- I'm starting to realize that there is a definite hierarchy to the classic screwball romances. The upper echelon is populated exclusively by films starring Barbara Stanwyck, including (and possibly limited to) Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve. The middle category includes this film, The Philadelphia Story, and all others I've seen featuring Katharine Hepburn. The lowest level is everything else. I suppose the situation is better than in the musicals category, which features only two rungs, both pretty low, but I keep hoping that films like this one or His Girl Friday will live up to their incredible reputations. So far, they haven't.
- In this case, The Philadelphia Story follows the matrimonial misadventures of a charming adventurer named Tracy Lord (Hepburn). She had been married to a man named C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), but that marriage concluded as the film began with some broken golf clubs and a shove. Fast forward a few years and Tracy is engaged to George Kittredge (John Howard), whom one assumes must have been selected exclusively for his reliability and the fact that his life story has spanned several social strata. Enter a reporter named Macaulay Conner (Jimmy Stewart) whose gruff demeanor masks a poet's soul. I've heard of wedding buffets, but this is ridiculous.
- There are further family complications involving Tracy's doting mother (Mary Nash), philandering father (John Halliday), drunken uncle (Roland Young), and bratty younger sister (Virginia Weidler), but none of those archetypes prove half as engaging as the enjoyably sardonic photographer Liz (Ruth Hussey) who keeps one eye on the viewfinder and the other on Conner. Of course, the real stars of the show are Hepburn, Grant, and Stewart. Hepburn is obviously the perfect choice to play a bold society girl who finds herself constantly placed on pedestals against her will. That said, the film's best scene belongs to its leading men, who finally stumble upon enough common ground that they can team up to help Tracy. It was pretty rare for Grant to get upstaged by anyone, but a hiccuping Stewart may have accomplished just that. If only that scene had featured Hepburn and filled up the film's full running time, maybe The Philadelphia Story would have been as good as I had heard.
