IMDb > A Woman Rebels (1936)

A Woman Rebels (1936) More at IMDbPro »


Overview

User Rating:
6.5/10   217 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
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Director:
Writers:
Netta Syrett (novel)
Anthony Veiller (screenplay) ...
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Contact:
View company contact information for A Woman Rebels on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
6 November 1936 (USA) more
Genre:
Tagline:
She's glorious ...As a Woman In Arms! ...He's Magnificent As the Man She Adores.
Plot:
The story revolves around Pamela, as a woman in late-1800's England who has no intention of marriage and wishes to be her own person... more | add synopsis
User Comments:
Parlor Talk more (10 total)

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Katharine Hepburn ... Pamela 'Pam' Thistlewaite
Herbert Marshall ... Thomas Lane
Elizabeth Allan ... Flora Anne Thistlewaite
Donald Crisp ... Judge Byron Thistlewaite
Doris Dudley ... Young Flora 'Floss'
David Manners ... Lieutenant Alan Craig Freeland
Lucile Watson ... Betty Bumble

Van Heflin ... Lord Gerald Waring Gaythorne
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Additional Details

Runtime:
88 min
Country:
Language:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (RCA Victor System)
Certification:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Debut of Van Heflin. more
Quotes:
Miss Piper, the Governess: As women, the first thing of importance is to be content to be inferior to men, inferior in mental power in the same proportion that she is in physical strength. A really sensible woman feels her dependence. She's conscious of her inferiority and therefore grateful for her thought. more
Soundtrack:
The Wedding March more

FAQ

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful.
Parlor Talk, 12 May 2008
6/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

In the pantheon of feminist films that Katherine Hepburn did in her career, A Woman Rebels definitely belongs. Even though this Victorian costume drama failed at the box office, seen today it's manifesto for the feminist cause and altogether proper for the daughter of a suffragette to have brought to the screen.

Kate and her sister Elizabeth Allan are being raised as proper Victorian ladies by their widowed father Donald Crisp which means no rights at all. Liz dutifully accepts her lot, but not Kate. Liz accepts David Manners a young naval lieutenant as a husband picked out by Crisp, but Kate has a fling with Van Heflin that's left her pregnant. And Heflin's engaged to another proper Victorian lady to boot.

Kate goes off to Italy to live with her sister while Manners is on duty. Allan is also expecting, but after Manners is killed in action, Allan dies of a broken heart. On Allan's deathbed she and Hepburn decide to raise Hepburn's expected as her niece rather than her daughter.

Back in the United Kingdom, Hepburn goes to work for a woman's magazine and under her direction the publication becomes a feminist manifesto for its time. Still old sins have a way of coming back to haunt one and they do Kate in a most peculiar way.

Herbert Marshall is in A Woman Rebels as Kate's faithful suitor and British nineteenth century diplomat. He looks earnest and faithful much like a pet collie, but in fairness the role isn't all that much.

One can certainly see what attracted Hepburn to A Woman Rebels. It's very message was parlor talk in the Hepburn household when she was growing up. Still the film does have a lot of unresolved situations, mostly due to the Code being firmly in place now and flexing its censoring muscles.

Kate's co-star Van Heflin was pretty unknown at this time and she would pick him to co-star with her as well as Joseph Cotten in The Philadelphia Story when Hollywood pronounced her box office poison. Though she didn't pick him for the screen version, she was the one who got him an MGM contract when she went there and from their Heflin became a star.

A Woman Rebels is a story which probably would have been better told now than back in the day. Perhaps someone like Gwyneth Paltrow will take up where Kate the Great left off.

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