This delight from director George Stevens was the first Tracy/Hepburn collaboration and as we all know by now, they fell in love.
That the film doesn't always portray them as a loving couple is down to their superb acting - they had to act as though they hated each other at times.
Back at the time, during WW2 (film was released in 1942) and with women having more and more general employment, due to the men having been conscripted, many could see possibly a situation where the woman wore the trousers, to coin an outdated expression. We have Ms Hepburn, running here and there - the film starts with press releases telling us that she is interviewing Winston Churchill - she is a very important and much in demand person.
Similar in a way to their later 'Adam's Rib', we have in the other corner, an everyday bloke, set in his ways and here he is someone who has a very male-dominated profession - that of a sports correspondent. Naturally, Tess (Hepburn) who's extremely intelligent and inquisitive, wants to know the ins and outs of baseball. She tries to enter and understand his world.
Naturally, this all causes slight havoc. She's always got her personal assistant hanging round her. She never knows which senior politician is going to phone her up - or when. Then, she is voted "Woman Of the Year". Her fiancé, Sam (Tracy) should be delighted. But isn't. The dreams he had of a normal, happy marriage slips further away from him....
The narrative flow IS a bit lumpy - there are scenes - the final kitchen scene is in real-time and we just let it unfold naturally - but that's what life - and love - is often about. I rather like the way it is broken up by changing tempos and situations, being more natural and as a result, the pair seem very real to us.
Some fans of the two actors believe that this is their best pairing, others think Adam's Rib is. I'm going to go for the second, myself, as it is slightly cleverer and the story is a touch stronger. Never-the- less, this is still extraordinarily good film-making and a fine movie.
I watched the DVD as part of the Tracy/Hepburn 4 disc boxset.
That the film doesn't always portray them as a loving couple is down to their superb acting - they had to act as though they hated each other at times.
Back at the time, during WW2 (film was released in 1942) and with women having more and more general employment, due to the men having been conscripted, many could see possibly a situation where the woman wore the trousers, to coin an outdated expression. We have Ms Hepburn, running here and there - the film starts with press releases telling us that she is interviewing Winston Churchill - she is a very important and much in demand person.
Similar in a way to their later 'Adam's Rib', we have in the other corner, an everyday bloke, set in his ways and here he is someone who has a very male-dominated profession - that of a sports correspondent. Naturally, Tess (Hepburn) who's extremely intelligent and inquisitive, wants to know the ins and outs of baseball. She tries to enter and understand his world.
Naturally, this all causes slight havoc. She's always got her personal assistant hanging round her. She never knows which senior politician is going to phone her up - or when. Then, she is voted "Woman Of the Year". Her fiancé, Sam (Tracy) should be delighted. But isn't. The dreams he had of a normal, happy marriage slips further away from him....
The narrative flow IS a bit lumpy - there are scenes - the final kitchen scene is in real-time and we just let it unfold naturally - but that's what life - and love - is often about. I rather like the way it is broken up by changing tempos and situations, being more natural and as a result, the pair seem very real to us.
Some fans of the two actors believe that this is their best pairing, others think Adam's Rib is. I'm going to go for the second, myself, as it is slightly cleverer and the story is a touch stronger. Never-the- less, this is still extraordinarily good film-making and a fine movie.
I watched the DVD as part of the Tracy/Hepburn 4 disc boxset.