# Adam's Rib (1949)

### reviewed by
Brian Koller

    Adam's Rib (1949)

    Grade: 66

"Adam's Rib" is a comedy starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, one of many films that they made together. The film is well cast and well directed, with a fairly good script. The script does resort to petty bickering, and some of the characters should have been made more sympathetic. The script also makes unnecessary points about gender equality.

The story has Tracy and Hepburn as a married couple. Tracy is a Prosecutor, Hepburn an attorney, and they end up on opposite sides of an attempted murder trial. Judy Holliday is the not-too-bright defendant, having shot her negligent husband Tom Ewell after catching him with floosie Jean Hagen. Hepburn's defense relies on the dubious assumption that a husband would be found innocent of such a shooting, and thus convicting Holliday would be a sexist double standard. The Tracy/Hepburn marriage is strained by Hepburn's zealous defense, and also by obnoxious composer David Wayne, who has the hots for Hepburn.

This comedy has two love triangles, Holliday-Ewell-Hagen and Tracy-Hepburn-Wayne. One problem is that all members of the first triangle are unsympathetic, and that justice would be served by locking them all indefinitely in the same jail cell. The second love triangle is more interesting, especially since Hepburn subtly encourages Wayne's behavior. Movie audiences at the time may have taken a pool as to when Spencer would finally punch Wayne. He does so, at about the ninety minute mark, and certainly no jury would convict him of assault.

The point being made by the Ruth Gordon/Garson Kanin script is that there is little difference between the sexes. During the trial, Hepburn puts three women on the stand. They have no relevance to the case, except that they have all succeeded in "masculine" fields. Hepburn makes a circus of the trial, enraging Tracy. Tracy is clearly the more sympathetic of the protagonists.

The basic story is good, and served as a premise for an "Adam's Rib" television series in 1973. The script received an Oscar nomination, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Judy Holliday their Best Actress award.

kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html

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