Usually singled out as the best of the numerous Hepburn-Tracy team ups, Adam's Rib is the quintessential battle-of-the-sexes comedy. It examines society's double standards while having more than a few laughs along the way. Judy Holliday (in her film debut) plays a woman who rumbles her cheating husband and shoots him... he survives, and the situation is taken to court. Hepburn and Tracy are Amanda and Adam, a married couple of legal prosecutors who find themselves on opposite sides of the court as lawyer and district attourney.
Adam doesn't want Amanda to take the case for fear of what it will do to their marriage, whereas Amanda sees it as her upwardly-mobile female duty to fight for women everywhere through Doris' (Judy Holliday) plight. Amanda rules the roose at home and Adam knows it in a good-natured sort of way, but as their relationship begins to feel the pressure of a high-strung courtcase he begins to also suspect that their smart-alec neighbour, Kip (David Wayne), has designs on his wife. It also begins to look like Amanda might win the case but she realises it will be a hollow victory withou the support of her loving husband.
I mentioned a while back in a review of The Palm Beach Story the ways that a script can be constructed so perfectly in terms of comedy-drama. Well, Adam's Rib is another such film. The battle of the sexes theme plays out in several plotlines that tie together - Adam vs. Amanda, Doris vs. her husband, and even the idea of Hepburn/Tracy vs. traditional male and female roles in Hollywood. Then there's the character of Kip... he's so open in his adoration of Amanda that it's hard to take him seriously as a sexual rival to Adam. In fact, if it weren't for certain concessions the film makes I would've sworn that he was a thinly-veiled gay character. Witness this catty but playful exchange between Kip and Adam:
KIP (as he leaves the room): I may go and become a woman.
ADAM (quietly): He wouldn't have far to go.
KIP (sticking his head back into the room): Shh, he can hear you.
I'm not sure exactly what Kip's scripted purpose is in terms of gender roles, it's sometimes a bit hard to tell with the way films in this era were constricted by the Hays Code. It could just be a case that they made the character less stereotypically-macho so that his wife-stealing would seem less serious and more comical. Anyway, moving back to how satisfactorily all the elements in this film come together, here are two scenes that really stood out to me...
The first is the scene about 23 minutes into the film where there's a static shot of a room whereAdam and Amanda move in and out of frame while they get ready to go out for dinner, and then they wander off screen to 'kiss' for a bit. It just feels so natural and real, and having them engage in 'marital fun' just out of view is a brilliant way to sidestep the censoring of the era while remaining realistic. The other scene that hit me was where Adam, Amanda and their friends watcha delightful silent home movie. The happy, dialogue-free home movie where they goof off and play up for the camera says more about their relationship than any amount of dialogue, especially when it's juxtaposed with the tension felt between the couple as they watch it with their friends. Having just started their film-long conflict, Adam glowers as Kip makes endless wisecracks and Aamanda acts the nervous host.
Hepburn is great as Amanda, she makes it look like she's thinking up the dialogue as she goes (like a real person!) There aren't many of her fellow 1940s actresses who would've been as convincing as a hotshot lawyer whilst remaning feminine. Tracy is equally good as the open-minded hsuband, seeming perfectly at home helping with the cooking - an idealised breakdown of the traditional male role in the household that must've been almost shocking for some viewers back in 1949. The scene where he cries is highly unusual too - you almost never see male actors from Tracy's era doing this so unabashedly on the screen, which is also part of the scene's purpose.
The other standout of the cast is Judy Holliday in her supporting role. I'm a huge fan of Holliday. Her accent, her wavering voice, the way she holds the second part of her lines so that she finishes them as the next person starts talking, her sincere and matter-of-fact way of delivering dialogue... she's magnetically quirky and it's sad to think that her talent was only captured on film a handful of times before her untimely death in 1965.
