"The Little Minister" --Some Thoughts

[vickisilverwolf]

Hello, everybody. I saw the early Katherine Hepburn film "The Little Minister" on TCM a while back, and thought I would share a few thoughts.

 

First of all, although I have often thought of Hepburn as "striking" or "handsome," this is the first movie I have ever seen in which I would describe her as "pretty." Her costumes when she was dressed up as a gypsy were quite lovely, too. Agree or disagree?

 

Secondly, the subplot about Hepburn being the symbolic leader (or something) of the oppressed workers (or something like that) was very confusing to me. How did you interpret it? Did it seem to you that the film sort of let this subplot hanging? Is anybody familiar with the original work by J. M. Barrie, and how it treats this subplot?

[kimbo3200]

I too thought she was pretty in this movie. I saw this movie a few years ago, and I don't remember that much from it - I need to see it again. I do remember liking it though; I partically like earlier Katharine Hepburn movies such as this and A Woman Rebels. They show another side of her that usually does not appear in her other films. Sorry I couldn't help with your confusion. I seem to remember that I was a little confused about this movie as well!

[tracey65k]

vickisilverwolf--

I saw that movie a while back too. I'm not sure if I liked it or not--that whole part where she was practically asking the minister to beat her kind of bothered me. An interesting, if overly-scolarly book about Hepburn's films is Katharine Hepburn: Star as Feminist by Andrew Britton. He goes into the feminist messages in her films and says this one was sort of a fluke, not a "true" Hepburn-type film.

 

If you want to read the original book of The Little Minister, here's a link for it online. It has the entire text free.

http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/scottish-authors/james-barrie/the-little-minister/