Joel Higgins

Each of Katharine Hepburn's 1980s TV movies was heralded as the lady's last-ever appearance. We are fortunate indeed that she didn't choose the minor-league Laura Lansing Slept Here as her valedictory film. Ms. Hepburn more or less plays herself as a celebrated, pampered novelist who accepts the wager that she can't survive a week living with 'just folks.' She moves bag and baggage into a middle-class home, where she does her best to stage-manage the family members' private lives. Laura Lansing Slept Here could just as easily have been titled The Woman Who Came to Dinner; it's to Katharine Hepburn's credit that she was able to make so much out of so little.

Each of Katharine Hepburn's 1980s TV movies was heralded as the lady's last-ever appearance. We are fortunate indeed that she didn't choose the minor-league Laura Lansing Slept Here as her valedictory film. Ms. Hepburn more or less plays herself as a celebrated, pampered novelist who accepts the wager that she can't survive a week living with 'just folks.' She moves bag and baggage into a middle-class home, where she does her best to stage-manage the family members' private lives. Laura Lansing Slept Here could just as easily have been titled The Woman Who Came to Dinner; it's to Katharine Hepburn's credit that she was able to make so much out of so little.