The Philadelphia Story shot in the summer of 1940 and released in 1941 is an elegiac romantic comedy directed by George Cukor. The movie's signature line is characteristic: someone says that "the prettiest sight in this pretty world is watching the privileged enjoy their privileges" Viewed in the light of World War Two looming on the horizon, the picture assumes a melancholy aspect -- it has something of the character of a dying fall. The frivolous pursuit of pleasure on which the movie focuses, pleasure for its own sake, will be subsumed by more solemn endeavors, wartime austerity, and a censorious, even morbid post-war sensibility. On the same night that I watched The Philadelphia Story, I also caught the last hour of Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson and Doris Day -- twenty years later, the wealthy sophisticates live in Manhattan and the theme of the film is sexual harassment, even, rape in its most noxious forms (the hero has a boudoir with a pop-up bed, a hi-fi set to seduction music, and, most notably, a door that locks when a button is pressed to prevent the lothario's victims from fleeing his presence. Pillow Talk is clever, very erotic, and profoundly cynical -- it luxuriates in bad taste. By contrast, The Philadelphia Story is nimble, witty, and, at its climax, a handsome young suitor avoids taking advantage of the drunk heroine, but is too gentlemanly to even reveal, except under duress, that he has preserved the woman's honor. Before the bombing and the concentration camps, the world was a much different place. Today, Philadelphia Story would probably feature a murder and suicide and some form of outre sexual perversion; things are not as blithe as they were in the summer of 1940.
Katherine Hepburn at her most beautiful plays Tracy Lord, an heiress who has divorced her first husband, the playboy and yacht builder, C.K. Haven Dexter (Cary Grant). She is engaged to be married to a stiff, self-made man, Kittredge whose rectitude (and self-righteousness) represents every quality that her first husband didn't have. A media mogul who runs a gossip magazine sends a staff writer (Jimmy Stewart) and his girl Friday, a photographer, Elizabeth Imbrie, to cover the upcoming garden-party nuptials. Tracy's mother is estranged from her husband -- apparently, her husband's brother, Uncle Willy, is on the premises to imitate his absent brother who is living with a dancer in New York City. Uncle Willy is randy and pinches women on the buttocks. His brother, Mrs. Lord's actual husband, returns to the manor for the wedding. He is also estranged from Tracy whom he regards as prudish, priggish, and judgmental. She is heartless, her father tells her in one important scene, a sort of bronze statue. Tracy's ex-husband who is much beloved by Dinah, Tracy's kid sister, and her mother, is sniffing around the estate; he obviously disapproves of Tracy's proposed marriage to Kittridge and, perhaps, hopes to intervene in some way. Obviously, Tracy retains tender feelings for C.K., mostly relating to their courtship and honeymoon -- she recalls sailing with CK on his yacht, "The True Love" and there are many references to swimming in the manor's pool together late at night after carousing. (Everyone in this movie drinks from dawn to dusk; no one is really sober in any of the scenes.) C.K. delivers a toy yacht to Tracy and we see it plaintively floating in the swimming pool. CK's presence arouses Tracy's amorous feelings and she persuades herself that she is in love with staff writer for the gossip magazine. On the eve of the wedding, she and the writer get gloriously drunk together. And they go for a swim in the moonlight in the fateful pool. (Dinah watches and we are given to believe that she sees Tracy and Macauley (Mike), the writer played by Jimmy Stewart having sex by the pool.) CK who is hovering around punches Mike in the jaw. But everyone is too drunk to remember what happened during the enchanted night, a lengthy scene that comprises about a third of the movie. In the morning, the principals are all horribly hungover. Kittridge learns that Tracy has had sex with Mike; she can't deny the accusation because she has no idea what happened the night before, having acted, apparently, in a blacked-out state. The well-heeled crowd gathers for the wedding. Kittridge calls off the wedding and pompously stalks away. Mike, who is in love with Tracy, tells her that he didn't take advantage of her the preceding evening because she was "drunk and some things simply aren't done." He proposes to Tracy but she turns him down. (Tracy recognizes that Elizabeth Imbrie, the loyal photographer, loves Mike and should be his mate.) To save face, CK offers to re-marry Tracy. She accepts his proposal and, as they walk down the aisle with Mike who is serving as Best Man (and with Elizabeth as Matron of Honor), the media mogul crashes the party and takes a picture of the wedding company, all of them staring like deer caught in the headlights of the camera.
The film possesses a velvety radiance and Katherine Hepburn is a lithe arrow-bolt of the purest silver. She literally glows and, of course, everyone, including the camera, is wildly in love with her. Tracy is like Diana or Artemis, improbably chaste and, of course, gracefully athletic -- we see her dive like a moonbeam into the pool and she has perfect posture and, when poor Kittridge struggles to mount his horse, she climbs astride her animal with no effort at all and rides with supernatural grace. Hepburn's acting is overwrought by modern standards. She perfected the role on the Broadway stage (she literally had the play commissioned for her) and she is very theatrical; her performance is like that of silent movie diva, very large, stylized, and abundantly "busy" -- she's always acting, rolling her eyes, sneering, or smiling with false graciousness but her beauty is so transcendent that you can forgive her excesses and, of course, she's always charming, an example of noblesse oblige. Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart are wonderful; Ruth Hussey won an Oscar (as did Katherine Hepburn) for her performance as the gossip rag photographer, always the side-kick and maid of honor, but never the bride. I detected more than a faint whiff of French existentialism in the movie -- it is most closed allied, I think, with autumnal masterpieces like Carne's The Children of Paradise made around the same time. In several of the scenes, particularly the dialogue between Tracy and her father, there is a lyrical emphasis on liberation, being freed from societal roles, that is, becoming as opposed to being and some of chatter sounds like Sartre. And, at the climax of the film, Tracy descends from her pedestal, giving up being an icon for simply acting "human". All of this is realized in fantastically witty and elegant dialogue. The movie glows like moonlight on still water.
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