Pat und Mike

Pat and Mike must have been a pleasure for Katharine Hepburn to make because she got to show off her athletic ability which was considerable. Had she not decided to pursue a thespian career, Hepburn could have gone into either tennis or golf, she was good at both or any of the other sports named which she actually played. Later on as she entered the ranks of senior citizens, health problems curtailed her athleticism.

But she's having a whale of a good time her and playing with some of the best women athletes of the 20th century.

Hepburn's a college professor who's leading a rather dull life with a rather dull bore of a sweetheart in William Ching, who in a subtle way, belittles her.

In a rather unorthodox way she meets Spencer Tracy, a sports agent who very narrowly treads the line between the legal and the illegal. She makes a believer out of him that you actually can make decent money legally.

The usual Tracy/Hepburn charm is running on all cylinders. Pat and Mike ranks in the upper division of their screen teamings. I'd say that this was more her film than his though.

A lot of familiar faces are in the cast. Look for Charles Bronson playing a hood and Chuck Connors playing a small town sheriff. Both of them make themselves noticed here which led to long careers for the two of them.

Katharine Hepburn has said this deceptively casual 1952 comedy is her favorite of the nine on screen pairings with longtime partner Spencer Tracy, and one can see why as the film takes advantage of her natural athletic prowess. Directed by the redoubtable George Cukor and written by the husband-and-wife team of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon ("Adam's Rib"), this is not so much a rollicking screwball farce as a sly opposites-attract love story set in a world pitched between professional sports and the street-slang and pinstripe suits of Damon Runyon. It's not a complicated plot. Mike Conovan is a dem-and-dose sports promoter who already manages a punch-drunk fighter named Davie Hucko. On a country club golf course, he sees a great golfing talent in Pat Pemberton, a college physical-education instructor who turns out to be accomplished in a number of sports including sharp-shooting and tennis. Mike immediately sees the financial possibilities of promoting a "lady athlete", and a mutual attraction develops.

However, he also discovers Pat's one major Achilles' heel – her self-doubt is such that she cannot perform to her world-class standards under the patronizing eye of her selfish fiancée Collier. Naturally, this impediment gives rise to the movie's funniest sight gags, including a particularly hilarious tennis match with real pro Gussie Moran where Pat's tennis racket gets smaller, Moran's get larger, and the net grows higher. The rest of the film consists of scenes highlighting Pat's ascending trajectory as a pro star, and consequently, the fortyish Hepburn's impressive physical talent facing off with the likes of Olympic champion Babe Didrickson Zaharias in a pro golf tournament. The Tracy-Hepburn team shows a genuine rhythm to their banter here, and Tracy seems to be having fun playing a street-savvy huckster. I find it amusing how Hepburn's character - with her crisp New England-based diction – is supposed to be from Oakland. Aldo Ray makes a memorable impression as Davie, while a young Charles Bronson can be seen as one of the hoods subject to Pat's masterful judo moves. There are no extras offered with the 2000 DVD.

In this disappointing follow-up to the excellent "Adam's Rib," Hepburn plays a multi-sport athlete who is managed and promoted by Tracy. There are two funny scenes: one involving a tennis match and another where Hepburn slugs a couple of goons to protect Tracy. The other ninety percent of this supposed comedy is devoid of laughs and there is little plot. Cukor can't overcome the witless script by Gordon and Kanin. In fact he makes matters worse by inserting extended sport sequences, particularly golf, that are neither funny nor exciting. The film provides early roles for Bronson, Backus, and Connors, as well as the opportunity to see various famed tennis and golf stars.

The seventh pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn focuses on the sports world with Hepburn playing Pat Pemberton, an all-around athlete hoping to go professional. To do that, she needs the help of a sports manager, a tough and savvy Irishman, Mike Conovan. Here, Hepburn plays the more delicate character as she is apparently unable to perform at her best when her fiancée (William Ching) is around. This of course leads to the typical pairing of the two leads as well as Pat realizing who she really needs to be with.

This was a very mediocre film, barely following a serious plot and stretching it just enough to be able to see some nice footage of Hepburn playing Babe Didrickson at golf as well as playing some indoor tennis. I never knew Hepburn was so athletic, especially at her age of filming this, but she did practically all of these scenes herself and proves that she was a capable athlete as well as actress. And although this wasn't as good a film as Adam's Rib, I liked Tracy a lot more in this role than that one. Here, he was much more likable as well as clever and sarcastic. There is a great scene when he describes to Hepburn how he runs his business and why he is so strict on how he runs the relationship between manager and athlete.

