A WOMAN REBELS (1936)

Post-‘50s liberalized attitudes toward illegitimacy and out-of-wedlock motherhood: a welcome boon to women!; child empowerment!; societal mores!  But, oh, what a loss for three-hankie movies!  Exquisite suffering from Golden Age Leading Ladies never so easy again.  Best with plot twists allowing Mom to stay close without acknowledging paternity; the child, unaware of special circumstances, turning resentful toward the woman who gave up everything to let them thrive!  Irene Dunne, Barbara Stanwyck, Margaret Sullavan, Bette Davis*, Olivia de Havilland, all part of an enormous sisterhood of sullied, self-sacrificing ex-maidens.  But heavens, how the devil to fit tough, modern, independent-minded Katherine Hepburn into the formula?  And just when she desperately needed a hit after the double disaster of SYLVIA SCARLET and MARY OF SCOTLAND?  Home studio R.K.O. thought they had the answer here, throwing a wet blanket of proto-feminism (woman’s rights & equality) o’er the problem.  Now looking pretty clever (great half-brother plot twist), pretty effective; but at the time sinking like a stone.  REBEL remains one of the least seen Hepburn pics of the period, yet is uncommonly interesting on many fronts.  Politically, sure, but how cleverly it sets up Hepburn with a newly widowed sister, conveniently dying with newborn child, a ready-made setup for Kate’s own secret child to enter not as daughter, but as niece.  Mark Sandrich, best known for helming Rogers & Astaire musicals, keeps things moving, stays Hepburn from turning on the tears, and finds an unexpected rapport between Kate & co-star Herbert Marshall.  She peps him up; he calms her down.  With debuting Van Heflin at 28 as the secret father, going from youthful swain to old man makeup.  The tag ending something of a cheat, but easy to overlook.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Between THE OLD MAID/’39 and THE GREAT LIE/’41, Bette Davis covered all bases.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-old-maid-1939.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-great-lie-1941.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Marshall, who lost a leg in WWI, rarely let his handicap show or get in the way.  His smooth, stately gait incorporated into equally smooth & stately acting.  Ironic that his most iconic moment in film, limping up the stairs to fetch heart medication in THE LITTLE FOXES while wife Bette Davis stoically sits in the foreground willing his death, was made without him!  Stairs tough going with the prosthetics available at the time so director William Wyler has him briefly exit ‘stage left’ and his double seamlessly enter the shot and take the stairs.  So, something of a shock in REBEL to see Marshall laboriously (if elegantly) hoisting himself into a horse-drawn carriage.  Perhaps the only time he showed any of the constant effort he must have needed to play his roles without showing discomfort.