Perfect cast and a good story

Overrated

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Thank goodness that World War II allowed America to grow up! Poor Alice Adams -- a young woman (Katharine Hepburn) who lives in a fantasy world where she pretends to to be happy, while all the time being lonely. Poor Mother Adams who nags her husband constantly to make more money, even though it appears he is recovering from a heart attack. Poor Father Adams, suffering from a nagging wife while wanting all the best for his daughter, even though her prospects seem slim. And poor Brother Adams who has to take his sister to dances, putting a crimp on his ability to play craps.And then, into Alice's life comes a ray of sunshine -- Fred Mac Murray.Katharine Hepburn is excellent here, although the part is absolutely the opposite from the type of role that Hepburn later excelled at. This film was made only 3 years after Hepburn's film career first began.Fred MacMurray is excellent here as the beau. Today, audiences have forgotten just how popular MacMurray was, and how long his Hollywood career lasted. He was a very pleasing actor who could handle comedy or drama equally well.Fred Stone play's Alice's father here. He's an actor with whom I'm not familiar, but he had a very successful career dating back to the days of Annie Oakley, up through important roles in a number of motion pictures. Ann Shoemaker plays the mother, and plays the role so well that you'd like to see the poor husband shoot her dead; everyone hates a nag! Frank Albertson (not the one from "Chico And The Man") is good as the not very likable brother. Although their roles are small, it's interesting to see Hedda Hopper and Hattie McDaniel in supporting roles (the later, of course, as a maid, but here in a most demeaning nature).Once this film gets off the ground -- and it takes so LONG for it to do so -- it gets quite interesting. We could have learned that Alice was a wallflower much quicker at the beginning of the film. It really takes MacMurray to bring some life to the flick, and the dinner party scene is quite humorous...a comedy of errors. Admittedly, this happy ending could only happen in a much earlier era.I don't give this film the high marks some sources do, but it's a pretty decent outing about a very different time.

Encore: Alice Adams (1935) Katheryn Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Ann Shoemaker, Hattie McDaniel. Marvelous story from the book by Booth Tarkington, of a small town girl who is trying to keep up appearances among her former friends, as her family sinks farther into poverty. One of her 'friends' invites her to the party of the season, at the mansion of her former girlfriends family, and she has to wear a 2 year old out-of-season gown. And go with her reluctant brother as her escort. There she meets a wealthy young man who dances with her and she is smitten. From this set up of the social order in this town, we have scenes of the home life of the Adams family. When the beau comes calling, Alice won't ask him in; she is too embarrassed about her home. Finally, he challenges her to meet the rest of her family; and her Mom keeps wanting her to have him for dinner. So she does. In a scene that is so funny it is heartbreaking, on the hottest night of the year; serving hot food when they are all melting; and melting aspic and ice cream, it is a disaster. Alice tells Arthur she knows he just wants to get away from this place. With a side story of her father and his problems and why the family has lost its' middle class existence, the film winds down to a happy ending when Arthur comes back and he and Alice make up. The book has a harsher end for Alice, but this is Hollywood. Good film anyway, with scenes that break your heart if you have ever been embarrassed by who you are, or by so-called friends. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026056/

"Alice Adams" (1935) Is Another Booth Tarkington Soap Opera Movie With Kate Hepburn Miscast, Sadly.Hepburn won the Best Actress Academy Award for Morning Glory (1933) playing an upwardly mobile wanna-be newly arrived to NYC stage actress who comes out a winner in the end.Before that, we saw Hepburn in the 1932 version of A Bill Of Divorcement (1932), a movie which, like Alice Adams (1935) had been both a stage play and a silent movie more than a decade before the belated Hepburn versions of the 1930's. In "Divorcement," Hepburn plays a snappy, perky, attractive socialite young woman (a débutante type) with a handsome fiancé boyfriend who looks terrific in the tuxedo he always wears to the English mansion where Kate lives with her family.The goofy Bill Of Divorcement (1932) story forces Hepburn to depart from the ways of a smart girl, and start thinking and doing dumb things.....just pay attention to Hepburn as presented at the start of the story....and ignore the unfolding story which the Hepburn character gets swept into...not her fault!Soooooooooo....in "Divorcement" (1932), Kate's first movie, she plays a rich girl who is smart, attractive, and interesting. She got third billing after main star John Barrymore and lead female star, Billie Burke...we see Kate Hepburn as a newcomer actress (age 25 in 1932)rising dazzlingly.Then comes Morning Glory (1933) where she is also a star rising dazzlingly, but not living in a mansion and part of the gentry as she makes her way into our hearts. Poor little rich girl who makes it.Then comes Alice Adams (1935) which casts Kate (to alliterate a bit!) as a loser poor girl with slob family members who increase her problems. Kate keeps smiling all the while, but sheds a tear from time to time, recognizing as she does she's a loser.Well.........Kate Hepburn is no loser and never was. She was miscast in the Alice Adams (1935) soap opera, and thankfully this was the last time.After Alice Adams (1935), the real Kate Hepburn emerges and triumphs every time in Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Stage Door (1937), Holiday (1938), and her crowning glory stage play turned very good movie, The Philadelphia Story (1940), the last two scripts written by the brilliant Philip Barry.Young, less than 35 years old Katherine Hepburn's best movies started with A Bill Of Divorcement (1932) and continued without interruption with Sylvia Scarlett (1935) through The Philadelphia Story (1940), with Morning Glory (1933) an interesting exception which doesn't fit with the other movies, but is an OK movie.Alice Adams (1935) doesn't make it.Sob sister Booth Tarkington didn't provide a good story, as he also didn't for poor friendless (in 1942) Orson Welles who had trouble with Tarkington's soap opera dysfunctional rich family story, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).--------------- Written by Tex Allen, SAG movie actor. See WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more about Tex. Email Tex at TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com

