Die Nacht vor der Hochzeit

Everyone is quick to pair Katherine Hepburn with Spencer Tracy, however... there was once upon a time the magnificent teaming of Hepburn and Cary Grant. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY is one of their greatest films. A slick comedy of errors, and probably the most rerun of 'em all, which is saying a lot.

The perfect storm; comedy and timing at its best. The story of a high society wedding, with all the elaborate do's and don'ts is fun enough, but also watching an outstanding cast at work. Interestingly, director George Cukor's decided to film the script with few out-takes. Just let the cameras roll, and its Grant who has the most fun, a master of the double-take and an improv genius. See if you can catch his out-takes that were left in.

The opening scene with the golf clubs is now legend, followed by about a dozen more. A film that's definitely habit forming.

Movie legend dictates that Hepburn, declared a "non bankable" actress at the time, rejected for the lead in GONE WITH THE WIND, became a star all over again in the Broadway production, gained control of the film rights, brought it to Hollywood and made a fortune. How's that for inspiration? Not to forget an Oscar nomination. Grant was nominated for Best Actor.

Likewise, George Cukor, having been fired from GONE WITH THE WIND, sprang back in high fashion with this film. What a good luck charm.

Forever on dvd and re-mastered blu ray. Thanks much to TCM for running this gem for years, and more to come.

Firstly, let me say, that I love Kate Hepburn. She's my favourite actress, and in my opinion, she can do no wrong. For this reason, I'd probably give a good rating to every movie she made.

But 'The Philadelphia Story' really does deserve wonderful praise. It's by far the most sophisticated, and in my opinion, the greatest comedy ever made, one of Kate's greatest roles. She's absolutely hilarious as Tracy Lord, bringing perfection to the role she created on the stage a year before the film, mocking, insulting and making fun out of Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant.

Her drunken scene with Stewart is pure magic and her mockery of him ('dear professor') is wonderful.

Grant and Stewart are fabulous, Stewart as the rough and tumble reporter infatuated with Tracy and Grant as the neglected ex- husband.

Ruth Hussey and Virginia Weidler are fantastic in supporting roles, and really add to the hilarity of the whole picture.

A funny, bouyant ride through the 1940's- I completely recommend it!

It is the wedding of the year with socialite Tracy Lord due to marry George Kittredge behind closed doors, with no press allowed. However the editor of Spy Magazine is set to run an exposé of Tracy's philandering father and a New York dancer and strikes a deal with her ex husband CK Dexter Haven if he can get a couple of journalists into the wedding and the reception. Keen to get back at Tracy, Dexter agrees to help and escorts writer Mike Conner and photographer Liz Imbrie into the Lord home in the days before the wedding. With tensions high between Dexter and Tracy, everyone playing games and relationships equally confused and confusing anything could happen and surprises are in store.

Shot in about 8 weeks with a low number of takes and some impressive adlibbed and one-shot scenes this is a movie worth seeing even before you look at the cast list and the professional reviews. The plot is partly a comedy, partly a character drama and partly a romance (albeit a rather tidy one) and each aspect pretty much works in tandem with the others. The comic tension between the characters is really well written and, although it is a cliché, it does fizz and spark across the screen and is regularly hilarious and consistently a delight to the ears. With such superficial energy it would be easy to ignore the fact that it is interesting below this; specifically I liked the character of Tracy and the way that parts of the film show her character being stripped back as she in particular learns something about how she comes across, softening her character a little bit in later scenes. However to suggest that this has great depths is to give it more praise than it deserves, because it doesn't run deep and it isn't a great drama. Likewise the romance isn't a main part of it but it does still work because it is all delivered at such a fresh and funny pace that it draws you in, even to the point where I gratefully accepted the film's conclusion with a smile rather than a sneer.

