett marks the first time that Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant worked together and it's amazing that the three succeeding films they did all became classics. This one just became a curiosity.Edmund Gwenn is her father and he's been doing a little embezzling on the side in France. Before the law catches up with him the thing to do is flee across the English Channel. So to disguise themselves, Kate cuts off her long tresses and puts on men's clothes. No need to go into the rest of the story, but it was daring enough in 1935 just as The Code was taking affect in Hollywood. The situations Hepburn gets herself involved in are just like those that you've seen in Tootsie, Victor/Victoria, and any number of other films. But the censors clamped heavily down in those days.She's got two men interested in him/her, Cary Grant and Brian Aherne. Grant is a cockney con artist and his role is actually closer to the real Archie Leach that became Cary Grant. Just being Cary Grant was probably the biggest stretch of his talent. Brian Aherne is debonair and charming as Brian Aherne always is.Sylvia Scarlett, when viewed with Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, and The Philadelphia Story just doesn't measure up to those three. Still it's interesting to watch.