Die Frau von der man spricht

Aside from the historical value of first teaming Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (she had wanted Tracy in the previous year's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, but scheduling conflicts had prevented it), WOMAN OF THE YEAR holds its own as a bright, smart 'Odd Couple' romantic comedy/drama, with witty dialog, a rich, textured performance by the reliable Tracy, and Hepburn showing a sexiness that she rarely gets to project on film.

The scenario is simple; Beautiful, brilliant Claire Booth Luce-type journalist(Hepburn) and practical, salt-of-the-earth sportswriter (Tracy) clash over whether athletic events should be suspended for the duration of the war (she finds them too frivolous in such serious times, he believes them essential for morale). After she makes some insensitive comments on the radio, he criticizes her in his sports column. Despite the paper-selling feud that results, their editor brings them together to make peace...and the pair, seeing one another in person for the first time, fall in love! Despite their busy schedules, he takes her to a ball game (which she loves) and she introduces him to her international friends (which he doesn't). Nonetheless, they marry, but he quickly discovers she is so busy 'saving the world' that she can't make time for him...and then she 'adopts' a war orphan, without consulting him, or considering how little time for 'motherhood' she's willing to give. He realizes a drastic step must be taken, as she is clueless about what being a 'wife' and 'mother' means...

While the domesticity scene concluding the film seems out of place (the story goes that MGM added it to make Tracy the 'winner' of the 'battle of the sexes', to a much more chauvinistic 40s audience), so many scenes ring true that the film goes beyond simple comedy/drama to a timeless statement about commitment, priorities, and accountability for one's actions. And despite the serious issues raised, it makes you laugh, too! Hepburn's reactions at the ball game, and Tracy, trying to be inconspicuous at the women's club meeting, are among the comic highlights. The star duo are so natural together that it's hard to believe this was their first teaming, and the chemistry carried over into their private lives as well, beginning a romance that lasted 25 years.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR is, deservedly, a classic!

Legend has it that Spencer Tracy said he would cut Katharine Hepburn down to size when upon meeting her in heels for the first time on the set of Woman of the Year.

I think that's what the authors of the screenplay Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner, Jr., had in mind in the script as well. As mismatched a pair if there ever were, he a down to earth sports columnist and she a world famous news reporter and commentator, fall in love.

As her celebrity is much wider known than his, Hepburn expects to have it all her own way. The rest of the film is concerned with their efforts to adjust to each other.

Katharine Hepburn's character is based on liberal radio commentator and reporter Dorothy Thompson. Not surprising that no one has mentioned that yet in all the reviews so far. The giveaway is Tracy first hearing her voice on the radio while in his favorite sports bar on Information Please where Thompson was a guest. Her career petered out after World War II, so she's not known to today's audience.

Writers Kanin and Lardner had as a model for the Tracy character Lardner's own father. Ring Lardner was one the celebrated sports writers of the first half of the 20th century, a great reporter and humorist. While Tracy is not as witty as Ring Lardner, he is definitely as down to earth.

My favorite scene is Spencer Tracy trying to feel comfortable at an international gathering at her place, looking even for people who speak English. Of course she's equally as uncomfortable at William Bendix's bar where Tracy likes to hang out.

Hepburn, comfortable in her celebrity, just sails through life, getting awards here and there. When she thinks of a Greek orphan kid she gets pressured into taking in as another award, that's when Tracy puts his foot down.

Based on some real celebrities, Tracy and Hepburn become those celebrities in the flesh. It's an awesome debut for what turned out to be a great screen team.

Look for fine performances by William Bendix, Fay Bainter, Minor Watson and Dan Tobin. Kanin and Lardner copped the film's only Oscar for an original screenplay. Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress, but lost to Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver.

If Woman of the Year were remade today, the producers might consider making the woman the sports reporter. Seeing Jeannie Zelasko covering the World Series this year, I'm sure it would work very well.

Most commentators on this movie miss the its point completely, and criticize what they misunderstand as the outdated sexual politics of the 1940's from the standpoint of the outdated sexual politics of the 1970's. Blinded by political correctness, they miss the many virtues of the sparkling script.

