WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942)

After BRINGING UP BABY and HOLIDAY tagged Katharine Hepburn ‘box-office poison’ in 1938 (failures that now seem incomprehensible), Hepburn lured playwright Philip Barry to fashion PHILADELPHIA STORY as a comeback vehicle for her, bringing a society goddess down a notch or two after two acts of worship.  Audiences flocked; Kate controlled the rights; M-G-M had a top-grossing pic; Hepburn followed with five top-twenty films in the next five years: PHILADELPHIA/’41; WotY/’42; KEEPER OF THE FLAME/’43; DRAGON SEED/’44; WITHOUT LOVE/’45*.  WOMAN has an original story by Ring Lardner Jr & Michael Kanin but largely holds to Barry’s Goddess brought down game-plan.  But where PHILLY used three suitors to admire her, and a wandering dad she stoops to forgive, here Spencer Tracy’s  beer-and-pretzels sports columnist handles all sides of the quadrangle as one, falling hard and butting heads with Kate’s globe-trotting champagne-and-caviar world events editorialist.  A set up for their first pairing, but, at its best, exceptionally well staged by George Stevens when he’s not indulging in slow-boil comedy shtick.  (Having started in film with Laurel & Hardy, Stevens thought he could teach anyone to play Laurel & Hardy routines.)  Not without its obvious shortcuts, and a pandering finale for Hepburn to make a mess out of breakfast, but the chemistry between the leads is positively combustible, paving over cracks playwright Barry never would have allowed.  Oh . . . and Hepburn never looked more ravishing.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Her other Barry adaptation, WITHOUT LOVE/’45, about a companionate marriage that warms up, is the second worst Tracy/Hepburn pairing.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/12/without-love-1945.html    OR: Stevens, and just about all involved, claimed the embarrassing finale only added after a troubled preview.  But was it?  The ‘but-can-she-cook?’ motif is twice foreshadowed: on the phone with Spencer, Mom asks if his intended knows how to cook; then brought up once more when Tracy shows his stuff with eggs at the stovetop.  In addition, Stevens’ previous Hepburn pic, ALICE ADAMS/’35, also climaxes on a kitchen disaster, though not entirely of Kate’s making.