- Where'd you pick all that up anyway?
- Oh, I've been around Physical Ed. for years.
- Physical Ed? Who's he?
An entertaining script and wonderful performances from Katharine Hepburn (Pat, the athlete) and Spencer Tracy (Mike, her manager) made this one a delight. I liked seeing Tracy in the role of a crooked promoter, and Hepburn has lots of fine moments reacting to the stress around her - her overbearing boyfriend (William Ching), her performance anxiety when he watches her, and the strict regimen her manager puts her on. It's well paced by George Cukor its 95 minutes, and has lots of little things I liked:
- The cool sequence where he shows what a tennis match might look like to someone suffering a breakdown, including a net that just keeps higher and a racket that gets teeny (while the opponent's is huge).
- Seeing Hepburn golfing and playing tennis, as well as the cameos from real athletes of the era, most notably Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Don Budge.
- The amusing moments from the supporting cast, some examples of which were how the sidekick butts in to make obvious points, the waiter who starts talking to himself after Mike keeps changing Pat's order, and how the three gangsters leave after they've had their glasses of milk (one of whom is a young Charles Bronson).
- The message of empowerment to women. We see so much of what's going on through Hepburn's character, and I loved her strength. The film has a regrettable moment of cautioning her against going "too far" (Tracy's character getting bent out of shape after she rescues him, and then saying "I like a he to be a he and a she to be a she"), but overall there's a message of feminism here (what fantastic final lines!), and maybe that's one of the reasons this was Hepburn's favorite of the nine films she made with Tracy.
- The other messages the film offers: find someone in life who makes you feel comfortable with yourself, and that competition is sometimes about beating yourself as much as it is about the other guy.
- "It's the same in this case, buster. You are the wrong jockey for this chick."