108
Release date 1st December 1940
Country : USA
Running time : 112 mins
Genre : Comedy
Starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart
Screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewartr based on the play by Philip Barry
Directed by George Cukor
A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Picture
Spoiled Tracy Lord has little regard for the human frailties of others. She prepares to marry George Kittredge but her father's infidelities mean a photographer and journalist are allowed to cover the ceremony. After too much champagne Tracy is discovered in a compromising situation with the journalist Mike Connor. The marriage is called off and Tracy remarries her ex-husband C.K.Dexter Haven.
After a great screwball start this
comedy perhaps takes itself a bit too seriously but it is still high
quality film-making with three of the greatest stars of Hollywood's
golden age. Hepburn is excellent as the spoiled Tracy Lord, a part she
was really born to play, Grant and Stewart are perfect too. When it was
remade as a musical High Society while entertaining enough it really
showed up the quality of the acting and the sophistication of the
comedy on display here.
In the late 30s Hepburn had been box
office poison but she had a success with the play of The Philadelphia
Story and secured the property. When MGM bought it she maintained
control and insisted on Grant and Stewart as her co-stars.
DVD
available from Warner Home Video :
http://www.amazon.com/
DVD Movie Guide
DVD Beaver
(old version v. new SE)
109 107
Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles
The Philadelphia Story image from
http://www.offscreen.it/