The cast are a delight, but then that pretty much goes without saying, and they work with the dialogue like a surgeon uses a scalpel. In fact that is a good example because the dialogue is normally almost as sharp as said instrument. Grant may have got top billing and the big money (which he then donated away) but it is very much a shared effort between the three stars, with Grant in fact having the least showy character. If anything the film belongs to Hepburn who is a delight whether spitting back at her father with tears in her eyes or a barbed comment sliding in like a greased knife. Stewart is just as good and is reaction shots show a real comic timing, but he also gives good dialogue and he is fun. Like Stewart, Grant has a great chemistry with Hepburn, which means that he can deliver convincing tension and trade insults without undermining the ending which otherwise would have maybe been an ask too far. Hussey is good and it is easy to forget that she must have felt a bit out of her depth but it never shows in her performance. Support is roundly strong from Young, Nash, Halliday and even Weildler.

Overall this is a delightful film that is such fun and has such a good pace and spark that it is easy to buy into the weaker elements of the narrative and not only forgive them but get into them. The dialogue is sparky and funny while the delivery of same is just what the material deserved. The cast have chemistry and help inject urgency to the story that keeps it all moving forward. A wonderfully delightful film that is fun to watch and surprisingly engaging.

If this is sophisticated comedy, I'll take the gaucheries of Airplane (1980) any day. Despite the celebrated cast, director, and screenwriter, the movie's not very amusing, unless you think drunks are automatically amusing. In fact, at times the antics are downright annoying, especially the shrill Hepburn character and Stewart's going way over the top as an inebriate reporter.

At best, actress Hepburn is a matter of taste. Here director Cukor gives full reign to her most troublesome habit—sheer staginess. For Tracy (Hepburn), there's no such thing as a simple movement; instead, every inflection is an exaggeration of some sort. Just as bad for the movie, Grant is not allowed his usual superb comedic skills; instead, he gets to look on in a rather wooden manner, a not unreasonable reaction. Unfortunately, this is another example of MGM's Louis Mayer's infatuation with the idle rich and well-housed.

One of the film's few positive notes are the many subtle innuendoes. In fact, the strategic use of such innuendoes as 'intact' made me wonder if the Grant-Hepburn marriage had ever been consummated. Then again, why any man would warm up to such a bitchy "goddess" remains perhaps the movie's biggest conundrum. On the other hand, the supporting cast, particularly Hussey and Weidler, furnish what there is of the movie's meager amusement. Too bad it's only in support.

To me, the movie's exalted reputation is likely the result of Hollywood's promotional arm working overtime. After all, if the production's got this many illustrious names, it's got to be a classic. For a revealing contrast, catch the Grant-Hepburn-Hawks genuinely funny Bringing Up Baby, made only two years earlier. At least, Hawks knew how to edit a scene without letting it drone on and on. Here, Stewart's adaptation of the Barry play may have looked good on paper, but on screen it's quite a different matter, despite all the hoopla.

That this brilliant story originated on stage is obvious. The stage requires personas of epic and electric beauty. Philadelphia Story boasts three of the brightest stars that ever burned to occupy these personas, which they do with miraculous luminance.

The play, of course, was written for Hepburn by Phillip Barry, and after over 400 performances on Broadway she cleverly bought the film rights right out from under the noses of Hollywood moguls who fancied themselves smarter than Dear Kate. This came at a time when Hepburn was tops on the list of stars who had been labeled box office poison by producers.

The dynamics between the stars are legendary. Finer actors never lived, and these are the performances of a lifetime for each of them. Stewart is funny, smoldering, passionate and moving and he has moments, many of them, of stunning brilliance in each of those emotions. Grant is his typical stilted and elegant self, funny, gracious, urbane and, yes, beautiful. And then there is Hepburn. She is breathtaking to look at, and she plays your heart strings in a masterful glissando plucking at every emotion as she moves effortlessly across her entire unmatched range.

The supporting cast is worthy of the surplus of talent that surrounds them, and offer a few unforgettable moments of their own. And the presence of George Cukor, the greatest director of women in history, and the best director of Hepburn as well, coaxes every brilliant word of the script to its full potential.

You must not miss this treasure simply because it is from another era. It depicts that era with insight and irreverence that expose it, and the rarified world of old Philadelphia Money (yes, with a capital "M") like few films of its time, or any time, could. Every time I watch this movie, and the frequency would embarrass me if I were honest about it, I love it more.

Watch it. Study it. Assimilate every second of it and your understanding and appreciation of cinema will be enriched for it. And you'll have a great time doing it!