NFR Project: “Adam’s Rib”
Dir: George Cukor
Scr: Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin
Pho: George J. Folsey
Ed: George Boemler
Premiere: Nov. 18, 1949
101 min.
When last we saw
Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn on film together in this series, it was in
their first collaboration, Woman of the Year (1942). Over the next eight
years, they made seven more pictures together. Their chemistry was perfect –
he, the wry average guy, her the rapid-fire overachiever.
This onscreen
relationship was accompanied by an offscreen relationship, one that was deeply
loving. Tracy, a Catholic, wouldn’t divorce his wife, so he and Hepburn lived a
life together as much as they could, maintaining separate residences and
keeping their relationship an ill-kept secret. Tracy also struggled with his
mental health and with alcohol. It was not all peaches and cream.
Still, what made
them compatible offscreen manifests itself in their films together. Each one
had a characteristic persona, and these two types played off each other with
grace and wit. Here in Adam’s Rib, their verbal exchanges chase one
another across the room, and frequently dissolve into talking OVER each other, a
comic dividend.
This is their second
film together under the direction of George Cukor, and the first comedy essayed
by the three of them. Cukor’s urbane, understated style lets the actors act
their way through a philosophical debate crossed with a slapstick bedroom
comedy. Cukor gazes on contentedly as a parade of distinctive character actors
crowd the screen carrying on the nonsense in the background. Cukor and Hepburn wound up making 10 films
together over a span of 50 years.
The extremely sharp
script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin casts them as lawyers. He, Adam, an
assistant district attorney; she, wife Amanda, an attorney for the defense.
Their New York apartment is comfortably grand; they bought a farm upstate as
well. They are both extremely good at what they do.
The crux of the plot
is this: a daffy housewife (Judy Holliday in a career-making performance) trails
her cheating husband (the great Tom Ewell) to the apartment of his girlfriend
(a young Jean Hagen). She pulls out a revolver, emptying it blindly. She wounds
her husband. She is arrested of course.
However, Amanda asserts
that, if the sexual roles were reversed, the shooting would be seen as
justified, a defense of the home. She represents the housewife. Unfortunately,
Adam is the prosecutor assigned to the case. The two must negotiate their
relationship away from the court, just as they indulge in heated debate within
it. As the trial progresses, Amanda goes to extreme lengths to bolster her
client’s case; Adam, riled up and outraged, chuffs along steadily.
In the end, Amanda wins the case – but Adam moves out. Beset
romantically by their neighbor, songwriter Kip (David Wayne), Amanda nearly
falters when Adam appears, gun in hand. Amanda shields the diminutive Kip. “You
have no right!” she exclaims. His point is proven. Adam puts the gun in his
mouth – and bites it. “Itth licowice,” he explains. The three then do battle.
A divorce seems inevitable. The two meet at their tax accountant’s office.
They begin to reminisce, Adam cries. Amanda relents. They go up to the farm. Adam
announces that he is the Republican candidate for County Court Judge and then
demonstrates that he can cry on command. They are together again.
It’s lovely late screwball comedy, wherein everyone is intelligent and
reasonable; their senses of honor and propriety are in opposition, not their
feeling selves. So the personal and the professional get mixed up until the woman
wins and the roles reverse themselves.
Tracy takes (almost) everything with a skeptical glint of humor.
Hepburn dashes madly about him, dynamic and stunningly articulate. Like Nick
and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies, Adam and Amanda embody the ideal of
two uniquely matched people filling a need in each other’s lives, beyond the concept
of winning and losing. They communicated. They got along well. We felt we knew
them. That’s a pretty stellar achievement.
The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all
the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: All the King’s Men.
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