Morning Glory

Directed by Lowell Sherman, Morning Glory follows an aspiring actress (Katharine Hepburn’s Eva Lovelace) as she schmoozes her way to theatrical success. Filmmaker Sherman, armed with Howard J. Green’s screenplay, delivers a slow-moving drama that fares especially poorly in its sluggish and rather uneventful opening stretch, as the movie kicks off with a stagy, talky first act that transpires entirely within the confines of a Broadway casting office – with the movie, beyond that point, progressing into an equally hit-and-miss narrative that never quite becomes as entertaining or propulsive as one might’ve hoped. And although Sherman has admittedly punctuated the proceedings with a few stirring sequences, including a surprisingly compelling final stretch and an engrossing interlude wherein Eva drunkenly performs a couple of Shakespearean monologues, Morning Glory is generally unable to hide its origins as a stage play and does, as a result, feel a whole lot longer than its 74 minute running time – with Hepburn’s overly theatrical performance doing little to alleviate the picture’s underwhelming atmosphere.

** out of ****