It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Yes its amusing. But it is missing a plot. Just a zigzag of different situations that don't link together. First an escape movie. Then a smuggling story. The a con artist story. Then a musical troupe story. Then an on-again off-again on-again love story between different parties. Then a chase story. It doesn't end so much as stops as if they decided they had enough film in the can and didn't have to go any father. And reasons for main characters to do what they did. -Always touted as where Hepburn dresses as a boy. But the reason seems to disappear after the first 15 minutes. -Supposedly on the run from French Police which were never seen or never mentioned again. -Supposedly broke, but had no problem buying or renting a Caravan (British name for a motor home or live-in trailer). Other problems that didn't fit the 1930's: Insanity of the father. Criminals getting away with their crimes. Attempted suicide (although the female doing in would have had to have lungs like Tarzan to be heard by the person she was calling to.)Worse might be Grant laughing at the end (supposedly at lovers running away from their supposed lovers that they were chasing), but maybe he was laughing at the audience for siting through all 90 minutes?Nice performances by Hepburn and Grant, but it just doesn't fit together.

After writing my 1,500th review, I started looking for what movie to view next. Taking a look at BBC iPlayer, I spotted a star-studded RKO title,which led to me uncovering Scarlett's secret. The plot:Running away to England from France after getting involved in too many dodgy deals, widower Henry Scarlett decides to try and outsmart the police by getting his daughter Sylvia to dress up as a boy. Getting Sylvia's "Sylvester" act to work,the Scarlett's are soon joined by new partner in crime Jimmy Monkley and dizzy Maudie Tilt. Fooling everyone, Sylvia is shocked when Michael Fane fails to fall for her Scarlett fever. View on the film:Bombing in test screenings and at the box office,director George Cukor & cinematographer Joseph H. August is marked by emergency scars, from jarring, blunt edits to terrible overdubbing. Unsteady with the Comedy, Cukor still shows a flair for Melodrama, with needles of rain across the screen and crane shows to the edges of cliffs looking over how deep the Scarlett's have gone to cover their tracks.Offering to do another film for free if the studio had left this on the shelf, Katharine Hepburn actually gives the standout performance as Sylvia Scarlett a.k.a. Sylvester,thanks to Hepburn clearing relishing the chance to mess around with her ladylike image as mischievous Sylvester. Avoiding the "Box office poison" tag Hepburn got from the movie, Cary Grant gives an unsteady performance as partner in crime Jimmy Monkley, with Grant showing his natural charm in the comedic scenes,but (with a poor fake accent) struggles to carry dramatic tension,in the opening of the Scarlett letter.

It's difficult to imagine the story conferences on this one which is neither fish nor fowl, equally difficult to imagine the talents involved - Grant, Hepburn, Cukor - signing on for something so bizarre unless one or more of them had seen and admired First A Girl which featured the cross-dressing motif and/or The Good Companions which featured a group of touring concert-party performers. There's virtually no attempt at credibility from start to finish with characters being introduced then vanishing more or less as they please. It is always going to be interesting to see Hepburn and Grant in anything and THIS Grant is light-years away from the urbane, sophisticated light comedian persona by which he is best known; here he plays a cockney would-be lovable rogue in what may well be a dress rehearsal for his similar role in None But The Lonely Heart almost a decade later. Before we have time to adjust to one plot-line i.e. the three scammers, we are into another, the strolling players, with neither fully satisfying. Worth one viewing for Grant-Hepburn buffs but won't stand up to a second.

The main problem of this movie is that it does not know what it wants to be. A comedy? A romance? A tragedy? Or a pre neo realistic drama? Somehow it constantly switches from one mode to another, some scenes have an obnoxious musical score, others are bleak and filled with an uneasy silence. In itself these scenes may work, as a whole the movie becomes a mess.But there is a lot of interesting things that are going on which make Sylvia Scarlett a very unusual movie well worth watching. Basically it is a story about coming of age. The main character is a young girl, played by Kathatine Hepburn who might be just a little too old for the part (this problem constantly seem to creep up in movies with her). The circumstances of her turning from a girl into a woman are far from ideal. Her mother is dead, her father's a crook, and a very dumb and unsuccessful one too. They are on the run from France to Britain and there team up with another British working class crook, played by Cary Grant before he became, uh, Cary Grant, with a fitting British accent (his own?) to boot. It is a rather dark part, I must say, and he pulls it of very convincingly.Coming of age here clearly also includes a sexual awakening. For her escape the girl dresses up as boy (Katharine Hepburn is very convincing and can show off her very good grasp of the French language). The Cary Grant character is a vaguely menacing presence and for his sake she does not reveal her true sex. The team of three are joined by the maid of a house they unsuccessfully try to burglarize (a great British actress who does not even seem to be in the credits!) and together they rather abruptly form a traveling circus. The relationship between Hepburn and Grant strangely anticipates the one between Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn in Federico Fellini's La Strada, between a sexually not clearly defined young girl and a sort of a boorish, menacing satyr.Only when the girl meets an artist in a Cornish village, does she become aware of her feeling towards men and turns into a woman – only to be cruelly disappointed. The ending seems to be a Hollywood addition. It does not fit at all the rest of the rather sad story.The Cornish village seems to be a kind of a colony of free wheeling artists, some kind of precursor of a hippie community. It really made me think of some movies of the 60ies and 70ies, like Easy Rider or The Long Goodbye. One of the greatest scenes has Hepburn dance over the village square to the artist's barn that was converted into a studio. The big doors are wide open, and inside there is a big table set for a kind of a banquet. It is all a studio set, of course, but the space flowing from the square into the interior is very impressive. Overall the set design department did a very good job for this movie.