Best movie of this year hands down!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

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.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This was Katherine Hepburn's second film, and she gives a very strong performance indeed (pun intended). She plays a young woman aviator, clearly based upon Amelia Earhart, who has never loved a man and, although beautiful, is convinced that 'there is nothing about me that a man could love'. How wrong she is, as the character Sir Christopher Strong, played sturdily if stodgily by Colin Clive with an upper lip so stiff it cracks, proceeds to demonstrate by cheating on his wife, the wimpish and idle Billie Burke, who likes to lie in bed in a lace bed jacket or welcome guests to soirees in a warbling affected voice. This is such a period piece that anyone who wants a genuine glimpse of pre-War London 'society' should make a point of watching it. How artificial can manners get? Talk about a veneer of politesse thinly covering a seething mass of prejudice, arrogance, and superciliousness! The film was sensitively directed by Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979), the only important female director in Hollywood between 1927 and 1943, who made 21 films in those years, of which the best known today is probably CRAIG'S WIFE (1936) with Rosalind Russell. Although one can imagine being attracted to Hepburn, it is difficult today to imagine anyone taking a character like Christopher Strong seriously, as he is so incredibly boring and formal that any modern woman faced with having to spend a day with him would probably become suicidal very quickly. But in the 1930s, people like that were simply everywhere. Some of the 'fun parties' shown in this film are truly extraordinary. If you can sit back and pretend that you are alive in 1933 and all the 'strange stuff' is normal, then you will get a lot out of this film. It is based on a novel by the popular author of the day, Gilbert Frankau. You would never know that on the other side of the Atlantic, the Great Depression was underway, since the frivolity and frolicsome behaviour of these London socialites gives an effervescent air of limitless wealth and privilege. And it is perfectly natural that Katherine Hepburn has her own private plane in which she can fly around the world solo if she feels like it, and does. Like I said, this is a period piece, and because Hepburn throws her all into it, the drama is powerful within its period limitations.

The film is about Sir Christopher Strong (MP--member of Parliament--played by Colin Clive) and his affair with the Amelia Earhart-like character played by Katherine Hepburn. Up until they met, he had been a very devoted husband but when he met the odd but fascinating Hepburn, he "couldn't help himself" and they fell in love. You can tell, because they stare off into space a lot and talk ENDLESSLY about how painful their unrequited love is. Frankly, this is a terribly dated and practically impossible film to watch. Part of the problem is that in the Pre-Code days, films glamorizing adultery were very common. Plus, even if you accept this morally suspect subject, the utter sappiness of the dialog make it sound like a 19th century romance novel...and a really bad one at that. Sticky and with difficult to like characters (after all, Clive's wife is a nice lady and did no one any harm) make this one a big waste of time. About the only interesting aspect of this film is the costume Hepburn wears in an early scene where she is dressed in a moth costume! You've gotta see it to believe it--and she looks like one of the Bugaloos (an obscure, but fitting reference).

I'm not quite sure why the title of this film is not Lady Cynthia Darrington since the film rises and falls on the action of Hepburn's character and not on Colin Clive's title role of Christopher Strong.Clive is a most proper member of Parliament, probably a Tory, who through a treasure hunt, a la My Man Godfrey, he meets Hepburn who is a young titled woman who has an interest in aviation. In fact she's the British version of Amelia Earhart.Clive and wife Billie Burke have a daughter, Helen Chandler, who is something of a wild child. She's having an affair with the unhappily married Ralph Forbes. But before long it's Clive and Hepburn who get involved.Colin Clive gives us a perfect portrayal of a man going through midlife crisis when everything just seems to settle in a dull routine. He's so taken by Hepburn's vitality and independence that their affair has an inevitability about it.Dorothy Arzner one of the few women directors around at that point also gives us one of Kate's very first feminist icon roles. Her first film, A Bill of Divorcement, had Kate as a dutiful daughter who gives up her man to care for an insane father. Kate has some critical choices to make in Christopher Strong as well.What she does might not make sense to today's audience, but made perfectly good sense in post Victorian Great Britain. She and Clive make a wonderful pair of tragic lovers in a drama that while old fashioned still holds up.

Katharine Hepburn is a beautiful and accomplished aviatrix in "Christopher Strong," a 1933 film also starring Clive Owen and Billie Burke, and directed by Dorothy Arzner. Hepburn's role of Lady Cynthia is loosely based on Amelia Earhart, a young, ambitious career woman who is not interested in marriage and home but rather accomplishment. She's an early feminist, and the role is perfect for Hepburn, who with her androgynous looks and strong performances would go on to play many such roles in her very long career."Christopher Strong" is of interest because it's early Hepburn, has a feminist theme in the early '30s, and also because it's pre-Code. Arzner does a great job depicting the love affair of Hepburn and Owen and yet shows nothing, with a hand reaching up and checking the time on a small clock...then the light is turned off and plunges the room into darkness after the lovers exchange a few words.The problem with the movie is that it's badly dated, a '30s melodrama with tremulous, "we must be honorable," pip-pip and all that rot dialogue. Owen tells everyone at a party that he will never be unfaithful to his wife, that it is a moral charge he holds high - and seconds later he meets Hepburn and you can tell he's already falling. Owen is an odd choice of a romantic partner - he's not exactly the man one would give up everything for.A bigger problem is the performance of Billie Burke, a fine actress. She is extremely sympathetic as the suffering wife - so sympathetic, in fact, and Hepburn seems so callous about the whole thing for most of the film, that one sides with what I'm sure is the wrong person. Also, putting up with your husband's infidelity and not saying anything brings us right back into aggressive non-feminism.I am forced to agree with one of the other comments - yes, it is directed by an important director, yes, it stars an important, legendary star, yes, it's early feminism, and yes, it's not that great a movie, rather, an artifact. Worth seeing? To catch Hepburn in that moth costume - absolutely.