Miss Hepburn, the tenderly dominant daughter of the house in "A Bill of Divorcement" and the strangely masculine aviatrix of "Christopher Strong," has become something else again. It is much to her credit that she has not yet let Hollywood "type" her. The Hepburn of "Morning Glory" is an unsophisticated, stage-struck little girl from Vermont who comes to New York to become a famous actress--just like that. This doesn't sound like a very promising beginning; as a matter of fact it sounds like the start of half a dozen well-worn situations:--virginity adrift on Forty-Second Street; the smooth seducer with moustache; then rescue by a whisker.

But Miss Hepburn's "Ada Lovelace" does not follow the crudities of the old pattern. She is, and believably, intelligent yet naive, talented yet over-ambitious. The smooth gentleman of the tragedy (Adolphe Menjou) is no villain, but a great producer and an excellent fellow whose large acquaintance with chorus-girls has made him a poor judge of Eva's infatuation. It is all very natural: no heroics, no shot-guns are in order. The situation is restrained and therefore really moving.

Friendship brings an understudy part; luck brings the big chance. She is a tremendous success--the usual Hollywood thing--with banks of flowers, heaps of sequins, trays of importunate little cards. But not one of the little cards has the right name engraved on it, for there is no right name; there isn't anybody at all that matters. Little Eva, with her name in electric lights, knows now that success is just an abstract noun. It isn't what she dreamed of back in Vermont. It doesn't mean a thing. Sunt rerum lacrimae. Finis.