Break of Hearts

Charles Boyer and Katharine Hepburn find love but not happiness in this 1935 romance film. Except for seeing the two stars working some pretty dramatic scenes, there is not much else to this film.

Hardly one of Katharine Hepburn's most celebrated romances, but it has it's moments with the artistic Charles Boyer and his artistic temperament. Two moments stuck out. The drunken direction and the intense piano scene at the end when Hepburn was trying to reach the emotions of her man. Otherwise a pretty standard affair with John Beal feeling like a cold third wheel.

If nothing else, the film is evidence that Hollywood didn't know what to do with Hepburn yet, shoving the camera in her face to capture a dewy glisten that may have been the standard of the day for leading ladies, but had nothing to do with the headstrong personality that was the true marker of her star power. The film has all of the ups and downs required in this sort of melodrama, and Moeller dispenses it with suitable efficiency. A few sequences that nicely capture the allure of music.