November and December 2009
| November and December's featured DVDs are Adam's Rib, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Woman of the Year . Spencer Tracy (1900-1967) and Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) are the most celebrated and enduring romantic screen couple in movie history. They were first teamed in 1942 in Woman of the Year, and the chemistry between the two was obvious to moviegoers. Tracy and Hepburn went on to make eight more movies together, including Adam's Rib in 1949 and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967. Extreme opposites in background, taste, and acting techniques, Tracy and Hepburn formed a remarkable team. Not only were they partners on screen, but off screen as well for 27 years. | |
| Woman of the Year (1942) is the romantic comedy that first paired Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Tracy stars as a sportswriter and Hepburn plays a famous political commentator who writes for the world affairs section of the same newspaper. They fall in love and marry, but they have difficulty reconciling their wildly divergent lifestyles. Directed by George Stevens, the film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Ring Lardner, Jr. and Michael Kanin. Woman of the Year is brimming with wit, style, and sophistication and proved to be a smash hit at the box office. | |
| Adam's Rib (1949) is the sixth film in which Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn appeared together, and it is one of their most successful collaborations. It's a smart, sophisticated romantic comedy about married lawyers on opposing sides of the same attempted murder case. As the two use every technique they know to win the case, the courtroom tension carries over into the couple's personal lives. Adam's Rib is considered one of Hollywood's classic comedies about the battle of the sexes. It was written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor. | |
| Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) marks the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Ill with emphysema during shooting, Tracy died of a heart attack 17 days after filming ended. The couple star as wealthy Californians who consider themselves progressive, until their only daughter (Hepburn's real-life niece, Katharine Houghton) brings home her black fianc (Sidney Poitier), a brilliant research physician. Directed by Stanley Kramer, the film deals with the controversial subject of interracial marriage and is a snapshot of race relations in the late 1960s. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner became the most successful picture at the box office that either Tracy or Hepburn had ever appeared in, together or apart. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, with Hepburn winning for Best Actress and William Rose for Best Screenplay. It is said that Hepburn never saw the completed film, because it evoked memories of Tracy that were too painful for her. | |
To learn more about these two award-winning actors, check out Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir, written in 1971 by their close friend, Garson Kanin. Hepburn, a very private person, was furious with Kanin for recording such personal anecdotes about her and Tracy's personal lives. In fact, she was so angry that she went for two decades without speaking to Kanin!
Written by Christine Zuger and Ben Davis