Christopher Strong

Fascinating little film at almost all levels aside from its insipid dialogue (’But I love you!’ ‘No, you mustn’t!’ sort of thing). Impossible to imagine any period actress but Hepburn playing Lady Cynthia Darlington, a woman who has no desire in life but to fly. She is enlisted as an item in a treasure hunt (as Godfrey would be the next year), fulfilling the challenge to find an attractive girl over the age of twenty who can swear she has never had a love affair; Colin Clive is brought in as the equally rare species, the man who has been faithful in at least five years of marriage. Naturally the two light one another’s fire and after some high-minded and self-congratulatory abstinence earn the film its pre-Code credentials (including a bedroom scene Divorcee-style). This is an iconic role for Hepburn and it’s difficult to understand how it came to be titled Christopher Strong: not only is the “girl flier” the more compelling character, but certainly she drives most of the action and decides the fates of all concerned in an ethically problematic finale (particularly so as it is presented as an act of courage but is really the exact sort of cowardice she prevents her lover’s daughter from resorting to earlier in the film, and involves as much destruction as preservation — yes, fascinating).

Before meeting Strong, Darlington cares little for love and believes she is “not attractive that way”; she’s persuaded to give up her life to be a kept woman rather easily, then, though bears the inequity less stoically than her counterparts in similar films (say, the rather frighteningly cowed Ray Schmidt of Back Street). Indeed her vacillating desires to be mistress or pilot and cool analysis of her roles are as strong a feminist argument as her initial one-track certainty, and the conclusion comes as a harsh and pessimistic social critique. The film is further enlivened by a number of relatively three-dimensional female characters: Billie Burke’s sympathetic wife, Helen Chandler’s impulsive daughter, and several bit parts that speak with sage cynicism about society or with sisterly admiration for Darlington’s advances in aviation. It’s full of quiet moments between women, and visual cues to a shifting balance of power typically favoring women (Strong himself is such a weak character, even next to his long-suffering wife) — this I ascribe to Arzner. If a hackneyed plot and lame dialogue don’t necessarily put one off, there’s much of interest here.