AFI #44: The Philadelphia Story (1940)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on October 1, 2021 and ABC Central Victoria on October 4, 2021.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas were closed and I had to review something, and now I can't stop until I finish.

(PG) ★★★

Director: George Cukor.

Cast: Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, Virginia Weidler, Henry Daniell. 

The photographer was hiding in a posy of rhododendrons.

Some things age well - good wines, certain cheeses, Buster Keaton's The General, the music of David Bowie.

Some things do not age well, and The Philadelphia Story is on that list.

It's a great pity. It's triumvirate of stars - Hepburn, Grant, Stewart - is among the best that ever was and ever will be. And all three are great in this "quintessential screwball comedy" as it's often labelled. You know you've got a killer cast at the top of their game when a low-key Cary Grant is third fiddle.

But so much of the film has aged so poorly. Much of its humour requires a century-old dictionary and an understanding of social graces in the '30s/'40s, the sexual politics are cringingly out of date, the domestic violence jokes are sickening these days, and all of these factors ensure the weird first act really grinds. 

The story follows reporter Macaulay Connor (Stewart) and his photographer girlfriend Liz Imbrie (Hussey) as they prepare to cover the "wedding of the year" between upper class socialite Tracy Lord (Hepburn) and mining magnate George Kittredge (Howard). Thanks to some blackmail from their editor Sidney Kidd (Daniell) and some assistance from Tracy's ex-husband CK Dexter Haven (Grant), Macaulay and Liz end up staying with the Lord family as the big day approaches by posing as friends of an absent son, though their ruse is soon discovered. What happens next is a tangled web of self-discovery and analysis as people reveal their true feelings for each other.

A lot of the films on this list have captured a snapshot of a particular time and place which has stopped them from ageing, like a bug in amber. Either that or their messages have remained relevant, or their techniques have been indisputably influential. But The Philadelphia Story doesn't do any of those things. As a snapshot of an era and peoples, it's so exaggerated and small scale that it makes the film largely inscrutable these days. The class war hinted as never seems to go anywhere or say anything, and the humour of it all is lost in translation some 80 years later. It's only its pointed digs at the tabloid media that work, but even those are unbalanced and overblown.

It's influence is limited to being a great example of a mostly dead genre - the screwball comedy. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die labels it "the uncontested classic of all sophisticated slapstick comedies". Not on my watch. As far as slapstick, there are half a dozen superior Chaplin and Keaton flicks that are better, and as for screwball, Some Like It Hot leaves it for dead, and I'm hopeful It Happened One Night and Bringing Up Baby still hold up. 

The opening scene, which ends with Grant shoving Hepburn's face and pushing her to the ground, was supposedly hilarious in 1940 but is now diabolical. Two text books I own praise it for its wordless effectiveness, and while it is a prime example of the "show, don't tell" adage, its portrayal of casual domestic violence leaves a bad taste.

The first half is utterly bizarre - the Lord family knows what's going on in terms of the blackmail and act like a bunch of eccentrics, somehow thinking this will make for a good portrayal in the magazine Macaulay and Liz work for. There are a few good one-liners in there (mostly anything Liz says) but it predominantly falls flat. There's also a horrible section in the middle of the film where every key male character lines up to tell Tracy what's wrong with her, including her caddish father who excuses his infidelity as a necessary part of ageing for men.

These are the bad points. Outweighing them just enough to save the film from being a total chore are the performances, some whipsmart dialogue, and a second half that's far funnier, more enjoyable, and less forced. Sure, no one acts or talks like a real person most of the time, but The Philadelphia Story finds a new groove in the final hour that becomes infectious.

Key to it is a wonderfully drunken scene involving Grant and Stewart, followed by an intoxicated rendezvous between Stewart and Hepburn. All three actors give magnificent performances, and it seems the film's place in history is largely linked to having these icons sharing the screen. The dialogue is delicious in places, and they devour every snooty, haughty, judgey line of it.

At best, The Philadelphia Story is a tribute to these three performers, flying at the top of their game, and perhaps it can be regarded as a vague examination of the class wars and sexual politics of the '30s and '40s. But without its trio of legends, a few well-placed zingers, and some pretty patter, The Philadelphia Story would likely be long forgotten, lost in a mist of ideas and behaviours that have aged like a banana left in the sun.