The point of the script is actually relatively modest. It is not, in fact it is far from, The Taming of the Shrew, or the subjugation of the independent woman. Tracy's character admires Hepburn's character's independence and competence, and he doesn't want her to renounce them to become the "little woman" -- that is the burden of his "kitchen speech" at the end. He simply understands better than she does, at least until the end of the film, that maintaining a relationship and a marriage requires time, work, and attention. That may well be an unwelcome message, but it is not an unwise one.

The comedy of the film comes from their characters' different worlds -- Tracy is a sportswriter and Hepburn an international politics columnist. The drama comes from their different levels of commitment to being a couple. The script delicately and for the most part successfully (with the possible exception of the Greek orphan subplot), balances these two conflicts and the comedy and drama.

Katharine Hepburn already established the headstrong aspect of her screen persona in 1938's "Holiday" and 1940's "The Philadelphia Story", but she adds a worldly intellect and a beguiling sexual ardor that prove most fetching in her portrayal of multilingual political journalist Tess Harding in this 1942 film classic. In her first teaming with lifelong off-screen partner Spencer Tracy, she sets off palpable sparks with the normally taciturn actor, who plays sportswriter Sam Craig working at the same newspaper. Written by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin, the plot is about the characters' whirlwind courtship from an immediate sexual attraction to an impulsive marriage, all the while struggling with each other's priorities. Needless to say, given that it's a product of its era, it becomes a matter of time before Tess bends to Sam's will but not until some intriguing observations are made about sex roles in a basically fractious relationship.

However, rather than the comic fireworks generated by their later collaboration, 1949's "Adam's Rib", this film treads in unexpectedly sentimental melodrama, especially in the episodes where Tess has to let go of a Greek orphan she wants to adopt and in the climactic scene when she tearfully recognizes her wifely responsibilities as her aunt Ellen marries her father. Still, the pair's familiar bantering occurs when Sam explains the rules of baseball to Tess and in the final feminist reversal as she fails miserably in her attempt at domesticity. George Stevens directed the film, and he displays his sure hand with actors and an acute sense of craftsmanship throughout. Intriguingly, for a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle, it feels much more like her movie than his, and consequently their rapport is not quite up to their normal standard here. The supporting characters also feel more incidental here, even though Fay Bainter shines briefly as Ellen. It's not my favorite of their films together, but it is certainly required viewing for their fans. There are no extras with the 2000 DVD.

... then start here, where they were introduced to each other and fell in love. You can actually feel that love in their performances. Tracy plays a sportswriter, Sam Craig, not a particularly well traveled man or a deep thinker. Hepburn plays Tess Harding, an international affairs correspondent, and with the world at war there is much to correspond about. Thus she runs around at a dizzying pace and I lost count of how many languages Tess spoke. Her mother died when she was an infant, and she grew up globetrotting with her father, and only returned to America as an adult.

Tess and Sam meet when they have a war of words in their articles over baseball, and when the editor tells them to make up, that is when they begin seeing each other. Now Tess doesn't hide how busy she is, or how full her apartment often is of people from all over the world that she knows, yet Sam marries her and I get the feeling that he is disappointed that nothing changes. Their wedding being practically a drive through affair should have given him a hint.

So naturally the marriage eventually fails when Sam walks out. That is Tess' first surprise. Her second surprise is when the woman she has patterned herself after for years and years, Ellen Whitcomb (Fay Bainter), makes a totally unexpected, but not unwelcome, move. How does this all work out? Watch and find out.

I'm not sure this film is ultimately sexist or feminist. It does look like the script was trying to paint Hepburn's character as an ice queen, and she just acted her way out of being portrayed in that fashion. She ultimately plays it as a person who, if she takes up a task, goes all the way with it, right down to the humorous scene where she tries to make breakfast and acts like every utensil in the kitchen is from another planet, yet she persists in the face of hilarious adversity and inexperience. However, if you turn the roles of Sam and Tess around, you could say this was a feminist film, maybe giving men a dose of their own 1942 medicine when they expected women to just live with whatever work schedule the man had, even if they sat home alone at nights.

I'd highly recommend this as one of the great romantic films, and they didn't make many of those during WWII outside of Casablanca.