Philadelphia Story, The [Warner Brothers, Special Edition]

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The fact is, after a promising start in movies, Katharine Hepburn was thought difficult to work with and declared "box-office poison" following the financial disappointment of "Bringing Up Baby" in 1938. It could have spelled the end of her career. But instead, she returned to Broadway to star in the smash-hit play she was said to have inspired, "The Philadelphia Story," the script of which was subsequently bought by Howard Hughes as a starring vehicle for her and made into a smash-hit movie by MGM. Hepburn was back on top of the movie world.

"The Philadelphia Story" was released in 1940, did blockbuster box office, and was nominated for six Academy Awards: Best Picture (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, producer), Best Actor (James Stewart), Best Actress (Hepburn), Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Hussey), Best Screenplay (Donald Ogden Stewart, from the stage play by Philip Barry), and Best Director (George Cukor). It won for Best Screenplay and Best Actor. Ms. Hepburn won Best Actress in the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Today, the movie is ranked number 35 on "Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time"; number 51 on the American Film Institute's list of "Top 100 Films"; number 15 on the AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs"; number 127 on the Internet Movie Database's "Top 250"; and a 100% critics' rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Obviously, it deserves its new Special Edition, two-disc set.

What's more, it's a pretty good film, considering that its main characters are something short of loveable and that one of its major premises is of dubious merit (more of which later). Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a member of an old, respected, and very rich Philadelphia family. She is bright, clever, somewhat spoiled, and demanding. Her life of privilege has made her somewhat high and mighty, although she is far softer and more vulnerable than her tough, solid facade would indicate. And she is about to marry a handsome, stuffy social climber, George Kittredge (John Howard), for reasons unknown, as they appear to have nothing in common except that he is more settled down than her first husband, C.K. Dexter Haven.

Dexter, Tracy's former husband, is played by Cary Grant. He is described as a polo player and yacht designer, but I suspect he's more of a sophisticated hanger-on. The couple divorced apparently because she was too exacting and he drank too much. He's now working for a tabloid magazine, "Spy," whose editor says of Tracy that she "married on impulse and divorced in a rage." Tracy's take on the situation is summed up in her line, "I thought it was for life, but the judge gave me a full pardon." Whatever, Dexter shows up at the Lord house a few days before Tracy's new marriage to write an exclusive story on it, in part for the money his magazine is paying him, in part to get even with his former wife, and in part to...well...watch the movie.

James Stewart, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance, plays Macauley "Mike" Connor, an accomplished fiction author reduced to writing gossip for "Spy" magazine and also covering the Lord-Kittredge marriage. He's a young, earthy, idealistic, antiestablishment type. While Dexter wants peace with the world, and Tracy wants to rule it, Mike wants mostly to change things, so it's a surprise when the three of them suddenly hit it off so well. Along with Mike for the magazine story is his good friend, photographer Liz Imbrie, played by Ruth Hussey.

Stewart may have won the Academy Award, but it's Grant who actually plays the most serious and difficult role in the film. Perhaps he was overlooked for an Oscar nomination because his character seems more normal than any other character he had ever played before (or would again). It's a pity he wasn't given more consideration by Academy voters, but the role does show Grant's versatility in being able to play heroic, macho types; swaggering, fast-talking types; befuddled, nerdy types; or lowly, cockney types in light comedy, adventure, or high drama with equal ease.

Interestingly, Grant was not Hepburn's first choice for the role of Dexter (and because she had starred in the Broadway production, she had a right to recommend her choices for leading man). According to Hepburn on the accompanying documentary, her suggestions were Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy to play opposite her (before she and Tracy started seeing one another regularly), but these actors were unavailable. When Grant was offered the part, he made only three demands: That he be given top billing (he had accepted second billing to Hepburn in their previous film together, "Bringing Up Baby," and he would never take second billing again); that he be paid $125,000 for the part, a very high salary for the day; and that his money be donated to the British War Relief Fund.

The movie's real scene stealer, however, is Virginia Weidner playing Tracy's precocious, overly dramatic young sister, Dinah. She's such a daffy little goofball, it's hard to take your eyes off her, every minute expecting her to erupt in some new guise--a woman of foreign intrigue, an exotic movie star, what have you. John Halliday and Roland Young are also good as Tracy's philandering father and flirtatious uncle.

The film's subject matter deals with the struggles within America's class structure; the traditional battle of the sexes; and typical marital relationships. But it also deals with a kind of conformity, in this case the rather troublesome idea that a woman like Hepburn's character, who appears too strong-willed, too dominant, or too intelligent, can easily be mistaken for a cold, calculating, demanding know-it-all (or a "prig," "spinster," or "goddess," depending on a given character's point of view in the film) and must be taken down a peg. She becomes a woman who must not only be brought back to Earth, but who must acknowledge that her attitude is unbecoming and change it in order for her and those (men) around her to be happy. The movie appears more than a bit male chauvinistic in demanding that the Tracy Lord character mend her ways when, in fact, she is merely being herself. In fairness, the movie suggests that the other major characters also change their ways, but for Grant's character, especially, the improvement from inattentive tippler to doting admirer is hardly unexpected or uncalled for.

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