I saw this film a couple years back when I was making it a goal to see all the films on the AFI (American Film Institute) 100 Greatest American Movies list. I thought it was good, but it didn't really do anything for me. I caught it on TV the other night and the story opened up for me in a new way, and what I didn't like the first time, I liked this time around. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention the first time or maybe I wasn't ready for it yet. A lot of times we watch films at certain points in our lives and they will touch us differently as we grow and change.
The story centers on the days leading up to the marriage of Tracy Lords (not the porn star turned actress, but Katharine Hepburn, AFRICAN QUEEN) to up-and-coming coal exec, George Kittredge (John Howard, LOST HORIZON). Cary Grant (NOTORIOUS) plays Lords' ex-husband, newspaperman C.K. Dexter Haven, who enlists reporter Macaulay Connor (James Stewart, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey, UNINVITED) to secretly cover the wedding. Love triangles turn into love octagons by the end and you never quite know whom Tracy will marry.
The best part about the film is the witty dialogue. One of my favorite lines is Tracy's comment in regards to her marriage to C.K., "I thought it was for life. But the nice judge gave me a pardon." What I missed the first time around was that the film delves into the ideas of human frailty and how people sometimes deify the rich and famous, but can't handle it when they find out they're as human as the rest of us. Family scandal isn't the sole province of the rich and famous. The only difference between them and the poor is that they have to live it out in the papers.
Philip Barry's original stage play was written specifically for Hepburn, who bought the film rights and sold them to MGM with the agreement that she have say over producer, director, screenwriter and cast. After a string of flops, including BRINGING UP BABY, Hepburn was considered box office poison. She chose George Cukor to direct, having worked with him on LITTLE WOMEN. The chemistry between Hepburn and Grant is what movie star romances are made of. The crisp banter between the duo makes one long for intelligent people saying intelligent things. Stewart makes the perfect cynical reporter who falls for the smart rich girl. Watch the contempt on his face as he takes in the luxurious estate of the Lords. Cukor is great at pacing the spitfire dialogue that so characterized the era's comedy, a lost art today.
This very witty film not only gives us Hepburn, Stewart and Grant on the screen together, but also gives us a story that puts to shame all the predictable and simple-minded romantic comedies of today. Screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart and James Stewart won Oscars, while Hepburn, Hussey, Cukor were nominated. The film lost to Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA, but more importantly it brought back Hepburn to the top. For such an intelligent woman this was the perfect vehicle to show her stuff.
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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
