Customer Reviews

Adam's Rib (Full Screen)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This late 40's classic film gives us an early glimpse of activism and emerging feminism of the 70's. Tracy and especially Hepburn are rivetting. Amazon delivered on time 3 days after order (in Canada)

Katharine Hepburn is invariably described as one of the greatest screen legends of all time, and this film embodies all of her classic screen qualities. It is romantic, hilarious, and has a relevant message, even to the modern viewer. I highly recommend this film. She and Tracy had incredible chemistry on screen in all their films, but this (and "Woman of the Year") are my all-time favorites.

Hepburn is feisty and Tracy is exhasperated. That seems to be the theme here. She rants and he simmers. She's progressive and he's old fashioned. Intelligent dialogue and good acting keep this somewhat dated battle of the sexes moving along. They made 9 movies together and this is probably the best, though I enjoy Woman of the Year. Knowing now what America didn't know then makes their pairing seem incongruous. Odd that such an independent outspoken and intelligent feminist such as Hepburn would hitch her cart to an adulterous drunk for a quarter of a century.

This movie was excellant. The acting was superb and the story was phenomenol. I love the last scene I could not stop laughing. Great movie. One of my favorite Hepburn/Tracy movies.

Although I'm a big Tracy fan and enjoyed this movie quite a bit, I didn't find the rapid-fire dialog quite as sharp and witty as most, but it's still a fine movie. If you want to find razor-sharp, fast-moving dialog, try the Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster film, "The Sweet Smell of Success." The hard-hitting, corrosive, and rapid-fire dialog in that movie virtually singes the air, remembered long after the movie has ended, although it's a much more serious movie and not intended to be funny as with this one.

But getting back to the present flick, if there was a longer or more charismatic on-screen romance than Tracy and Hepburn, I don't know what it is, and they bring that chemistry once again to the silver screen in this movie. Their rivalry in the murder case becomes the talk of the town as well as in their bedroom, and Tracy is great as the dutiful husband who suffers Hepburns' barbs and diatribes about everything from his job to women's rights with a sort of calm, stoic exasperatedness, although she finally gets his goat and gets a rise out of him on more than one occasion. And Hepburn is equally great in her role also, as the smart, upbeat, and driven defense attorney who champions the accused woman's cause.

The movie deals surprisingly well with many women's rights and equality issues considering this is 1949, and women who think feminism and women's lib was invented in the early to mid-60's would do well to watch this film, which came out almost 15 years earlier. So overall, still a fun classic and well worth your time especially if you're a Tracy or Hepburn fan. They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Adam's Rib (black and white; running time 101 minutes; not rated) stars two of the greatest Academy Award winning actors of our time, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. This movie was directed by George Cukor in 1949 for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In a very comical and humorous way, Adam's Rib explores equal rights for women and the question of who wears the pants in a marriage.

When a wife is accused of the attempted murder of her unfaithful husband, Assistant District Attorney Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) lands the case. Little does he know that soon his wife, Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn), who is also an attorney, will be defending the accused wife and using equality for women as the main defense. Amanda Bonner wants to know, "What's the difference?". She submits that if the accused had been a man whose wife was being unfaithful, everyone would believe he was attempting to save his marriage, while her client is accused of trying to kill her husband. As the trial progresses, so does the animosity and competitiveness between the attorneys, which in turn causes a strain on their otherwise happy marriage. The sparing between the two attorneys culminates in the hilarious closing arguments of the trial. The accused wife is found not guilty and Amanda Bonner has won her case--or has she? Adam Bonner is able to use his wily ways to get Amanda back which will leave unanswered the question, "Who wears the pants?".

This film is rated five stars (*****). This classic romantic comedy will leave you with a smile on your face. The comic interaction between Tracy and Hepburn is engaging and unforgettable.

This classic 1949 comedy will go far toward explaining what was so charismatic about the on-screen pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The set-up is perfect for their rapid-fire style of verbal dueling: they play a married team of lawyers on opposing sides of a high-profile case. George Cukor directed this marvelous comedy from Hollywood's so-called Golden Era, and it still pulls at the sensibilities of modern viewers with its sophisticated portrayal of gender politics. Screen pairings (which of course, in this case, represented their affair off-screen, as well) don't get any better than this.

This is my absolute favorite. The court room antics, the chemistry between the two and a clever story line. I can't see how you'd go wrong with this one, fun from start to end.

I thought the actors were better than the script, and I thought the script was artificial, wooden and deadly dull. It simply was not funny. I didn't even care much for Judy Holliday (the only reason I watched and then kept a copy of this DVD), who, incidentally, did NOT win an Oscar for this flick! Hepburn was one of the kindest human beings in the theater (in the world!) and Tracy has long been a hero of mine, I love them both, but not in this fast-talking turkey. Only two things got my interest. What was Holliday's intention and did she kill Ewell at the start (I guess that's two things right there), and how did they manage the transexual metamorphoses at the end. I really didn't like it. Really.

The Tracy-Hepburn duo was never better than in this supremely witty, often laugh-out-loud comedy of two lawyers on opposite sides of the courtroom involved in an attempted murder case with the classic love triangle. The triangulators? Tom Ewell, Jean Hagen, and Judy Holiday--all in their first films. The lawyers? Why, Tracy and Hepburn of course--married to each other. Hep, the defense attorney, takes the case to vent her opinions on women's lib--one of the first films to lay it all out in the open on the subject. She defends poor little Judy, the wronged wife. Spence, the ADA, prosecutes to prove that Judy is nowhere near as innocent as she claims.

The back and forth here is so sharp you could cut yourself just listening to the lines. And there's the back and forth of courtroom and homefront, too. Hep and Spence go at it in both places and the lines supplied by real life husband-wife team of Ruth Gordon (Harold and Maude) and Garson Kanin are deliciously zingy so much of the time you eat em up even as your tongue is bleeding. Just too cool.

Amazing that this film has not aged at all. One of the great comedy classics and sure to remain so. If I could give this a sky full of stars, I would.

Zingalicious.