The Philadelphia Story

The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) "The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges."

 

So says Macauley "Mike" Connor (James Stewart), cynical reporter with romantic notions about nobody but himself, as he and photographer "Liz" Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) are given the enviable task of reporting on the biggest marriage event of the season—or should we say "re-marriage season"—the Lord-Kittridge affair, she of the Philadelphia Lords, Tracy Samantha Lord (Katharine Hepburn), to be precise—formerly married to one C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), an upper class yacht designer—and for her second go-'round, she is marrying George Kittridge (John Howard), a "man of the people" who raised himself from the lower classes to achieve parity (without the legacy or provenance, mind you) of the Main Line of Philadelphia. Newsies Mike and Liz are given permission to "witness" the impending nuptials for a gossip rag (under the subterfuge that they're "distant relatives"), as an arrangement that said tabloid won't be publishing lurid stories about Tracy's father (John Halliday) having an affair with a dancer (of all people). This tit-for-tat has been arranged by a former runner for the mag, that personage being one...C.K. Dexter Haven, the ex (if you'll recall) of the bride-that-was and is to-be. How gauche it all is. How lurid. How delightfully sordid.

The Lord's are trying to manage this hullabaloo without much ballyhoo, thus their agreeing to the limited press coverage. But, they're not going to make it easy for them, no sir. Tracy is determined—with the help of precocious sister Dinah (Virginia Weidler)—to put up a discouraging wall of "airs", acting all hoity-toity...which is just what reporter Connor expects them to be. Tracy sees through their subterfuge just as easily as photographer Liz sees though theirs—just as she also sees through Connor's contempt for them (he protests a bit too much). As a photog' she seems to "read" people better than Connor, which is why she's biding her time with her colleague. She's in love with him, not that he'd ever stop concentrating on himself and his deathless prose to notice.

C.K. is also inserting himself into the affair, much to the delight of the Lords and to the dismay of his ex, Tracy. Their marriage broke up a couple years previously because, as an alcoholic, he did not measure up to her high standards. Tracy is a bit judgey as a rule, and decisively so, which led to tossing Dexter out ("She's generous to a fault" he says, "except for other people's faults") as well as the ostracism of her father from the family (His opinion of her: "You have everything it takes to make a lovely woman except the one essential: an understanding heart. And without that, you might just as well be made of bronze." That one hurts).

Tracy is all too aware of the criticism ("Oh, we're going to talk about me again, are we? Goody."), but she is absolutely sure of her paragoness—reflecting well on the parents as it may have begun, but it has rigored into an expectation that anyone in her orbit should be beholden to the same courtesy. Her stubbornness is so ram-rod straight that it has appeared to reach her spine, as evidenced by her switch-blade dives into pools or even—in the oft-replayed silent opening sequence—when she's face-palmed back into her own home after kicking out Grant's Dexter Haven. It's amazing that she can be so stiff while performing the herculean task of having one's head up their ass.

She may have grown up, but she's still her parents' child—not that that's their fault. She's just stuck in her dutiful child-role despite long having passed its maturity date. Now, even her parents are annoyed with it (by contrast, youngest daughter Dinah—played by the incomparable Weidler—seems to have skipped her childhood to become Thelma Ritter) and wish that "the phase she's going through" was over.

But, it's unlikely, even on the eve of the second of her how-many-future-marriages. The first one didn't work out because from her lofty perch, the faults, owing to his drinking, were all on him. This second has a much-better-manufactured future husband so she glides in with confidence, secure that Kittridge is just as stalwart and inflexible as her own reflection of herself—she's found her spine-mate.

Tracy emerges from a drunken night into the light of a new day

—and reacts to it like a vampire.

But, after a night of pre-wedding jitters—no doubt brought on by her being unable to cope with the intricate machinations of "everything is going according to plan" while confronting the failures of others in her past (like Dexter Haven and her prodigal father, who both have the temerity to judge her ("I'm going crazy. I'm standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy!")—she ends up drunk and with the appearance of being in a compromising position and in the vulnerable position of seeing herself being judged rather than judging. 

And despite rapt descriptions of her as a "marvelous distant queen" or "the golden girl," this paragon of taste, breeding and virtue who could walk into any room and do so with style can never manage to do it with "grace", and when her weak night of drinking has her stumbling through what feels like a "perp walk" under scrutiny, she learns a little of what she's been dishing out...and doesn't like the taste of it. But, you can't have a hangover without some shame in the mix. And despite the bleery eyes, she starts to see things more clearly.

This was Hepburn's project—she'd been labeled "box-office poison" after films like Mary of Scotland and Bringing Up Baby and Holiday bombed (despite the last two eventually gaining reputations of being cinema classics for decades) and helped writer Philip Barry to create it and make it a hit on Broadway. Then, as she owned the rights to it, she personally took it to M-G-M and its head, Louis B. Mayer, to have it made with the director of her choosing (Cukor) and maybe with Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable as the leads. Mayer substituted Grant and Stewart who were more readily available and the deal was made. The movie was her first box-office hit in a couple years. But, there was a little bit of a price to pay for its success.

 

It was the first of Hepburn's movies where she had to have a serious  "comeuppance" moment. Oh, her Jo March in Little Women had to suffer loss and rejection before she achieved any path-way to true happiness, and in her breakout film-role in Stage Door she had to suffer another character-changing tragedy in order to make her "complete" and deserving of success, but here the knives are out for Hepburn's "tall poppy" to be "dead-headed" and reduced from imperious competence to crumbling vulnerability.

And that's apparently what audiences liked. Katherine Hepburn seemed to always have to be "taken down a peg" for the customers, even in her many movies with Spencer Tracy (their first pairing, Woman of the Year, had its ending changed and re-shot to end with a humiliating kitchen scene due to the negative remarks on preview cards by female audience members). She wasn't allowed to maintain her dignity, or achieve some sort of parity with her male co-star, but, to insure commercial success, she had to have her characters' weaknesses and failures made manifest and her dependence on male supremacy made apparent despite any evidence that was shown before that she could act independently from her own efforts. Katherine Hepburn, the actress, having already been shown the consequences of bad box-office reputation, conceded the point that emancipation wasn't "a thing" in the make-believe world of the movies and "played the game." Sometimes (like in Woman of the Year) it was grating and and embarrassing. In The Philadelphia Story (which, remember, she helped develop), it's a little easier to digest and becomes the crux of the movie.

It's not a bad lesson to learn, either. Everybody in the movie (unless they've been humbled in some way) is a little "judgey" and before things play out, minds are changed instead of made up and calcified into permanent prejudice. Everybody bends a little bit without the fear of snapping holding them back. Things become malleable, negotiable...why, it almost becomes the euphemism of "polite society". It's why the use of the term "yar" in the film is so apt. "Yar" (in sailboats or yachts) means "easily maneuverable" but it can also be "agile, quick, nimble"—something C.K. Dexter Haven always aspires to. The mast must be sturdy and strong, sure, but it's the sail that gets you anywhere. You just have to bend with the wind.