Woman of the Year (1942)

Woman of the Year
Directed by George Stevens
Written by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin
1942/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sam Craig: I don’t want to be married to Tess Harding any more than I want you to be just Mrs Sam Craig. Why can’t you be Tess Harding Craig?

Tess Harding: I think it’s a wonderful name.[/box]

This was the first of the nine pictures in which Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were paired and the beginning of one of Hollywood’s most iconic love affairs.  Their chemistry fairly explodes from the screen.

Tess Harding (Hepburn) is multi-talented, multi-lingual and knows everybody who is anybody.  She is a political columnist on a New York paper.  During a radio interview she is asked who will win the World Series and replies that people should put such frivolous things as sports aside for the duration.  Sam Craig (Tracy), the sports columnist on the same paper, is mightily offended by this and the two start sparing in their columns.  But when Sam actually meets Tess the attraction is instantaneous.  He asks her out to a baseball game and she falls for him too.  After some very romantic scenes they marry.

Married life is nothing like what Sam expected or wanted.  Tess is in such demand that they can hardly get a moment alone together, even on their wedding night.  And Tess, despite her true love for Sam, doesn’t seem to understand that there are two people to take into account now.  The final straw comes when she adopts a little Greek refugee without asking Sam about it.  Can such a marriage ever work out?  With Fay Bainter as Tracy’s aunt.

I had seen so many clips from this film in documentaries that I was sure I had seen it before.  Not so and it has become a new favorite.  I hope Tracy’s wife didn’t see it since it is very clear that the two are madly in love.  This is one of those rare romantic comedies that is also mature and intelligent at the same time.  I absolutely loved it.  Highly recommended.

Woman of the Year won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay. Katharine Hepburn was nominated as Best Actress.

Tracy and Hepburn meet for the first time in a movie