The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Based on the play, The Philadelphia Story was Katharine Hepburn vehicle that she thought would be her ticket back into Hollywood's good graces after being labelled "box office poison." She backed the play as well as the film, forgoing a salary in return for a percentage of the play's profits. Thankfully this gamble paid off as it was a very successful Romantic Comedy that made over a million dollars profit and was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning two: James Stewart for Best Actor, and Donald Ogden Stewart for Best Adapted Screenplay.

While Stewart may have won the Oscar, I think it was really Hepburn who deserved it. She absolutely steals the show, doing a wonderful job of playing the highs and lows of her character's varied emotional encounters. For such a strong woman she finds herself and her emotions bounced around between the men in her life; reacting to scathing criticism as well as impassioned pleas with a reserved poise and exuberance that doesn't just win the love of her men, but of the audience as well. However, don't get me wrong, Steward is still amazing and fun to watch even if Cary Grant still rubs me the wrong way. The film is funny and surprisingly intense due to the incredible chemistry between each of these leads. The romance nearly takes a back seat to all of the drama that drives the personal progress of Hepburn and her relationships with Grant and Stewart and her soon to be husband played by John Howard.

What I really appreciate about this particular Romantic Comedy is that all the tension and romance comes not from the eventual couple holding secrets from each other, but instead from their own personal situations as well as the other people in their lives' opinions of them. That being said, Philadelphia Story is a little too perfect and clean cut. It's very intentional in the story that it wants to tell and doesn't allow for any sort of realism to enter the equation. Just like most films of the age, there are many points in the drama where you are left frustrated at how it seems the film's world and the real world operate radically different. And unfortunately the ending follows this too-perfect Hollywood feeling that pervades the rest of the film, leading to a forced conclusion it would have benefited from foregoing.