Friday, September 5, 2008

Classic Film Friday: The Philadelphia Story

This 1940 classic gives us Katherine Hepburn, Carry Grant and Jimmy Stewart... and some others too. Hepburn plays a rich, stinking rich socialite Tracy Lord, and she is about to be married to George Kittredge (John Howard). Her Ex-husband, Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), is about to throw a monkey wrench in the wedding when he tells Tracy that reporters have a story on her father who was gallivanting around and would bring shame to the family.

If Tracy agrees to let reporters into her wedding, he thinks it will stave the story of her father's infidelity. Haven convinces Tracy this will work, while trying to win her back. Enter tabloid reporter Macaulay "Mike" Connor (James Stewart) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey). Who really don't want to be there, but they want to eat and a roof over their heads, so they play along.

In what turns out to be a convoluted love triangle between Haven, Kittredge, Connor and Lord, it somehow works out and almost everybody is happy in the end. It's a romantic comedy, but not by today's standard.

2 comments:

WileyCoyote said...

Good choice! TCM had "Kate Hepburn Day" this past week, and we recorded almost the whole day, this one inclusive, also getting "Little Women" "Bringing Up Baby" (with Baby the leopard)and "Pat and Mike" one of my personal favorites.

Big fan of Kate's, here!! With DTV's auto-record button on their new boxes, it is easy to just set it up and leave the room, letting it run for as long and on whatever we want to keep, then downloading them to disk later. We just might need these movies for the long and snowy winter nights... grin.

"P. B." said...

Wasn't "High Society" a remake of this movie? I love them both.