The supporting cast is mediocre as well with Ching as the helpless fiancée, Aldo Ray as a dim-witted boxer and Jim Backus as a golf store attendant. The only real reason to watch this at all is to admire the chemistry Tracy and Hepburn shared as well as admire the athletic ability Hepburn had all her life. It isn't their best work, but Tracy is very good and somewhat elevates the material better than it could be if another actor was in that role. This is also a testament to the fine actor Tracy was as his health started to decline after this. If only he could have remained healthy a little longer he could have extended his legacy as one of the best actors America has ever seen.

PAT & MIKE is the seventh Tracy-Hepburn collaboration, and it stars Spencer Tracy as Mike Conovan, the moneyminded sports racketeer with a heart of gold, and Katharine Hepburn (looking a great deal younger than she did in 1951's THE AFRICAN QUEEN) as his beautiful 'property', Pat Pemberton. Pat is an all-round 'lady athlete', adept at golf and tennis (not to mention shooting, basketball and presumably swimming), but completely frazzled whenever her fiance Collier Weld (a suitably smarmy William Ching) is around and watching her. In a bid to become more in control of herself and her life, she (contrarily) submits to Mike's management and he takes her around the country as a golf and tennis pro. It doesn't take much imagination to realise what happens next--Mike's 'handling' of Pat is the kind of handling she's willing to accept (switch 'Tracy' for 'Mike' and 'Hepburn' for 'Pat' and you get also a description of Tracy and Hepburn's real-life relationship), and before long, Collier is pretty much left in the dust.

This film is evidently a star vehicle for Tracy and Hepburn, containing next to no artistic pretensions or even any real attempt to press a subtle feminist point (in contrast with other Tracy/Hepburn films like WOMAN OF THE YEAR or ADAM'S RIB). In fact, the film seems to be just a comfortable, familiar joke between actors, writers and audience--we know these characters, we know these actors, we know what kind of relationship they always have (bantering, sparring, and in the end just a perfect fit)... the only thing that's different is the names of the characters. Sam, Adam, Mike--Tess, Amanda, Pat--what's the difference?

To be fair, Hepburn's character of Pat Pemberton is much softer and more vulnerable than either Tess Harding or Amanda Bonner. This character variation doesn't hide the real point of the screenplay though--Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin evidently wanted a chance to display both Hepburn's natural athletic abilities (phenomenal for a non-professional, but possibly not 100% believable against sports stars like Babe Zaharias) and her incredible legs. Well, they did succeed at both of these things, to great effect. It's great fun for a Hepburn fan, having read about her deep and abiding love of any and all sports, to get a chance to actually watch her playing golf and tennis onscreen. (This doesn't mean, of course, that the frequent and long golf scenes don't test one's patience occasionally!)

Spencer Tracy has great fun as Mike as well, the sports agent who originally wants Pat to flub a game and come in second. He claims early on in the film that the trouble with her is that she's got too honest a face--it's only Tracy's ability to make rough-and-tumble characters believably vulnerable at heart that makes his later declaration ("I must have caught something from you" i.e. honesty) acceptable. The chemistry between the two is probably closer to the comfortable rapport they shared in ADAM'S RIB as man and wife than the fireworks that went off between them in WOMAN OF THE YEAR. Whatever the case, it is still always a joy to watch Tracy and Hepburn together onscreen, and it's largely because this film stars who it does that you can allow yourself to enjoy and be taken in by what is evidently a cutesy star vehicle written by the stars' friends (Gordon and Kanin), and directed by the leading lady's best and favourite director George Cukor. (Some of the visual tricks, particularly Hepburn's face appearing on that of a horse, are actually more disturbing than flattering, and I--for one--would prefer not to pursue the metaphor through to its end.) Tracy and Hepburn are also boosted by an excellent supporting cast, particularly William Ching as Pat's obnoxious suitor and Aldo Ray as Mike's dimwitted star protege (until Pat comes along, that is!).

PAT & MIKE is a romantic comedy, but it's also romantic-comedy-*lite*. There are no forced or fake separations that are geared towards wringing tears from viewers before a reconciliation (contrast again with ADAM'S RIB and most formulaic films in recent years). The film is just a little piece of joyful fluff--not taxing at all for either the writers, the actors, or the viewers. For a brilliant comic set-piece, watch out for the scene in which Pat takes on the two seedy sports racketeers and dispenses them with remarkable ease and efficiency. Otherwise, watch PAT & MIKE with the knowledge that this is neither Tracy and Hepburn's best, nor is it their worst. If you keep your expectations down, you'll certainly enjoy watching this film because it aims low (aiming only to please and amuse, and not necessarily to engage and thrill), and fulfils those aims very well. 8/10.