Movie Review - The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Monday, May 4th, 2009Movie Review - The Philadelphia Story (1940)
A romantic comedy classic directed by George Cukor and adapted to the screen by Donald Ogden Stewart from Philip Barry’s Broadway hit play.
Although Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart share top billing with Katherine Hepburn, this is clearly Hepburn’s movie. The story revolves around her profound transformation from an “ice queen” to a warm human being who discovers what true love is — which proves to be her ultimate salvation.
The movie opens with a scene of marital disaster — that legendary scene in which Cary Grant (playing the C. K. Dexter Haven), before leaving his home for good, palms Katherine Hepburn’s face and pushes her down to the floor.
But that does not happen before Hepburn (playing Tracy Lord, Dexter’s wife), drives him mad by throwing out his pipe set and breaking his golf club as Dexter is trying to get into his car and leave the unhappy marriage behind. It must have been such a sacrilege to break an honorable man’s pipes and wooden golf clubs back in the 40s. These days real men neither smoke smelly pipes nor own wooden golf clubs. They don’t shove their wives rudely on to the floor either.
Fast forward to two years later. Tracy is about to marry her new sweetheart George backpacking budget usa Kittredge (played by John Howard) who is a very proper gentlemen crazy for the appearances. Since Tracy comes from a blue-blood upper-crust family, her marriage is exactly the stuff the tabloids thrive on. Back then, the gossip-monger photo tabloid of the day happens to be the “Spy Magazine”.
Spy’s unscrupulous Editor Sidney Kidd decides to send a cracker jack team of photographer Elizabeth “Liz” Imbrie (played by Ruth Hussey) and the writer from the other side of the tracks repo boats texas with serious literary ambitions, Macaulay “Mike” Connor (James Stewart) to cover this high-society event with as many scandalous details and photographs as possible. It is interesting to note that the “Editor Sidney Kidd” character is very similar to the one Cary Grant himself has Sony Ericsson G502 Киев played in another film released the same year, HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940).
However, the Editor needs a ruse to slip Liz and Macaulay into the Lord mansion in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia (hence the name of film) in the eve of
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