Alice Adams (1935)

Alice Adams
Directed by George Stevens
1935/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing

Virgil Adams: Why, you think you’re going to be pushed right spang up against a wall – you can’t see any way out, or any hope at all – then something you never counted on turns up – and you kind of squeeze out of it, and keep on going.

This romantic drama made me get pretty darn misty.  Katharine Hepburn plays Alice Adams, daughter of a working class family, who hides her origins under a facade of “quality” and a nervous laugh.  Her mother (Ann Shoemaker) is constantly after her father (Fred Stone) for “not making something of himself” and calling him a failure for not giving his children what they deserve.  She eventually nags him so much that he quits his job and unwisely opens a glue factory to exploit a formula he developed while working for his employer.

We see Alice suffer the youthful humiliations of being roundly snubbed at a society party, where she appears in a two-year-old dress and wearing hand-picked bunch of violets instead of orchids like the other girls.  But it is here that she meets a wealthy young man (Fred MacMurray).   She continues to play her society act until the fateful evening she must bring him home to meet her parents.

I liked the actors who played Alice’s parents nearly as much as Katherine Hepburn.  They seemed very believable in their roles.  Fred MacMurray played himself but how young he was!  Katharine Hepburn makes you embarrassed along with her at the dance and then convinces as a girl who is desperately acting a part.  I was surprised to learn that this film was a success during the Depression.  It’s not the escapist fare I am used to for 1935.

Alice Adams was nominated for Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actress.

Clip