Late in the evening last Thursday I got a bit of a wild hair and decided on a whim, "I'm going to go through my old VHS collection!" So that's what I'll be doing on my lone nights off. (I watched The Front for the first time in over five years this night too. Notes on this to come.)I began with the best in my collection, George Cukor's classic romantic comedy, The Philadelphia Story. It's been years since I've seen it, so I was long overdue for the good buzz of Katherine Hepburn giggling in a champagne stupor while Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant swoon about her (and we swoon back, of course.) It's practically written in stone that this movie is one of the greats, but being away from it for so long I kind of forgot. I've taken the hugest sigh of relief after watching it, and can report fully that it is (it really is) the perfect movie.
I shouldn't be surprised to say so, but what struck me most was how much energy the script and the characters have. For those who haven't seen it, or at least not in awhile, the basic story begins with Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn) and C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), as an unhappily married couple in a playfully violent and dialogue-less process of divorce. Tracy dumps his belongings on the front porch in the opening scene; he pushes her to the ground with a threatening fist for more, but retrains himself. As quick as Dexter is gone, we're fast-forwarded to Tracy's new life, on the eve of her second marriage to a stiff named George. And in one slim day and night the entire story transpires.
Gossip rag columnist Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) teams up with his frank female photographer, Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey), to capture the Lords in their family home. One hitch, Dexter plants the unwanted journalists as blackmail against Tracy and her father, since the old man was caught on camera having an affair. To avoid having her family's name smeared in the tabloids, Tracey lets them in, and henceforth Dexter, who's wrangling to get his wife back. Between snippy and witty remarks, Macaulay falls in love with Tracy; Liz longs for Macaulay; and George grumbles about humorless—who Tracy reflects in her drunken voice characterization, "Hello, George."
That's my favorite moment. 67 years later and this movie is brand new. And anyway, who can't fall in love with Jimmy Stewart as he gazes at Katherine Hepburn with such tenderness? I don't know a single male actor, living or deceased that emotes so much love with as much subtlety.
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