ADAM'S RIB (1949)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy / Romance

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Katharine Hepburn / Spencer Tracy / David Wayne

Plot

Conservative District Attorney Adam Bonner and his liberal lawyer wife Amanda take opposing sides in a criminal case involving a wife who has shot her two-timing husband.

What I Liked

In many ways, “Adam’s Rib” might be called the first important post-war romantic comedy.  With many American women having entered the work force during World War II and suddenly expected to return to domesticity at the war’s close, the film tackles what was then a very pressing issue: the role of women in post-war America.  While the feminist movement would not become a cohesive and visible social presence for years to come, the place of women in the home, in the marriage, in the workplace, and in the legal sphere are topics of frequent debate between the aptly cast Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, albeit wrapped in a harmlessly funny package.  The couple’s battle-of-the-sexes conflict would be a theme recurrent throughout romantic comedies for decades to come.

What I Didn’t Like

*spoiler alert*

Though the banter and chemistry between Hepburn and Tracy still wins over the viewer’s heart, the rest of the film has not aged particularly well. Because many of the more radical ideas that Hepburn’s character puts forth in the film have become mainstream thought today, the film has lost some of its shocking or rebellious edge.  Consequently, much of the fun falls flat.  The director’s choice to bring zany theatricality into the courtroom is very old Hollywood and I’m sure delighted 1949 filmgoers everywhere; but today the more outrageous and goofy moments just don’t go over well and seem just that, old Hollywood.  Hepburn, Tracy and their supporter cast may hit every point perfect, but the fact is a dated script and outmoded production mean that the film really isn’t all that funny anymore.

Even as timely as the movie might have been in 1949, the filmmakers clearly didn’t want to push the envelope too hard at the dawn of the McCarthy era.  Sure, the clever crusader Mrs. Bonner wins out in the social arena of the courtroom, but when it comes to home and the bedroom she is manipulated and eventually conquered by Mr. Bonner, who reclaims his place as master of his household in the final scene, ultimately the filmmakers’ conciliation to the “normalcy” that would become so important in the 1950s.

Most Memorable Scene

Eventually the defendant and her victim, a husband and wife couple themselves, take the stand and are questioned by each attorney, who are of course married to each other.  Tom Ewell and Judy Holliday play the idiotic Mr. and Mrs. Attinger, two world class heels, so thoroughly that they both steal their scenes from two of the silver screen’s biggest icons.  Holliday in particular is marvelously funny as the scorned and furious Mrs. Attingero, too honest for her own good.

My Rating: 3 out of 5