TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

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

JohnHowardReid Producer: Pandro S. Berman. Copyright 15 August 1935 by RKO Radio Pictures. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 17 August 1935. 11 reels. 99 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Alice Adams and her family don't quite have what it takes to rise in the social scale. NOTES: Nominated for prestigious Hollywood awards for Best Picture (won by Mutiny on the Bounty) and Best Actress, in which category Katharine Hepburn was out-voted by furious members of the Academy who were outraged that Bette Davis had been passed over in favor of Claudette Colbert in 1934. In fact, Bette had not even been nominated for her performance in "Of Human Bondage". So they rallied to her side and voted for her second-rate performance in "Dangerous" instead).The National Board of Review chose "Alice Adams" as the second best American film of the year. Only "The Informer" received more votes. COMMENT: The accent here is firmly on dialogue. In fact, the film resembles a stage play rather than a screenplay (or indeed a novel), in both its construction as well as in the obvious theatricality of its dialogue and principal characters.Nonetheless, the players seize their opportunities with relish. True, Fred Stone tends to overact and director Stevens seems a bit overawed. In fact, Stevens reveals his basic training in low comedy by using a far-too-long reaction shot of Stone's efforts to eat a caviar sandwich. Aside from this slip, however, the film is beautifully composed with loving close-ups and striking long shots such as the high angle showing the party dancers in the bottom half of the screen and Miss Hepburn, a lonely figure in white, isolated at the top.Evelyn Venable has only a tiny role, but Albertson, Shoemaker and, to a lesser degree (as they have much smaller parts), Grapewin and Sutton are outstanding. As said, Stevens uses lots of close-ups. Fortunately, de Grasse has lit Hepburn charmingly. In fact so attractive does she look, it's hard to comprehend why she is so ignored at the Palmer party. I, for one, would have run to her side and thrown my arms around her immediately.Aided by one or two ventures out-of-doors (a tracking shot in front of a process screen), Stevens puts the story across at a brisk pace and is further aided by some superlative work from other behind-the- camera talents such as photographer de Grasse and art director Polglase who designed the sets himself rather than farming them out to one of his assistants. These sets impressively range from the vast and spacious Palmer mansion to the dingy, furniture-cluttered, putting-a-brave-face-on-poverty, shabby genteel interiors of the Adams' home.Film editing is deft and smooth. Stevens employs cuts from medium shot to close-up to striking effect as in his later films, although there are none of the dissolves (either ordinary or lingering) that became his trademark, as in "A Place in the Sun". Music and costumes are right in period. The sound recording, however, has a few rough edges (which is actually another Stevens trademark)!All told, emotion and atmosphere are brought home most effectively in this beautifully photographed and absolutely entrancing movie.

dbdumonteil There are similarities between "Alice Adams" and Stevens ' later classic " a place in the sun".In both movies, the hero(ine) wants to climb the social ladder.The scene of the ball introduces a guest who looks like an intruder in this company of rich kids and fussy old biddies who most of the time ignore him/her;but while Monty Clift's George/Clyde remains passive,bashful ,lonesome and ends up in the pool room ,Alice Adams is a go-getter,trying to pick up wealthy guys ;both finally are noticed by the king(Fred McMurray) and the queen (Liz Taylor) of the fetes.Both are ashamed of the milieu in which they were nurtured : George/Clyde 's preachers family is depicted in lavish details by Theodore Dreiser but hardly appears in Stevens' movie,whilst Arthur is invited for a dinner in Alice's house ;this long scene,the most memorable in the whole movie is the ball sequence in reverse :a chic young man in a rather crummy house ,the best place being its porch.Alice tries and tries to make her dwelling a refined place with caviar toasts ,gourmet (En Français Dans Le Texte/"Ris De Veau"- calves' sweetbreads )dishes and melting ice -cream (just like Shelley Winters' in " a place in the sun" ).The harder she tries ,the harder she fails :Dad and Hattie McDaniel as the clumsy servant cannot delude for long .Actually ,all the household world revolves around Alice ;dad and mom get out of their way to secure their daughter's happiness,forgetting poor brother Walt;and before the final father/boss confrontation,the heroine appears as a selfish,self-centered girl ;she does not realize her meek daddy's sacrifices ,she appears as frivolous as Mildred.It's only when she acknowledges that it's not her parents' fault but hers that we really side with her.Alice was not herself,she played a part (doesn't she say she would be an excellent actress?) just like the stuck -up things Arthur generally meets .Hence the denouement .Katherine Hepburn is a great as ever and the supporting cast is up to scratch.My favorite is Frank Albertson's Walter ,happy with his lot in life ,and playing dice with the servants.

