- TCM’s 2024 “Summer Under the Stars” schedule – Aug. 18: Turner Classic Movies will be airing 12 titles starring Katharine Hepburn, one of cinema’s finest talents.
- This Katharine Hepburn article includes a brief overview of two of her TCM movies: Break of Hearts and Undercurrent.
TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ Aug. 18 schedule: Actress Katharine Hepburn can be seen in the romantic drama Break of Hearts, the noirish thriller Undercurrent
Turner Classic Movies’ 2024 “Summer Under the Stars” series continues on Sunday, Aug. 18, with 12 titles starring four-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn, one of the most renowned big-screen personalities of the 20th century. (See TCM’s Katharine Hepburn schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Below is a brief glimpse at two Katharine Hepburn features airing on her “Summer Under the Stars” day: The romantic drama Break of Hearts and the noirish thriller Undercurrent.
Break of Hearts (1935)
First, the downside: TCM’s print of Break of Hearts is appallingly mediocre in terms of both picture and sound quality. There are – or at least there used to be – far better prints available.
Now, the upside: Although hardly one of the best-remembered or most well-regarded movies in the careers of either Katharine Hepburn or Charles Boyer (replacing Francis Lederer, who was fired after a few days of shooting), and despite its not inconsiderable flaws (including a tacked-on happy ending), Break of Hearts is a generally skillful melodrama made for adults. A rarity in Hollywood movies, then or now.
Hepburn’s aspiring composer and Boyer’s renowned conductor fall in love with one another as an extension – or rather, as a human-to-human manifestation – of their love for music. (See also: Song of Love, also starring Hepburn.) Before you can say Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, they’re married; their union, however, is a troubled one, largely because the conductor leads orchestras apparently because he is unable to compose quality music for them to play.
Directed by The Theater Guild co-founder Philip Moeller – his only other big-screen directorial credit is The Age of Innocence (1934) – Break of Hearts provides Hepburn with a compelling role (watch her nostrils dilate whenever she feels enraptured by music), even if the storyline tries its hardest to make her character come across as an ordinary devoted wife. Again, the composer’s connection with the conductor goes far deeper than the mere love of a woman for a man.
Later in his career, Boyer could deliver outstanding performances – e.g., as Danielle Darrieux’s jealous husband in Max Ophüls’ The Earrings of Madame De… – but as a “Latin/Continental Lover” in his Hollywood movies, he tended to take the conventional debonair route. In his lighter scenes, Break of Hearts is no exception to that rule, but in his heavy-duty ones, Boyer bravely goes off the deep end, as when, looking utterly possessed, he drunkenly tries to get his orchestra to play a Bach piece.
Besides some great classic music, Break of Hearts also features one of the most personable second leads of the 1930s, John Beal, unfortunately in an underwritten role as Hepburn’s BFF who insists he loves her. (Watching him, it’s impossible to accept his declarations at face value. Note: The previous year, Beal had played Hepburn’s scandalous romantic interest in The Little Minister.)
The Break of Hearts screenplay – which has New York City as an intrinsic element in Hepburn’s music (see City for Conquest, The Eddy Duchin Story) – was credited to Victor Heerman, Anthony Veiller, and Sarah Y. Mason, from a screen story by Lester Cohen.
Undercurrent (1946)
Undercurrent is an unusual Katharine Hepburn star vehicle for a couple of reasons: a) It’s her only suspense thriller b) The character she plays is a lady in distress, hardly a typical Hepburn role.
Undercurrent is also the only thriller in Vincente Minnelli’s career, a director who spent his three decades in Hollywood handling light musicals (e.g., Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris), and, less effectively, light comedies (e.g., Father of the Bride, Goodbye Charlie) and melodramas (e.g., The Bad and the Beautiful, Home from the Hill).
