Christopher Strong

[osprey_archer]

I knew what I was getting into when I watched Dorothy Arzner’s Christopher Strong, because I had read a fairly detailed plot description in a book about Arzner’s career, but nonetheless it’s a puzzling movie to watch. What attracted Arzner to this story? Arzner was a freelancer when she made it, so she had some choice in the matter: it was not simply foisted on her by the studio. Maybe she liked the idea of directing a film about a female aviator (Lady Cynthia Darrington, played by Katherine Hepburn) so much that it overcame any reservations she might have had about the story?



The story. She was a dashing record-breaking aviator! He was an upright family man and MP! Can I make it any more obvious? They meet when their aristocratic friends trot them into a party a items for a scavenger hunt: Lady Cynthia Darrington is “a woman over twenty who has never had a love affair,” while Sir Christopher Strong is “a man who has been married for more than five years but never cheated on his wife.”

Naturally, neither of those descriptions remain true for very long once they’ve met. For a while they try to resist (this sequence include Katherine Hepburn wearing a silver moth costume that makes her look like a space alien), but in the end they succumb to the strength of their feelings and immediately Sir Christopher starts begging Lady Cynthia to give up flying. It’s so dangerous! He loves her so much! Won’t she give it up… for him???

Please envision me staring into the camera like Ben Wyatt on Parks and Rec.

So she gives up flying for a while. He still has his wife and his family (he has a grown up daughter who is dating a married man; her fellow gets divorced and they end up happily married) and his friends and his work as an MP; Cynthia Darrington, now that she’s given up flying, no longer has a career and never sees her flying friends and is basically dependent on him, as she points out in a scene that might explain why Arzner felt drawn to the story: you can certainly read it as a story about the destructive effects of heterosexuality on female ambition and emotional well-being and… everything, really.

She ends up getting pregnant. But Sir Christopher’s daughter (now married to her formerly married lover) finds out about the affair and scolds Cynthia for being a homewrecker - I guess it’s different when Cynthia does it because she’s not just breaking up a marriage, but a whole family? - and Cynthia decides to commit suicide-by-altitude-test. She flies her plane high enough to break the previous record, then rips off her oxygen mask, loses consciousness, and crash lands in a fiery inferno.



As I said, I’d read all about this movie before, so I knew what I was getting into. But knowing didn’t quite prepare me for actually experiencing it.

Comments

[landofnowhere]

Wow, that sounds awesomely depressing :-/

What did Christopher Strong do to get billing as the title character? Be a man?

[osprey_archer]

I don't know, but I would assume so.

[ancientreader]

But how does she know her plane isn't going to land on an occupied building or worse? What about the danger to the fire brigade?

It sounds like everything about this movie sucks.

[osprey_archer]

I think the ending was 100% chosen because then the movie could end with an explosion when the plane crashes, never mind the fact that it might have accidentally landed on someone's house or what have you.

However, Cynthia Darrington is pretty much flying straight up over an empty airfield for this altitude test, so I'm assuming she figured the plane would just fall straight back down and not hit anybody.

[brigdh]

Wow. This is all fascinating and I probably can get a vague idea of what would attract a director to the story, but... Wow.

[osprey_archer]

It's quite an experience, certainly. Maybe she just really wanted to film a woman aviator and this was the only chance she got so she thought, "It's not perfect but it's better than nothing."