Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

Much has been said about Katharine Hepburn's triumphant return to stardom in 1940's The Philadelphia Story – her great bounce back from being "box office poison". This story has been repeated so frequently that one begins to believe that she never was box office poison in the first place and that everyone had been wrong.

Well Sylvia Scarlett is one of the reasons Hepburn was given that moniker, and I'm here to tell you, she earned it. This movie is absolutely ridiculous; it jumps from character to character without any focus; and it stars an absurd-looking Katharine Hepburn as a boy called Sylvester who couldn't have fooled a ten-year-old child, much less a world-wise hustler and a Russian socialite.

Why Miss Sylvia Scarlett is dressed like a boy in the first place is completely unclear, and let me just say that it doesn't matter a bit, and it is totally unnecessary.

I watched Sylvia Scarlett as part of a series of early queer films that was playing on the Criterion Channel. Tales of this film's queerness have been wildly exaggerated. Hepburn does kiss a woman – or rather, the woman kisses her – a couple of times, but this is a film deeply invested in the character's "correct" gender performance, to which she duly returns by act three.

I did like Cary Grant in this, I must confess, and though his accent is abysmal, he is charming and his character has real depth.

But this movie is terrible.