Though no great classic (plot holes and red herrings are a problem), Undercurrent is a better-than-average entry in the psycho husband subgenre: Robert Taylor (back in Hollywood after three years in the U.S. Navy) is the alluring type who, seemingly suffering from some sort of inferiority complex, resorts to abuse (victims include dog, horse, wife), theft, and murder. (It’s clear from the get-go – and made even more obvious by Minnelli’s overuse of closeups emphasizing Taylor’s nearly-out-of-their-orbit eyes – that his character needs to be institutionalized.)
Something that makes Undercurrent different than most suspense thrillers is that its focus is on the female character: As forcefully charismatic as ever, Hepburn plays her Lady in Distress as a Woman with a Mission. For much of the film, her goal is to uncover the roots of her husband’s odd behavior so she can “cure” him. (Could the culprit be his brother, played by a sleepily mild-mannered Robert Mitchum?) Later on, her goal is to go on breathing.
Hepburn also gets the movie’s best line. To a hick Iowan senator: “Oh, I love Iowa! So big and full of corn, isn’t it?”
Edward Chodorov was credited for the Undercurrent screenplay, from the story/novel “You Were There” by Thelma Strabel (Reap the Wild Wind), serialized in Woman’s Home Companion in the mid-1940s. It must be pointed out that in this 1946 Hollywood release, the creative inventor is a German national; the thief/murderer is an American.
A solid box office hit, Undercurrent earned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $1 million in profits.
Note: The TCM print of Undercurrent is just acceptable. The movie – cinematography by veteran Karl Freund (The Golem, Camille) – deserves better.
Immediately below is Katharine Hepburn’s “Summer Under the Stars” schedule.
Katharine Hepburn movies: TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ schedule (EDT) – Aug. 18
6:00 AM Spitfire (1934)
Director: John Cromwell.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Young, Ralph Bellamy, Martha Sleeper, Louis Mason, Sara Haden, Sidney Toler, Will Geer.
88m7:30 AM Undercurrent (1946)
Director: Vincente Minnelli.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Edmund Gwenn, Marjorie Main, Jayne Meadows.
116m9:30 AM Little Women (1933)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Frances Dee, Jean Parker, Douglass Montgomery, Spring Byington, Edna May Oliver, Henry Stephenson, John Lodge.
115m11:30 AM The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, Virginia Weidler, Henry Daniell, Hillary Brooke.
111m1:30 PM Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Director: Howard Hawks.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, May Robson, Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald, Fritz Feld, Tala Birell, Jack Carson.
102m3:30 PM A Delicate Balance (1973)
Director: Tony Richardson. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lee Remick, Kate Reid, Joseph Cotten, Betsy Blair.
132m6:00 PM On Golden Pond (1981)
Director: Mark Rydell.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Doug McKeon, Dabney Coleman, William Lanteau, Christopher Rydell.
109m8:00 PM State of the Union (1948)
Director: Frank Capra.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Van Johnson, Angela Lansbury, Adolphe Menjou, Lewis Stone, Margaret Hamilton.
124m10:15 PM Woman of the Year (1942)
Director: George Stevens.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter, Reginald Owen, Minor Watson, William Bendix, Gladys Blake, Dan Tobin, Roscoe Karns.
112m12:15 AM Pat and Mike (1952)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Aldo Ray, William Ching, Sammy White, Phyllis Povah, Charles Bronson, Jim Backus, Chuck Connors.
95m
A sports promoter falls for a golf- and tennis-playing college athletics coach. One problem: She has a handsome (albeit confidence-deflating) fiancé.2:00 AM The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969)
Director: Bryan Forbes.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Charles Boyer, Edith Evans, John Gavin, Paul Henreid, Margaret Leighton, Giulietta Masina, Nanette Newman, Richard Chamberlain, Yul Brynner, Danny Kaye, Fernand Gravey.
145m4:15 AM Break of Hearts (1935)
Director: Philip Moeller.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Charles Boyer, John Beal, Jean Hersholt, Sam Hardy, Inez Courtney, Helene Millard.
80m
notes
Katharine Hepburn “Summer Under the Stars” movie schedule via the TCM website.
“Katharine Hepburn Movies on TCM: Extraordinary Career” last modified in August 2024.