Alice Adams / I Remember Mama

ALICE ADAMS, 1935, Warner Bros., 99 min. George Stevens left the world of B-movie comedies for A-list prestige fare with this heartfelt adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s novel. Katharine Hepburn gives one of her most subtle performances as an ambitious young woman seeking to escape her small-town background; although the character is superficially unappealing, Hepburn and Stevens allow the viewer to empathize with her in all her complexity. Solid supporting work from Fred MacMurray is an additional asset in this impeccably mounted drama. Co-starring Hattie McDaniels (GONE WITH THE WIND) and Fred Stone, who nearly steal the film.

I REMEMBER MAMA, 1948, Warner Bros., 134 min. This is one of George Stevens’s most purely affecting works, a sentimental and powerful portrait of a woman (Irene Dunne) keeping her family of Norwegian immigrants together through decades of ups and downs.