Alice Adams

One of Katharine Hepburn’s twelve Oscar-noms, and one of her best performances ever, as a charming but fraught, annoying but luminous social climber in an Indiana town. I’ve never read Booth Tarkington, but on the basis of this and The Magnificent Ambersons, there must be something there. Astringent satire of social stratification, and status role-playing, is somewhat subverted by a tacked-on happy ending, when Alice/Kate winds up getting her man after all, sympathetic rich youth Fred Macmurray, despite the horrorshow of a family dinner presided over by the slapstick nonchalance of Hattie McDaniel as the domestic for the day. This time capsule of social attitudes was George Stevens’ first film. (1935, TCM/T, r.) *7*