A movie like this, best forgotten, wouldn't even merit a review but doing so gives insight to the trajectory of a 50 year career where the roles Hepburn selected were done with rigorous calculation to circumvent her limited acting range and showcase her talent to best advantage. And this strategy served her admirably. Katharine Hepburn was lauded with four Best Actress Oscars and reigns as an uncontested film legend.
In "Spitfire" Hepburn is a ruffian, soulfully driven to do "good works," practicing the healing arts and offering prayers for her neighbors. She saves the life of a dying child, which only alienates her further from the good graces of the rural folk whose superstitious distrust brand her a witch. Hepburn attacks her character of the misunderstood and maligned Trigger Hicks with the zeal of an amateur actor, flailing unmoored with discomfort trying to give life to this backwoods girl. Her attempt at producing the speech of rural primitives is a tortured amalgam of verbiage, a parody of hick talk. Always beneath the surface percolates an East Coast swank that manages to now and then, disconcertingly, pour out of her mouth. The end product is Katharine Hepburn trying to insert herself into the character of Trigger Hicks somewhat analogous to stuffing a diamond into an egg crate.
Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy, two engineers on project assignment in this hillbilly haven are inserted as romantic interest but their relationships with the heroine are ambiguous and never fully developed. Not much to be said about this. The two men's involvement with Trigger appears more like an academic exercise, a fascination with a girl who to them is just a touching cultural oddity.
Recipient of an Academy Award, in 1933 for "Morning Glory," Hepburn's place in the Hollywood pantheon of achievement only gained momentum through her fortuitous pairing with Spenser Tracy. With Tracy she played roles whose characters were close to who Katharine Hepburn was off the movie screen. Tracy representations of the no nonsense "everyman" provided the perfect foil for Hepburn's insolent finishing school personage. And Hepburn excelled when she could play herself, i.e. the independent out-spoken woman with social pedigree. When she had to diverge from this comfortable template, her performances were forced and heavy handed. Her partnership with her "better half" Tracy made Hepburn a star.
In "Spitfire" Hepburn is a ruffian, soulfully driven to do "good works," practicing the healing arts and offering prayers for her neighbors. She saves the life of a dying child, which only alienates her further from the good graces of the rural folk whose superstitious distrust brand her a witch. Hepburn attacks her character of the misunderstood and maligned Trigger Hicks with the zeal of an amateur actor, flailing unmoored with discomfort trying to give life to this backwoods girl. Her attempt at producing the speech of rural primitives is a tortured amalgam of verbiage, a parody of hick talk. Always beneath the surface percolates an East Coast swank that manages to now and then, disconcertingly, pour out of her mouth. The end product is Katharine Hepburn trying to insert herself into the character of Trigger Hicks somewhat analogous to stuffing a diamond into an egg crate.
Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy, two engineers on project assignment in this hillbilly haven are inserted as romantic interest but their relationships with the heroine are ambiguous and never fully developed. Not much to be said about this. The two men's involvement with Trigger appears more like an academic exercise, a fascination with a girl who to them is just a touching cultural oddity.
Recipient of an Academy Award, in 1933 for "Morning Glory," Hepburn's place in the Hollywood pantheon of achievement only gained momentum through her fortuitous pairing with Spenser Tracy. With Tracy she played roles whose characters were close to who Katharine Hepburn was off the movie screen. Tracy representations of the no nonsense "everyman" provided the perfect foil for Hepburn's insolent finishing school personage. And Hepburn excelled when she could play herself, i.e. the independent out-spoken woman with social pedigree. When she had to diverge from this comfortable template, her performances were forced and heavy handed. Her partnership with her "better half" Tracy made Hepburn a star.