preppy-3 Drama in which Katharine Hepburn plays a poor young woman who dreams of bigger and better things--but she's stuck with a pushy mother, an ill father and an obnoxious brother. At a dance a young rich man (Fred MacMurray!) meets and falls for her. She falls for him too but his family would never accept her and she can't get over the feeling that she's not good enough for him.Well-done if incredibly dated drama. It's a very early Hepburn role and she's magnificent in it. She was justly nominated for an Academy Award for this (Bette Davis won for "Dangerous"). MacMurray is good too and it's fun to see both of them so young and full of life. The main problem though is Hepburn. She's TOO good for her role. You see her struggling to get ahead and it's heart-breaking. The dinner party sequence at the end is particularly hard to sit through. Also Hattie McDaniel plays a maid and is treated horribly but that is (sadly) a sign of its time. It also has a bunch of happy endings that I didn't buy for one second. Still this is well worth seeing.

Applause Meter Katherine Hepburn plays Alice Adams a foolish, annoying, young woman determined to be accepted by the town snobs who shun her. What goal in life could be a more worthy one than to focus on being accepted by those whose lives are measured on shallow values?! And poor Alice, her plight is a tortured one in which the movie audience is asked to join in on and root for her victory. Are we to sympathize with Alice because she is forced to wear an unfashionable, two-year old dress to a society dance? Katherine Hepburn certainly gives this performance the full benefit of her forceful personality, babbling incessantly and pretentiously to all those around, her finishing school accent only aggrandizing the assault. Her mother, played by Anne Shoemaker, certainly shares Alice's pretensions, bemoaning her daughter's social ostracization from the country club set, berating her husband Virgil, (Fred Stone), with shrewish insistency that he is a business and social failure. As far as Mrs. Adams is concerned, Mr. Adams' shortcomings have selfishly doomed their daughter to an undistinguished middle class life. Not that Mr. Adams isn't asking for what he gets; he's a childish, petulant man who wears his ignorance of the world like a medal of honor. Fred MacMurray is the socially acceptable suitor Arthur Russell who takes an interest in Alice, although why he is attracted to this strident girl trying too hard to impress, is a mystery. MacMurray, a bland presence in any movie he's in, basically portrays his character as a man in silent contemplation of a theater piece he's been given a front row center seat to take in, or as a hapless boob suffering in non-comprehension of what's going on. Whatever, he's just a prop put carefully in place.Hattie McDaniel has a small but showy role as the housemaid tasked with preparing and "waiting at table" to the assembled Adams' and their dinner guest for the evening, beau Arthur Russell. She's sloppy, dumb, inept and totally bereft of social poise. Mrs. Adams is so demanding that the maid (who is never referred to by name) becomes so flustered, she falls down the basement stairs to the dismay of Mr. Adams. He just hopes that when the servant took her fall, she didn't break any of his things!This movie was based on a novel by Booth Tarkington, a Pulitzer Prize wining author whose writing and literary glory has now faded and with reason. Tarkington came from political family, wealthy, conservative businessmen with a bona fide WASP pedigree. His preoccupations were the circumscribed environs of small town Midwest life---the social stratification, the importance of wealth and the petty world of class distinction. Tarkington doesn't condemn this elitist dominance; he legitimatizes societal differentiation determined by material distinction as irrevocable and correct. You just got to feel sorry for people like Alice, and families like the Adams clan. They're just pathetic nobodies. This movie plays an old tune out good and loud with all false cords and superficial sentiment. It's a real "antique" and not of the valuable kind.