Everything went downhill when that obnoxiously loud servant girl join in.

My queer self was expecting some gay sub-narrative but everything turned out to be perfectly cliche (and freaking damn heterosexual). However, I don’t think me being queer really was the problem, because the punchlines are as glib and shallow as an expired cream cake. This movie showed perfectly how structurally oppressed females were during that time - they are expected to fit into certain dress and behavioural codes, and only for male’s pleasure; their lives are terribly limited. And the filmmaker never thought of challenging it even a tiny bit in the film. He certainly had NO feminist thinking at all when he established so many binary gender dynamics. The female characters were coy and shallow, while the male characters were vulgar, impolite and greasy.

In a word - the concept of all the “disguised as male” idea is indeed fascinating and, with certain mindset, it could have turned out to be deep and meaningful. But the filmmaker ruined the beautiful potential of exploring/revealing gender norms, let alone surpass it.

The plot was rubbish too. Don’t even make me start. Skip this film and you won’t miss a thing - I recommend Notorious, even The Philadelphia Story if you’re into comedies.

加里.格兰特演了一个不同以往的角色，是一个伦敦骗子，不务正业，集结了几个人，靠演戏骗人生活。这里，他不是那个风度翩翩的绅士形象，但此片里他和乔治.库克合作，后者让他自由地表演，他由此找到了灵感，开始确立了幽默的表演风格。此后他开启了轻喜剧的表演模式，而且演技越来越好，越来越成功。

凯瑟琳.赫本演的是一个女扮男装的人，也比较特别的角色，到后来她除去了伪装，为了自己所爱的人。

本片是加里.格兰特第一次外借到别的电影公司，第一次和凯瑟琳.赫本合作。之后，他们又合作了好几部成功的片子，比如《育婴奇谭》、《休假日》和《费城故事》。他们合作非常默契，每部都很不错。

女扮男裝在1935並不是創新之舉，可是片中許多性別/性向模糊的趣味，庫克卻發揮到極致．你可以想像港片＜金枝玉葉＞在五六十年前就已拍出來了嗎？可惜劇本結構鬆散，敘事的調性前後不統一，當時票房及評論其慘無比．庫克一下子從天子嬌子出現事業危機，赫本則陷在1935~1938一連串的轉型低潮，變成票房毒藥．此後，二個人都非常謹慎，不再有驚人之舉．赫本終其一生保有意志堅決的銀幕形象，卻不再有如此中性的演出．

電影在1936年初推出後，銷聲匿跡多年，直到50年代，開始享有地下電影的盛譽，轉變成小眾Cult movie，持續地在藝術電影院，或懷舊影展中放映．

庫克後來自我解嘲，他的電影就是要花很多年才會受到欣賞．他一直認為這部片最能代表自己的原創性 (most personal original films)，所以他最喜歡別人讚美： "Sylvia Scarlett" was ahead of its times. 超越時代之作．

更多圖文請見: http://orange-review.blogspot.com/2007/08/sylvia-scarlett.html

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