The Philadelphia Story

There are some movies you don’t see simply because you don’t see them. They leave the theater before you can get to them; there’s something more interesting available on streaming; you just plain don’t have the time to commit; lots of reasons.

But then there are also those movies you don’t see just because you don’t want to. This was the case with me and the George Cukor directed 1940 classic, The Philadelphia Story. Starring Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant, the film did great at the box office, was nominated for six Oscars and won two, and currently has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is considered one of the greatest romantic comedies of the classical Hollywood era. So why did I avoid it for so long? Two words: Katherine Hepburn. Can’t stand her. I don’t like her voice, her face, her performances – I didn’t even like it when Cate Blanchett portrayed her in Scorcese’s The Aviator. There is just something about her that gets under my skin in a tick-giving-me-Lyme-disease kind of way.

Nevertheless, in the name of being a more well-rounded movie fan, I bit the bullet and watched it anyway.

It’s a fascinating document of sexual politics, gender roles, and classic Hollywood expectations from the early 1940s. Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, the oldest daughter of a wealthy socialite family, who is on the verge of marrying George Kittredge, a self-made man who aspires to high political office. All is well and good until her ex-husband played by Cary Grant shows up with two reporters from Spy magazine who want to cover the upcoming wedding. Tracy has no intention of allowing that to happen until her ex-husband mentions that the publisher of Spy intends to run an article about her father’s shameless affair with a much younger dancer unless she cooperates. Lies, mistaken identities, and hijinks ensue as Tracy moves forward with her wedding while getting a little infatuated with the male reporter played by Jimmy Stewart and realizing that maybe all the problems in her first marriage weren’t solely the fault of her first husband and that maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. Things end up working out, there are reconciliations all the way around, and there is a wedding at the end of the film, but not the one that was planned. I can easily see why it was popular in its day and why it’s considered a classic now.

Was Hepburn annoying and the worst as usual? Yes, but that’s sort of the point. Famously, this is the project that she chose specifically to be her comeback after being branded “box office poison” by theater owners following a series of flops. The part was written specifically for her, and Howard Hughes bought the film rights for her as a gift. It’s unlikely that she would have chosen the project if she didn’t know the ways it plays to her strengths. Her aloof brittleness works well here in the role of a moneyed socialite whose caustic judgement makes her, in the words of her first husband, “a perfect bronze statue.” So she’s annoying, but purposefully so. The trick is how her co-stars balance her out. Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Ruth Hussey as the other reporter have enough warmth, humanity, wit, and jokes to more than counteract the Hepburn factor. The three of them are a delight to watch, especially Grant whose blustery fast talk is charm on wheels.

I don’t know why I react so viscerally to Katherine Hepburn, but I am glad that I endured whatever it is about her to get to the rest of what’s good about The Philadelphia Story, a movie that is light, sharp, and funny. If you’re like I was and haven’t seen it yet, give it a try. Make it one of the movies you make time for.