Here's an offer you can't resist: a romantic comedy starring Katherine Hepburn as a strong-willed heiress named Tracy Lords who must choose between three men: her prim and proper fiancé, George Kittridge, her ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), and a wry, sarcastic journalist, Mike Conner (James Stewart). Of course George is almost immediately out of the question, and Hepburn must choose between Grant and Stewart. She isn't gonna get a bad deal either way, that's for sure.

But at the outset, none of the men really love her for who she is. Dexter left her because he thought her frigid and unforgiving of faults; George loves her precisely because she's cold and far-off, like a statue, or a goddess;…

While not as frantic as Bringing Up Baby, Howard Hawks pairing of Grant and Hepburn, The Philadelphia story certainly has a giddy–up pace, and is even more voluminous in the infectious charm department.

There is a confluence of stars at the top of their game, an incredible script adaptation, and a sharp as nails director who understood the material that formed a perfect storm of romantic comedy. I’ve read every scene was a single take, and the shooting schedule was a scant six weeks.

Of course, Katherine Hepburn knew the role inside out, as she had played it on Broadway, and her Tracy Lords is the backbone of the picture. Flawed, yet strong .. confident, yet vulnerable, she choreographs the…

I watched this today for the second time with my mother, and found myself going huh? far too many times for my liking, because I remembered absolutely loving The Philadelphia Story the first time around. I still do have some qualms with the idea that Tracy is to blame for taking a stand against her ex-husband's alcoholism and her father's extramarital affair, but perhaps that's exactly the point... forgiveness as an essential virtue of the true woman and all that sort of stuff? But I feel like such a conclusion doesn't really do a film so witty and brilliant proper justice.

The three leads (and Ruth Hussey) are stunning in every way. I could watch them spar back and forth…

Take a monumental cast featuring Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart; add ferociously fun dialogue; and multiply by a comedic story pitting the sexes against one another to potentially romantic ends; and film fans get an equation that ends with George Cukor's "The Philadelphia Story," a wittily irascible confection that is deservedly recognized as a full-fledged classic. Electrically scripted, handsomely directed, and memorably performed, the film is an energetic romp that has become a romantically comedic icon.

A comedy of manners and marriage, "The Philadelphia Story" finds an ex-husband reasserting himself in the life of his soon-to-be-married-again ex-wife. Comic hijinks ensue with the addition of two reporters who take a professional and, perhaps, personal interest in the story. The…

George Cukor has often been called a pre-eminent director of women. And that he was, like certain other gay film-makers. Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman and Judy Garland could testify to that. It would be more accurate, however, to cast him as a film-maker who paid particular attention to performance and relationships.

Cukor had just about the longest continuous career of any major director who worked within the mainstream. He survived Hollywood’s often cavalier treatment of original talent, including the blow of being fired by David Selznick a few days into the shoot of Gone With the Wind after coaching Vivien Leigh. When you look at the sort of movies he might have been asked to direct now were…

The Philadelphia Story is a classical Hollywood romantic comedy concerning a love quadrangle: Katharine Hepburn as the perfect, commanding socialite, Cary Grant as her witty ex-husband, John Howard as her total square of a fiancé, and Jimmy Stewart as the nerdy reporter with a lot of heart that she just might fall for instead.

I would say what failed to wow me about this film is just how standard it is. Director George Cukor is quite a legendary figure in this genre and this is a 77 year old film, so perhaps this narrative felt fresh at the time, but watching it today it just seems too cliché, too regular. Then again, along with musicals this is probably my least…

The remarriage plot, with all its twists and turns, feels natural and well earned in The Philadelphia Story which features a cast of screwy characters who seem to use their fast-talking comedy as ways of coping with the stress in their lives. Though there is hardly a sad moment in the film, hardship peeks through every seam, and words carry with them a weightiness that make for rich subtext. The film features one of the all-time great performances by James Stewart, deservedly winning his only competitive Oscar for this role, which sees him bounce from the mysteriously aloof writer type to bumbling drunkenness so smoothly that it feels just as formed to elucidate his character than it does to engender…