SYNOPSIS

International affairs columnist Tess Harding and Sam Craig, a sportswriter for the same newspaper, have a running feud over the game of baseball. Violating the sanctity of the press box, Sam introduces Tess to baseball and they become fast friends. Although extreme opposites, they are soon married, much to the amazement of their friends. Tess goes along as the same as before, putting her career ahead of wifely duties. Sam, who expected at least a little domesticity from his wife, eventually walks out. On the evening that Tess discovers her failure as a wife, she is named the Woman of the Year. Soon, when her father remarries, she listens to the wedding vows with new understanding and determines to make a go of her marriage.

CRITIQUES

"Woman of the Year is particularly fortunate in having Miss Hepburn and Mr. Tracy teamed for the first time in a film. For they are both so competent in the field of screen performing that they rarely miss in realizing all the potentialities of a script or in realizing all the conception of an able director."

COMMENTARY TRACK

"I saw Spence and Kate's friendship develop right under my eyes. They were such unusual people. I became terribly fond of them. They responded amazingly to the script, which was perfect for them. Mayer told me Spence was difficult, that he drank, and I said to him, 'I never found anybody I couldn't keep up with. It's all right, so long as it's not on the set.' Well, he was fine. And they fitted the parts so well: Kate the articulate woman, Spence the inarticulate GI Joe who was too old to be drafted. She was the rarer beast of the two. Spence would come over before work to my little office and sit and talk, or I'd go in his dressing room. All of a sudden, there'd be a knocking on the door. The door would open, and it was Kate. She'd say, 'What are you two conspiring about?' He would say, 'Kate, I like guidance about things, and this man is our director.' She said, 'And what about my guidance?' Spencer said, 'How could I be such a damn fool as to get into a picture with a woman producer and her director, how can I be such a dumb bastard as that?' From the beginning of the picture, and their relationship, Spence's reaction to her was a total, pleasant, but glacial put-down of her extreme effusiveness. He just didn't get disturbed about doing things immediately; she wanted to do a hundred and one things at once; he was never in a hurry. She loved to rehearse, to do everything except hang the arc lights; he loved to do nothing except 'be' the part, if possible on the first take. She 'worried to the bone'; he just took it and padded off with it. Slowly."

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