Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Jim Atkins Aviation is my hobby, and I DVRed this to see if it had any worthwhile aviation footage. The scene with the takeoffs for the around the world race is actually the beginning of the Dole Air Race (financed by the pineapple magnate), a tragic fiasco that lead to a number of deaths, two aircraft never found, and only a few of the contestants actually making it from Oakland to Honolulu. Hepburn's plane (G-FERN) might be the famous Winnie Mae, a Lockheed Vega, that was the first plane flown solo around the world by Wiley Post, the pilot that was killed with Will Rogers in Alaska. I must admit, I really did not pay much attention to the plot after listening to some English drawing room dialogue at the beginning.

MissSimonetta Christopher Strong (1933) belongs to that breed of pre-code that has not aged gracefully. Though it concerns spicy topics such as infidelity, alcoholism, and pregnancy out of wedlock, this picture plays like a musty melodrama with only a young Katharine Hepburn endowing it with any interest for the modern viewer.One wonders why the film was named after Colin Clive's character, a middle-aged politician whose long-lasting faithfulness to his wife comes to an end when he takes up an affair with Hepburn's free-spirited and virginal aviatrix, Lady Cynthia Darrington. Cynthia is the real main character, certainly the character who goes through the biggest transformation and suffers the most. The film ends with her learning she is pregnant. Rather than give up her career and ruin her reputation, she kills herself in a plane crash. It's as melodramatic as melodrama gets.Unlike most other pre-codes which sizzle and even feel modern, CS is rather moldy. Unless you're a die hard Katharine Hepburn or Colin Clive completionist, this isn't worth your time.

Therese_Letanche36 This was the second Katharine Hepburn movie I ever saw, and I have to say that it impressed me enough to keep watching her in other films (to end up eventually loving her!).The is the kind of movie that needs to be watched a few times before a viewer can fully understand and recognize all the plots, ironies, patterns, reflections, etc. The movie starts out with Cynthia as the woman who has never had a love affair, and Christopher as the man who's always been faithful to his wife. Meanwhile, Monica (Christopher's daughter) is having a love affair, and Bill is being unfaithful to his wife with Monica. Monica and Bill are the ones who bring Cynthia and Christopher together. When Cynthia and Christopher meet, it still seems unlikely that the whole situation will change. Cynthia imposes herself more and more onto the Strong family, until one can begin to get the sense that something is going on between Cynthia and Chris.The family and Cynthia go to France, where the tables really turn. At a party, Monica has a one-night-stand with some random fellow (after being told she is not allowed to see Bill until he is divorced). At the very same party, Chris ditches his wife for Cynthia. The whole night ends with a very sappy boat-ride between Chris and Cynthia and with Monica going off with the man she met at the party. At this point, Cynthia is having a love affair with Chris, and Chris is being unfaithful to his wife. Monica has no boyfriend (just her one-night-stand) and Bill is being faithful to his wife.When they return home, Bill and Monica end up having a fight about Monica being frivolous in France. Monica rushes to Cynthia and confides that she is going to commit suicide. Cynthia explains that suicide is not the way to go (which Cynthia herself ends up resorting to at the end of the movie) and encourages Monica to make up with Bill. It works, and Bill and Monica end up getting married. Eventually they find out that they are expecting a baby. . .and Cynthia finds out that she is expecting a baby as well. Christopher's baby, of course. Cynthia tries to tell Chris about the baby, but she keeps getting interrupted through his distraction with Monica's pregnancy.One day, Chris and Cynthia go out to lunch at a place where they think that they will not be seen. Of course, Bill and Monica end up eating at the very same place, and Monica sees her father and Cynthia together. Monica and Cynthia have a fight where Monica says that Cynthia will never know anything about life, that Cynthia knows nothing about love and one day she will crash down in her plane and die, not knowing what life was about at all (which is the half-true prediction of Cynthia's fate).Not long after, Cynthia goes up in her plane to break the altitude record. Someone tells her to put on her oxygen mask once she gets to a certain height, which is basically our big hint. She puts on her oxygen mask at the level at which she was told and begins to cry from behind the mask as she keep flying toward the goal height. She sees a montage of all her recent experiences with flying, with Chris, with life. Finally, she rips off the oxygen mask and plummets to her death, having broken the altitude record. She never tells Chris about her pregnancy.This movie has such a sophisticated, complicated plot. You see the correlation of Monica and Bill's relationship with Chris and Cynthia's. Eventually the relationship situations become reversed, while remaining similar at the same time. The reflections of the relationships are like the symmetry of a butterfly's wings. . .or of a moth's (ha-ha). It's not really even the aviation that is important (although Cynthia does fly around the world at one point in the movie).Sorry if I have some of the scenes out of order, it's been a long time since I've seen the movie. I just wanted to emphasize the irony of the plot. This movie is one of my all-time favorites, and although some filming and acting techniques are out of date, the overall story could stand the test of time. If you didn't like it the first time, watch it a few more times. I think you could appreciate it more that way.

Dan1863Sickles This early Katherine Hepburn picture about a daring woman pilot united the most liberated, confident and assertive female in film history, Hepburn herself, with the early sound era's most tragic female victim, Helen Chandler. Chandler was a gifted actress who gained film immortality as the exquisite blonde Mina in Dracula, only to fall victim to bad parts, bad choices, and a casual drinking habit that cost her roles and swiftly became compulsive and fatal alcoholism.Haunting and heart-wrenching in the extreme, the film almost unintentionally sets up the brave Lady Cynthia (Hepburn) in direct contrast to the embittered, tormented and weak-willed Monica (Chandler.) Hepburn is the daring lady pilot enjoying a wicked affair with strong, solid Sir Christopher Strong, while Chandler is Strong's weak daughter, the jealous and resentful Monica."Of course I do whatever I choose," Hepburn announces, striding into the drawing room in her daring and very masculine attire. "What woman doesn't?" The only woman wearing pants in this movie, Hepburn hardly seems to notice that other women lack her strength. Only a few feet away we see a lovely blonde on the sofa, her eyes blazing and her hands shaking as she gulps down a drink in helpless defiance. Helen Chandler hardly needed to act as she portrays a woman whose guts have been torn out already, but her smallest gestures are still remarkable. Taking the first drink, waiting for the effect, shuddering with relief. The constant fidgeting, the inability to look anyone in the eye. The twitching of her hand when trying to wave off questions about her drinking.As the film unfolds, Monica is supposed to be spoiled and disdainful, but Helen Chandler willingly or not somehow puts across an almost pitiable quality of spineless dependency. Monica lives in terror that her father will discover her drinking, yet hates the laughing, confident and healthy woman who has engaged his interest. Trapped in her own life of appearances and lies, her weak, sweet-faced mother can do nothing but look on worriedly as angry Monica stews on the sofa, either puffing greedily on a cigarette or gulping another drink.In the big "party" scene, Hepburn is is calm and triumphant, while Chandler's Helen is just the opposite -- her laughter too loud, her movements too frantic, her wild gestures almost a savage parody of youthful enjoyment. It's like there's a fiend inside her, a demon who has taken the soul and left only a fragile and hopeless shell.The demon was alcohol, and by the time this movie was made Helen Chandler was only a shell of her former self.