FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

I was skeptical about watching this movie at first because I have this common misconception that anything filmed in black and white is boring (even though a few of my favorite movies are in black and whiteI dont know why I still hold to this myth, but I guess old habits die hard). I am also not too thrilled about Katherine Hepburn. It mostly has to do with her distinctive voice, which I dont vehemently dislike; its more like casual annoyance. But I had just recently seen and enjoyed Cary Grant in North By Northwest and I have always been a fan of James Stewart since growing up with Its a Wonderful Life as obligatory Christmas-season viewing. And not only are both actors featured in the movie, but Stewart also won the Academy Award for Best Actor in his role; so I decided to give it a whirl.

You are invited to the wedding of Tracy Lord (Hepburn) and George Kittridge. Tracys ex, C.K. Dexter Haven (played by Grant, spiteful but still in love with his former spouse), arrives at her familys mansion the day before the wedding, with a writer and a photographer from Spy magazine. Writer, Mike Conner (Stewart) and photographer, Liz Imbrie, are instructed by Haven to pretend to be cousins of the Lord family so that they may stay as guests in the mansion and report on the famous heiress wedding. Tracy guesses Conner and Imbries intentions and plays as though she thinks they are her cousins, when she knows that they are actually tabloid journalists.

Circumstances escalate when after a party the night before the wedding, Mike Conner and Tracy Lord end up making drunken overtures of love to one another in the mansions garden. Imagine how both George and Dexter feel when they see Mike carrying Tracy, both in bath robes, with Mike loudly slurring Somewhere Over the Rainbow. As a natural reaction, one of them punches Mike in the face. And youll never guess who it was. By this point in the movie, Tracy has been alternately in love with each of the three male leads, and additionally they are all in love with her simultaneously! And just how is a girl to choose from three dashing men? Two of which are Cary Grant and James Stewart???

Ah, where to begin in the review. Well start with the fact that I enjoyed it thoroughly. The story was compelling, the characters were charming, and the movie was cut in such a way that I never felt as though my time was being wasted on insignificant side-plots. I was also impressed at the intricacy of the plotthe twists, the turns, and the way things worked out in the end. Another of my faults, in addition to assuming that all black and white movies are boring, is that I also used to believe that all of their plots were simple and juvenile. I like when I am proven wrong in this regard.

Knowing some of the history behind the film also made me appreciate it more. Trivia such as there was only time for one take for each scene. Everything was done in one. Hepburn executed a swan dive into a pool without a stunt double (AND in one take!). I was especially enthralled with a scene where Stewart starts to ad-lib some of his drunken lines to Grants character by adding hiccups in between pauses. Seeing Jimmy Stewart hiccupping and slurring while Cary Grant sat by, obviously trying hard to deliver his lines, a smile cracking at the sides of his lips and avoiding eye-contact with Stewart so he didnt totally lose it, was probably the most entertaining thing Id seen in a long time. I think the knowledge enhanced my experience, made me feel a greater connection to the movie, knowing the story behind the hilarious scene. It was like having an inside joke with two of the greatest actors of all time. My only tiny qualm is that the movie seemed to end too soon.

Bottom Line: Would watch the movie again. Would quote the movie. Would consider adding it to my DVD collection.

Four and a Half out of Five Stars. (half star deducted for the itty-bitty slight bias I have against Hepburn)

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