ALICE ADAMS (RKO Radio, 1935), directed by George Stevens, from the 1922 novel by Booth Tarkington, is a charming story about a middle-class family of a quaint little town: Virgil Adams and his wife; son, Walter, and most of all, their daughter, Alice. Previously filmed during the silent movie era in 1923 starring Florence Vidor, this new edition with Katharine Hepburn offers her a role unlike anything she's done before, a sensitive portrayal of a girl longing to be accepted by others, but going about it the wrong way. Set in South Renford, "a town with a future," Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) starts off the story entering a flower shop to buy a corsage for a social function she's planning to attend. Unable to afford it, she goes about picking withering violets in the park instead. Without having a new dress to wear and no young man to take her, she has her brother, Walter (Frank Albertson), a compulsive gambler, to act as her escort. Mrs. Adams (Ann Shoemaker) who wants the best for her children, particularly Alice, places the blame for her daughter's setback on her husband, Virgil (Fred Stone). Virgil, a career clerk for Mr. Lamb's (Charley Grapewin) company, taking extended sick leave from his job, is loved and understood by Alice, while he's constantly nagged by his wife, and for good reason. Mrs. Adams feels the glue formula he and another partner (now deceased) had invented years ago, rightfully belongs to Virgil and not to his employer. As for the party at the Palmer household, Alice meets Arthur Russell (Fred MacMurray), a young man who takes an special interest in her in spite of he being "practically engaged" to hostess and socialite, Mildred Palmer (Evelyn Venable). During their courtship, Alice does her best to make a good impression, but her pretense reveals the fact how ashamed she is of her family and background. Through the suggestion from her mother, Alice reluctantly agrees to invite Arthur over for dinner, hiring their neighbor, Melena Burns (Hattie McDaniel), to pose as their maid, with disastrous results.For its simple-minded story and excellent character study, there's no question that ALICE ADAMS earned great success with critics and audiences alike. For her performance, Hepburn earned a second Academy Award nomination, whose character is observed to be childish, talkative and with a wild imagination. In spite of these qualities, she's determined to succeed professionally as well as socially. In order to make good in her accomplishment, Alice needs to accept herself for whom she is rather than pretending to be someone she isn't. George Stevens, in his first important directorial assignment, brings forth several situations providing the effectiveness of the story as well as its characters. For the Palmer party sequence, for example, Alice sits alone, pretending to be enjoying herself while the guests are gathered amongst themselves, making Alice feel and realizing how much of a social outcast she is. Stevens allows the camera to show off her inner thoughts through facial expressions and numerous close-ups, especially while dancing with the clumsy Momma's boy, Frank Dowling (Grady Sutton). Quite touching is Alice's returning home from the party as she walks upstairs, enters her bedroom, giving out her inner frustration through crying while standing with her face touching the window with the rain outside pouring down as the expression of her tears. Another scene worth noting is the dinner sequence. Set on the hottest day where Alice, her parents and their guest, Arthur, with sweaty foreheads, struggling to act comfortable in their proper dinner clothes while Melana (McDaniel), enacting her part as their gun chewing maid, getting most of the attention more for her mannerisms than for her speaking. Though much of the film offers a recurring score that could relatively be classified as "The Alice Adams Theme Song," this ten minute dinner sequence alone contains no underscoring, yet, quite effective as it is leisurely paced. Fred MacMurray, on loan-out assignment from his home studio of Paramount, enacts his Arthur Russell in a good-natured manner. He accepts Alice for what she is, but is only too polite to be blunt and honest about how she's really hurting herself. Fred Stone, a veteran stage actor with limited screen roles to his credit, plays the role as the homespun father to near perfection. He brings forth the best of his portrayal in a realistic manner during his confrontation with his employer, Mr. Lamb, after learning how his son embarrassed him by stealing $150 from the company. Stone's performance might have earned him a supporting actor's award had that category existed with the academy in 1935. Others in the cast are equally good, including Jonathan Hale and Hedda Hopper as Mildred's parents; Virginia Howell as Mrs. Dowling; and Ella McKenzie as Ella Dowling, all in smaller roles.Distributed to home video by Nostalgia Merchant or the Turner Company back in the 1980s, and later on DVD, ALICE ADAMS, formerly presented on American Movie Classics prior to 1998, can be seen whenever shown on Turner Classic Movies. (****)