The Philadelphia Story

The Hollywood Theatre showed THE PHILADELPHIA STORY recently, and though I watched it during Romancefest 2017, I couldn't include it in the lineup in good conscience since I've seen it multiple times already. Still, Jessica and I went to check it out and had a great afternoon with this sweet and hilarious classic.

I first saw THE PHILADELPHIA STORY in a film studies class in high school. I've seen it at least once more since then, and now finally, I've seen it in 35mm on the big screen. It's the famous story of a Philadelphia socialite (Katherine Hepburn) on the eve of her 2nd wedding, and her recovered alcoholic ex's (Cary Grant) attempts to disrupt the nuptials by sicking a pair of undercover reporters (James Stewart and Ruth Hussey) on the secluded family home.

It isn't long before Hepburn and her family are wise to the charade and playing a charade of their own, posing perverted Uncle (Roland Young) as estranged Dad, estranged Dad (John Halliday) as perverted Uncle and wowing the reporters with a French-speaking ballerina of a younger sister (Virginia Weidler). Stewart's disgusted that he's lowered to covering what amounts to tabloid trash, and Hepburn's disgusted that her privacy should be exposed to the press. Grant's just disgusted that Hepburn's marrying a square (John Howard).

That's not totally true -- half the charm of this flick is how Grant has basically no ill-will towards anyone. His marriage with Hepburn famously ended with a physical altercation, after which he cleaned up and went sober. Now he wants her back. He's well loved by her family, and for good reason -- he's affable and charming, even in the face of dealing with her new fiancee and Stewart as an unexpected new suitor.

The movie is funny, lightning fast, keeps you guessing, and doesn't settle for just one charade after another. The charades are soon dispensed with and the various characters are forced to work out the rest of the movie as themselves, no more plot contrivances involved, unless of course you count the presence and effect of booze on Hepburn and Stewart, but I don't. Even though this movie has three major stars in the lead roles, the entire supporting cast is great, and it's as near to a perfect movie as you can probably get.

Let's not gloss over that last thing -- the leads are all huge stars, rightfully so, bringing each of their individually unique personas and energies to play. Stewart is totally believable and sympathetic as the cynical but idealogical journalist and Grant is endlessly likable as the reformed cad who wants a second chance. Rarely is there a love triangle where you like everyone involved, and that's to the credit of this movie -- it'd be too simple if one of them was a jerk. Hepburn walks a particularly rough tight rope, able to convincingly play someone who's afraid to cut loose while also being funny. To the script's credit, the Hepburn character is told she's boring and needs to loosen up, but never bores the audience -- we're with her all the way, because she's three dimensional. Sadly, that's rare.