Quality Street

Quality Street is a 1937 American historical comedy film made by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by George Stevens and produced by Pandro S. Berman. Set in 19th-century England, the film stars Katharine Hepburn and Franchot Tone. Joan Fontaine makes one of her early (uncredited) film appearances. The screenplay was by Allan Scott, Mortimer Offner, and Jack Townley, based on the 1901 play Quality Street by J. M. Barrie. This 1937 version was filmed at the RKO Encino movie ranch, RKO Forty Acres backlot, and RKO Hollywood Studios. Quality Street was a box office failure, recording a loss of $248,000. It was Katharine Hepburn's fourth flop film in a row for RKO Pictures, which added to Miss Hepburn’s label as "box office poison" by the 1938 national group of movie exhibitors. Roy Webb's music was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Score. Plot In 1805 England, eligible bachelors are scarce on Quality Street. Twenty-year-old Phoebe Throssel (Hepburn) becomes very hopeful when one of the few, Dr. Valentine Brown (Tone), tells her he has something important to say to her that day. Both she and her older sister Susan believe he will propose. However, he informs her that he has enlisted in the army to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. Phoebe hides her devastation so well that Dr. Brown never suspects she is deeply in love with him. She gives up hope of ever marrying. By contrast, the Throssels' servant Patty, though she is a decade older and aware she is no beauty, is confident that she will get a man.