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| ADAM'S RIB (1949) |
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture
B&W, 100 minutes
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CAST
Adam Bonner: Spencer Tracy
Amanda Bonner: Katharine Hepburn
Doris Attinger: Judy Holliday
Warren Attinger: Tom Ewell
Kip Lurie: David Wayne
Beryl Caighn: Jean Hagen
Olympia La Pere: Hope Emerson
Grace: Eve March
Judge Reiser: Clarence Kolb
Jules Frikke: Emerson Treacy
Mrs. McGrath: Polly Moran
Judge Marcasson: Will Wright
Dr. Margaret Brodeigh: Elizabeth Flournoy
Mary, the Maid: Janna Da Loos
Dave: James Nolan
Roy: David Clarke
Court Clerk: John Maxwell Sholes
Court Stenographer: Marvin Kaplan
Police Matron: Gracille La Vinder
Benjamin Klausner: William Self
Emerald: Paula Raymond
Photographer: Ray Walker
Reporter: Tommy Noonan
Adam's Assistants: De Forrest Lawrence, John Fell
Amanda's Assistant: Sid Dubin
Mr. Bonner: Joe Bernard
Mrs. Bonner: Madge Blake
Mrs. Marcasson: Marjorie Wood
Judge Poynter: Lester Luther
Mrs. Poynter: Anna Q. Nilsson
Hurlock: Roger David
Elderly Elevator Operator: Louis Mason
Fat Man: Rex Evans
Young District Attorney: Charles Bastin
Subway Rider: E. Bradley Coleman
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CREDITS
Director: George Cukor
Producer: Lawrence Weingarten
Scenarists: Garson Kanin, Ruth Gordon
Based on an Original Story by: Garson Kanin, Ruth Gordon
Photographer: George J. Folsey
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Associate Art Director: William Ferrari
Set Decorator: Edwin B. Willis
Associate Set Decorator: Henry Grace
Editor: George Boemler
Sound Recorder: Douglas Shearer
Musical Score: Miklos Rozsa
Costumer: Walter Plunkett
Special Effects: A. Arnold Gillespie
Assistant Director: Jack Greenwood
Song: "Farewell, Amanda" by Cole Porter
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SYNOPSIS
Amanda Bonner, a lawyer with a fierce belief in women's rights, defends Doris Attinger, a dumb blonde who has shot her two-timing spouse. Amanda's husband Adam, a sharp assistant district attorney, has been assigned prosecutor in the case. Eventually, the trials and tribulations of the trial, along with the nagging question of female equality, fill the air and envelop Adam and Amanda - not only on the job, but at home as well.
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CRITIQUES
"Adam's Rib again presents Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as the ideal U.S. Mr. and Mrs. of upper-middle income. This time, besides being wittily urbane, both are lawyers....Hepburn's elegantly arranged bones and Tracy's assurance as an actor make them worth looking at in any movie, but the stars are called on for some aggressive cuteness in this one....Adam's Rib is acted as though the players found it funny, but actually, like many 'sophisticated' movie comedies, it is more absurd than comical. Its chief asset: a high-toned song called 'Farewell, Amanda,' with dismal lyrics which Cole Porter must have written while waiting for a bus."
- Time, 1949
"As we say, Mr. Tracy and Miss Hepburn are the stellar performers in this show and their perfect compatibility in comic capers is delightful to see. A line thrown away, a lifted eyebrow, a smile or a sharp, resounding slap on a tender part of the anatomy is as natural as breathing to them. Plainly, they took great pleasure in playing this rambunctious spoof."
- Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, December 26, 1949
"George Cukor directed this 'uncinematic' but well-played and often witty MGM comedy about the battle of the sexes. Katharine Hepburn, thin, nervous, and high-strung, keeps pecking away at Spencer Tracy, who is solid, imperturbable, and maddeningly sane. She attacks, he blocks; their skirmishes are desperately, ludicrously civilized. They are married lawyers on opposing sides in a court battle; the case involves equal rights for women, i.e., does Judy Holliday have the right to shoot her two-timing husband, Tom Ewell, in order to protect her home against Jean Hagen? The script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin is lively and ingenious (though it stoops to easy laughs now and then). Cukor's work is too arch, too consciously, commercially clever, but it's also spirited, confident. Holliday and Ewell have roles that seem just the right size for them; intermittently, Holliday lifts the picture to a higher, free-style wit. And as a composer-neighbour of the married lawyers David Wayne airily upstages the two stars; Hepburn is overly intense and Tracy does some coy mugging, but Wayne stays right on target."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"George Cukor's gracious 1949 comedy about a lady lawyer (Katharine Hepburn) married to a district attorney (Spencer Tracy) and what happens when they find themselves on opposite sides of a shooting trial. The film is a classic, and deservedly so: the conjunction of Tracy's sly listlessness and Hepburn's stridency defines 'chemistry' in the movies. Nor are there any slouches in the supporting cast; it includes Tom Ewell, Judy Holliday, David Wayne, and Jean Hagen, all superb."
- Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"Delightful Cukor comedy in which Hepburn and Tracy are husband-and-wife lawyers engaged in a battle of the sexes as they respectively defend and prosecute a dumb blonde (the inimitable Holliday) accused of shooting her two-timing husband with intent to kill. If Hepburn's feminist arguments are a little on the wild side and too easily bounced off Tracy's paternalistic chauvinism, the script by the Kanins so bristles with wit that it scarcely matters. And in a film in which everybody is acting - a point neatly stressed by the stylized staginess of Cukor's direction - the performances (not least from Wayne and Hagen) are matchless."
- Tom Milne, Time Out
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COMMENTARY TRACK
"They [Hepburn and Tracy] worked very well together. They would do what the Lunts did. They would interrupt each other - they'd never finish a sentence and then they'd start the other sentence. It's very hard to do."
- Marvin Kaplan (actor)
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Lobby card
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Judy Holliday, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Eve March
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Judy Holliday, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, David Wayne, Katharine Hepburn
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On the set: George Cukor, Katharine Hepburn
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Watch the trailer
