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"Katherine Hepburn is an actress that was always in a class by herself."

Katherine Hepburn is an actress that was always in a class by herself.No real extras.
What makes Katharine Hepburn such a force to be reckoned with on screen is never more apparent than it is in the Katharine Hepburn Collection. Featuring six films which showcase this intangible aspect in different roles (two of them directed by the revered George Cukor), this collection isn't so much eclectic as it is a study of Hepburn as a solid performer. The films in this collection are:

- Morning Glory
- Without Love
- Dragon Seed
- Undercurrent
- Sylvia Scarlett
- The Corn is Green

Morning Glory sees Hepburn in the role of Eva Lovelace This role of a struggling stage actress gave Hepburn the first of her 4 Oscars. Spencer Tracy stars opposite Hepburn in Without Love. In this comedy, these two are forced to get married because there's currently a housing shortage in the U.S.. Dragon Seed has Hepburn switching races to play a Chinese woman who takes up arms against the Japanese during World War II. Undercurrent is a mystery of sorts which sees Hepburn married to a man who is planning to kill her. She turns to her brother-in-law (Robert Mitchum), but he might not have her best interests at heart. Directed by George Cukor, Hepburn pretends to be a man in Sylvia Scarlett. This comedy sees her acting opposite Cary Grant. Lastly, The Corn is Green provides us with Hepburn in another Cukor film in which she plays Miss Lilly Moffat. Believing that child laborers deserve a better life, Moffat sets about making their lives better through education.

The DVD Box says Fascinating Shorts and Delightful Classic Cartoons. As these things have almost nothing to do with the movies in this set, I didn't really go through them. The ones I did look at appeared to be falling apart. Judge for yourself.

 
The Look
Morning Glory is presented in a format preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. Without Love, Dragon Seed, Undercurrent and Sylvia Scarlett are presented in a format preserving the aspect ratio of their original theatrical exhibitions. The Corn is Green is presented in a "matted" widescreen format preserving a theatrical exhibition aspect ratio enhanced for widescreen TVs. In all honesty, I was surprised because the DVD transfers of these films didn't look that great. They weren't falling apart like the short subjects, I just thought that they might look better. Warner Bros. is usually very good with their films in this regard. The pictures seemed to have a decent amount of hits on them and because of that they didn't look as cleaned up as they could be. Decide for yourself but I found this lack of a cleaning job surprising.
  
 
The Sound
Based on the way this packaging reads it seems that all the films are in Dolby Digital - English: Mono. I turned the audio on my set about halfway up and that held steady over most of the discs. The only time I had to adjust things (and that was to turn the audio down a little bit) was with The Corn is Green DVD. There is a noticeable amount of audio hiss on some of these movies but we're looking at a body of work that stretches from 1933 to 1979. I didn't have any problems hearing what people were saying and I also thought the various musical scores were put to good use. None of the sounds take you into the character's heads but I don't think they were meant to.
  
 
The Packaging
Katharine Hepburn's face takes up this entire pink, black and white, plastic, slip over DVD cover. The back portion lists out what movies are in this collection and also offers up some technical specs. The DVDs in this collection slide out of the top or bottom of this set in one piece of artwork. There are more pictures of Hepburn in various roles, as well cast lists inside. There are three sections for two DVDs apiece, which have black coloring and pink lettering listing out the titles across them.
  
I realize that the Katharine Hepburn Collection might have a limited audience. I also think that its somewhat sad that one of cinema's legends could be so easily discarded. Thankfully, Hepburn still has a enough clout and her name has enough cachet that she will never be forgotten. I hadn't really seen a lot of her films before I viewed this DVD set. A few that I have seen are Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, On Golden Pond and Suddenly, Last Summer. Hepburn had a vocal delivery that made you know who she was by only hearing her voice. She had a style of acting that seemed truly gauged to maximize the effect of each performance. However, what has always made her stand out is just how present she is in every role she plays. There is an inner strength that she seems to be drawing on that makes her stand out from all the other actors she is on screen with.

The Katharine Hepburn Collection features an assortment of roles that showcase why this great actress will forever elicit awe among those who choose to practice the same craft.


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Reviewed: May 30th, 2007
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