My only gripe with this wonderful film is the central plot point... it's hard to see where sexual equality actually plays into the courtcase as at the end of the day, Doris still shot someone! That aside though, it's a more than satisfying mix of topical comedy and fine acting. One of the great comedies of the 1940s.
DIRECTOR: George Cukor
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.
KEY ACTORS: Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne, Jean Hagen, Hope Emerson
RELATED TEXTS:
- Adapted into a television series in the 1970s (also called Adam's Rib) starring Ken Howard and Blythe Danner.
- Battle of the sexes films: His Girl Friday, Smart Woman (which predates and has the same basic plot as Adam's Rib), Intolerable Cruelty, Down With Love, The Awful Truth and The Palm Beach Story.
- Hepburn and Tracy also teamed up in the followed films: Woman of the Year, Keeper of the Flame, Without Love, The Sea of Grass, State of the Union, Pat and Mike, Desk Set and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Screenplay.
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Judy Holliday)
ADAM (quietly): He wouldn't have far to go.
KIP (sticking his head back into the room): Shh, he can hear you.
I'm not sure exactly what Kip's scripted purpose is in terms of gender roles, it's sometimes a bit hard to tell with the way films in this era were constricted by the Hays Code. It could just be a case that they made the character less stereotypically-macho so that his wife-stealing would seem less serious and more comical. Anyway, moving back to how satisfactorily all the elements in this film come together, here are two scenes that really stood out to me...
The first is the scene about 23 minutes into the film where there's a static shot of a room whereAdam and Amanda move in and out of frame while they get ready to go out for dinner, and then they wander off screen to 'kiss' for a bit. It just feels so natural and real, and having them engage in 'marital fun' just out of view is a brilliant way to sidestep the censoring of the era while remaining realistic. The other scene that hit me was where Adam, Amanda and their friends watcha delightful silent home movie. The happy, dialogue-free home movie where they goof off and play up for the camera says more about their relationship than any amount of dialogue, especially when it's juxtaposed with the tension felt between the couple as they watch it with their friends. Having just started their film-long conflict, Adam glowers as Kip makes endless wisecracks and Aamanda acts the nervous host.
Hepburn is great as Amanda, she makes it look like she's thinking up the dialogue as she goes (like a real person!) There aren't many of her fellow 1940s actresses who would've been as convincing as a hotshot lawyer whilst remaning feminine. Tracy is equally good as the open-minded hsuband, seeming perfectly at home helping with the cooking - an idealised breakdown of the traditional male role in the household that must've been almost shocking for some viewers back in 1949. The scene where he cries is highly unusual too - you almost never see male actors from Tracy's era doing this so unabashedly on the screen, which is also part of the scene's purpose.
The other standout of the cast is Judy Holliday in her supporting role. I'm a huge fan of Holliday. Her accent, her wavering voice, the way she holds the second part of her lines so that she finishes them as the next person starts talking, her sincere and matter-of-fact way of delivering dialogue... she's magnetically quirky and it's sad to think that her talent was only captured on film a handful of times before her untimely death in 1965.
My only gripe with this wonderful film is the central plot point... it's hard to see where sexual equality actually plays into the courtcase as at the end of the day, Doris still shot someone! That aside though, it's a more than satisfying mix of topical comedy and fine acting. One of the great comedies of the 1940s.
DIRECTOR: George Cukor
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.
KEY ACTORS: Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne, Jean Hagen, Hope Emerson
RELATED TEXTS:
- Adapted into a television series in the 1970s (also called Adam's Rib) starring Ken Howard and Blythe Danner.
- Battle of the sexes films: His Girl Friday, Smart Woman (which predates and has the same basic plot as Adam's Rib), Intolerable Cruelty, Down With Love, The Awful Truth and The Palm Beach Story.
- Hepburn and Tracy also teamed up in the followed films: Woman of the Year, Keeper of the Flame, Without Love, The Sea of Grass, State of the Union, Pat and Mike, Desk Set and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Screenplay.
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Judy Holliday)
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