Steineded
How sad is this?
Console
best movie i've ever seen.
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Keeley Coleman
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Jim Atkins
Aviation is my hobby, and I DVRed this to see if it had any worthwhile aviation footage. The scene with the takeoffs for the around the world race is actually the beginning of the Dole Air Race (financed by the pineapple magnate), a tragic fiasco that lead to a number of deaths, two aircraft never found, and only a few of the contestants actually making it from Oakland to Honolulu. Hepburn's plane (G-FERN) might be the famous Winnie Mae, a Lockheed Vega, that was the first plane flown solo around the world by Wiley Post, the pilot that was killed with Will Rogers in Alaska. I must admit, I really did not pay much attention to the plot after listening to some English drawing room dialogue at the beginning.
MissSimonetta
Christopher Strong (1933) belongs to that breed of pre-code that has not aged gracefully. Though it concerns spicy topics such as infidelity, alcoholism, and pregnancy out of wedlock, this picture plays like a musty melodrama with only a young Katharine Hepburn endowing it with any interest for the modern viewer.One wonders why the film was named after Colin Clive's character, a middle-aged politician whose long-lasting faithfulness to his wife comes to an end when he takes up an affair with Hepburn's free-spirited and virginal aviatrix, Lady Cynthia Darrington. Cynthia is the real main character, certainly the character who goes through the biggest transformation and suffers the most. The film ends with her learning she is pregnant. Rather than give up her career and ruin her reputation, she kills herself in a plane crash. It's as melodramatic as melodrama gets.Unlike most other pre-codes which sizzle and even feel modern, CS is rather moldy. Unless you're a die hard Katharine Hepburn or Colin Clive completionist, this isn't worth your time.
Syl
This was one collaboration that drew attention. Lesbian film director Dorothy Arzner and film actress Katharine Hepburn. For God sakes, both women wore pants in town when it was seen as scandalous. Anyway, the legendary Kate plays a female aviator much like Amelia Earhart who falls in love with a married man known as Christopher Strong or Sir since he is titled. I loved the old black and white films especially since I think they provide so much more than today's films. Anyway, Kate's character and Strong have an affair. I love the scene where she wears that silly costume. Kate's role as the other woman could have been scandalous back then if it wasn't so obvious to the Strong family. Billie Burke better known as Glinda, the good witch in the Wizard of Oz, plays Lady Strong. I loved Katharine Hepburn and I think a lot of people did whether they were colleagues, friends, relatives, or whatever. I think she would become the other woman in the Spencer Tracy relationship in reality. Oh well, the film is worth watching if just for that costume.
blanche-2
Katharine Hepburn is a beautiful and accomplished aviatrix in "Christopher Strong," a 1933 film also starring Clive Owen and Billie Burke, and directed by Dorothy Arzner. Hepburn's role of Lady Cynthia is loosely based on Amelia Earhart, a young, ambitious career woman who is not interested in marriage and home but rather accomplishment. She's an early feminist, and the role is perfect for Hepburn, who with her androgynous looks and strong performances would go on to play many such roles in her very long career."Christopher Strong" is of interest because it's early Hepburn, has a feminist theme in the early '30s, and also because it's pre-Code. Arzner does a great job depicting the love affair of Hepburn and Owen and yet shows nothing, with a hand reaching up and checking the time on a small clock...then the light is turned off and plunges the room into darkness after the lovers exchange a few words.The problem with the movie is that it's badly dated, a '30s melodrama with tremulous, "we must be honorable," pip-pip and all that rot dialogue. Owen tells everyone at a party that he will never be unfaithful to his wife, that it is a moral charge he holds high - and seconds later he meets Hepburn and you can tell he's already falling. Owen is an odd choice of a romantic partner - he's not exactly the man one would give up everything for.A bigger problem is the performance of Billie Burke, a fine actress. She is extremely sympathetic as the suffering wife - so sympathetic, in fact, and Hepburn seems so callous about the whole thing for most of the film, that one sides with what I'm sure is the wrong person. Also, putting up with your husband's infidelity and not saying anything brings us right back into aggressive non-feminism.I am forced to agree with one of the other comments - yes, it is directed by an important director, yes, it stars an important, legendary star, yes, it's early feminism, and yes, it's not that great a movie, rather, an artifact. Worth seeing? To catch Hepburn in that moth costume - absolutely.