daoldiges
Grant and Hepburn were married, then divorced, but secretly both still harbor feelings and want to get together. Of course neither of them realizes this until it's almost too late, as Hepburn has become engaged to someone else. Grant is the instigator in the reunion efforts. This is a story I've noticed that is quite common in many of the films of Cary Grant, His Girl Friday, with Rosalind Russell standing in for Hepburn, comes immediately to mind, but there are others as well. Still, this is an enjoyable film and Hepburn and Grant along with Jimmy Stewart all come together to make this film worth watching.
federovsky
Hollywood frequently had to pull a contortionist act in order to make films about it's favourite subject, the elegant rich, without alienating the general population. And so we get films that mildly ridicule the elegant rich - a socially acceptable position even among the elegant rich themselves. It's done here by infiltrating their mannered/manored world by an ordinary Mike, reporter James Stewart, and flirting with the idea of class rapprochement.To get that far, they have to make Mike not just a reporter but a novelist, and not just a novelist, but a brilliant and sensitive one. Not only that, but the elegant, rich Tracey (K. Hepburn) must be brought down a notch by behaving in a rather, er, loose fashion. You see the contortioning. Having exposed the mechanism, it's less easy to be engaged by these goings on, but it's worth seeing for the way they all deal with the (somewhat risqué) sexual indiscretion later on, and for Hepburn, who polishes this to a shine.
James Hitchcock
The Philadelphia Story" is one of the best-known examples of a "comedy of remarriage", a genre which dealt with a divorced or separated couple getting back together again. Such films are normally associated with America in the 1930s and 1940s, where they were popular because they allowed screenwriters to flirt with daring themes without breaching the requirements of the Production Code relating to the depiction of adultery. There were, in fact, occasional examples from other countries, such as the British-made "The Divorce of Lady X", and the format has sometimes cropped up in recent 2years. ("Sweet Home Alabama", "Did You Hear about the Morgans?) The couple here are Tracy Lord, daughter of a wealthy, aristocratic Philadelphia family, and her ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven. Dexter turns up at Tracy's family home on the eve of her scheduled marriage to George Kittredge, a self-made businessman, and makes it clear that he would be interested in renewing their relationship, even though Tracy is less than pleased to see him. To add to Tracy's difficulties a third man has fallen in love with her- Macaulay "Mike" Connor, a journalist sent to cover her wedding.It quickly becomes clear whom Tracy will not marry. Poor George never stands a chance. Part of America's national mythology is "log cabin to White House", the idea that in America anyone can succeed if he has the "right stuff" and that there is therefore always something admirable about a self-made man. "The Philadelphia Story" subverts this myth with a vengeance. It is not that George is a vulgar parvenu- indeed, if he had a streak of healthy vulgarity about him he might cut a more attractive figure. He is stiff, pompous and physically unattractive; we never understand why Tracy ever got engaged to him, unless as a reaction to the handsome, charming and amiable (albeit flawed) Dexter, who comes from a similar social background to her own.As between Dexter and Mike the outcome is not so obvious. The normal rule in romantic comedies involving a love-triangle is "first name above the title gets the girl", but here both men are played by major stars, Cary Grant and James Stewart, who received equal billing. Intellectually, of course, we know how matters will end (or at least we do if we are familiar with the conventions of the "remarriage" genre), but emotionally we feel that Mike might just be in with a chance.The film was remade in 1956 as the musical "High Society". Now there was nothing wrong, in principle, with remaking it as a musical, but I have always regarded "The Philadelphia Story" as far superior to "High Society". The reason for this has nothing to do with the music- the songs are tuneful and the lyrics witty- and nothing to do with the story, which is much the same in both films. The reason for the difference lies in the acting in the main roles. I exempt from my criticism Frank Sinatra, who played Mike in the remake and wisely did not try to copy Stewart's interpretation of the role, realising that their styles of acting were completely different. Sinatra's Mike, therefore, is hard-bitten, cynical and wisecracking whereas Stewart's, an aspiring writer, is gentler and more idealistic. This film brought Stewart his only competitive acting Oscar, and a well-deserved one it was too.Between, Grant and Bing Crosby, however or between Katharine Hepburn and Grace Kelly, there is no comparison. Grant and Hepburn are both on top form here. Watching their battle-of-the-sexes duels you realise not only just why they found it so difficult to live together first time around but also just why both cannot live without the other. The main obstacle they need to overcome is Tracy's perfectionism. She sets high standards for himself and demands impossibly high standards of others, especially Dexter who complains that he was less Tracy's husband than "High Priest to a virgin goddess". Dexter, who is fond of a drink, has his faults, and doubtless tried Tracy's patience severely during their first marriage, but we realise that beneath it all he loves her deeply.Crosby, by contrast, is so laid-back that he is quite unable to make Dexter seem interesting; we never understand why Kelly's Tracy might have wanted to marry him in the first place. With Kelly we have the opposite problem; she is so heart-meltingly beautiful, and so soft and gentle in her manner, that we never understand why Dexter might ever have wanted to end their marriage. (In Hepburn's case her occasional flashes of temper make this quite obvious). It doesn't help that Kelly did not have a particularly good singing voice- unusually for the leading lady of a Hollywood musical, she only sings one song- or that Crosby was old enough to be Kelly's father, which lessens the chemistry between them. (The age difference between Grant and Hepburn was only three years).Two other good performances come from Ruth Hussey as Mike's attractive lady photographer Liz and the child star Virginia Weidler, who as Tracy's younger sister Dinah steals every scene she is in. Weidler had appeared in another film directed by George Cukor, "The Women", the previous year.Not all comedies of this period hold up well today. This was the third "comedy of remarriage" Grant made in 1940, the others being "My Favourite Wife" and "His Girl Friday". The first of these can today seem very dated, as well as overly sentimental. The second is a lot better, although much of its appeal lies in the way in which it combines its romantic plot with a good deal of satire aimed at the American press and political system. "The Philadelphia Story", however, is like a fine vintage wine, as good today as when it was first made. 9/10
