Famous for two things: Katherine Hepburn’s performance and the climactic scene where Hepburn invites Fred MacMurray over to her house and pretends to be posh but it all goes horribly wrong. The scene is funny, but not that funny (I felt a similar way about the final scene in Woman of the Year).
The film is based on a novel by Booth Tarkington who also wrote The Magnificent Ambersons, and similarly explores the importance of class, money and position in small town America. Alice is not a bad person but watching her blab away – I’ve known women like this – it’s like watching a train wreck. Very good acting.
I didn’t quite believe MacMurray would go for her – yes, his actual fiancée is a snob but it’s like she needed a pat the dog scene or something.
The ending seems to set up for a believable unhappy moment: brother going to gaol for embezzling, Alice dumped – then goes Hollywood.
The film obviously influenced the Australian Mr Chedworth Steps Out, as it features many of the same elements: hopeless father who is loyal to a kindly long-term employer, ambitious nagging mother (though in mum’s defence – she can’t work, and dad is hopeless), loving daughter, wastrel son who embezzles money. Snobs.
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