Stage Door

The ensemble cast of Stage Door

Katharine Hepburn was at the height of the “box office poison” phase of her career when she made Stage Door in 1937. She’d won an Oscar only four years before but four flops in quick succession had turned RKO against her – she had to fight the studio to get star billing. Ironically, amusingly, cannily, the story of Stage Door plays to the public perception of Hepburn as a snooty, entitled daddy’s girl who expected the world to do her bidding by casting her as the snooty, entitled rich man’s daughter breezing into the Footlights Club, a boarding house for actresses, and being taken aback when she doesn’t get the reception she feels … Read more

The Lion in Winter

Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Anthony Hopkins as Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 03 September Richard I of England crowned at Westminster, 1189 On this day in 1189 one of the most famous English kings was crowned in Westminster Abbey in London. Known as the Lionheart, because of his great courage in battle, he is often viewed romantically, especially if seen through the prism of the Robin Hood stories, in which his half brother John always gets the bad guy role and Richard is the paragon of virtue. Richard spoke French, not English (he was also the Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, Nantes, Anjou, Gascony and so on – the idea of monarchy and nation being … Read more