Synopsis
"Alice Adams" (1935) is an RKO drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director George Stevens adapted Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — a story about a small-town girl performing a version of her life she can't quite afford.
The Adams family is solidly lower-middle-class, her father content to stay that way. Alice isn't. She puts on airs, invents connections, and shows up to every town dance dressed to be noticed. When she finally meets Arthur Russell (Fred MacMurray), a man who actually comes from the world she pretends to belong to, the distance between the life she projects and the one she lives starts to show. Hattie McDaniel turns up as the family's maid, hired for one excruciating dinner party that becomes the film's most memorable scene.
Katharine Hepburn pulled an Oscar nomination out of this role, and it's earned. Alice is funny and uncomfortable in the same breath — the kind of character you recognize before you're ready to admit it. Stream "Alice Adams" (1935) online on iFILM.
Starring
Recommendations
Comments 0