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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 11:47 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 11:45 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - AlanScott 10:09 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| A reader who loves ''The Philadelphia Story'' (1940) recently wrote to Mick LaSalle, movie critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. LaSalle's response: “The Philadelphia Story” is definitely an expression of its time, and in its time it was definitely perceived as a great movie. But the best movies express the truth of their time, and not the lies that people lived with and accepted as truth. That’s where “The Philadelphia Story” falls short. The movie is 112 minutes of Katharine Hepburn apologizing for being strong and having a personality. It offers the spectacle of a totally acceptable woman somehow realizing that she is, in fact, horrible, and then it celebrates her making personality adjustments to please the colossally flawed men in her life. The fun starts when the Hepburn character, Tracy Lord, criticizes her father for being a serial philanderer. The father replies … that it’s all her fault, because if she were a more loving and less disapproving daughter, he’d have had no need to seek affection from younger women. And then the mother chimes in and tells her to butt out, and we’re supposed to think that the parents are right. ''But wait, it gets better. Then Tracy gets into a dispute with her husband (Cary Grant) and alludes to his alcoholism, which derailed their marriage. Well, guess what’s also her fault? His drunkenness. And no, that’s not played for laughs, either. Basically, this is the movie’s point of view: The guys are all right, even when they’re wrong, and the woman is always wrong, even when she’s right. As such, “The Philadelphia Story” is valuable as a record of the hoops a strong woman had to jump through, circa 1940, just to placate insecure masculinity. But I can’t settle in and enjoy it as a comedy, because it’s not funny, nor as a romance, because it’s so contrary to human nature. I just see it as an interesting curio, an anthropological relic, albeit one with Cary Grant, James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn around to make the misery more tolerable.'' |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: singleticket 01:05 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - WaymanWong 11:45 am EST 11/26/18 | |
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| As such, “The Philadelphia Story” is valuable as a record of the hoops a strong woman had to jump through, circa 1940, just to placate insecure masculinity. I wonder what Mick LaSalle thinks Elizabeth Imbrie, a working woman devoid of Tracy Lord's privilege, is doing in the story. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 05:48 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - singleticket 01:05 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
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| Having lived in San Francisco for many years and having been an avid reader of the Chronicle for much of that time, I would not advise anyone to take Mick LaSalle as their authority on any cinematic subject. That said, The Philadelphia Story does present two major problems to potential revivers on the stage, or so it seems to me. The major one, I think, is that the play was originally commissioned by Hepburn and expressly written as a vehicle for her. She can make it work by riding right over its rough spots with the force of her personality. It would be unlikely that anyone else would be able to do that quite so well with this particular material; other plays and musicals written originally as star vehicles tend not to revive well either without the stars they were tailored for. (Holiday, which--I agree with those below--is a stronger play, was not written as a vehicle for Hepburn.) There is also the problem that the play's underlying attitude--explicitly stated at one point--that the very rich somehow need ***extra*** tolerance and indulgence, more so than other people, is not exactly timely in the 21st century. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: singleticket 06:04 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - keikekaze 05:48 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
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| There is also the problem that the play's underlying attitude--explicitly stated at one point--that the very rich somehow need ***extra*** tolerance and indulgence, more so than other people, is not exactly timely in the 21st century. In the play or the film, do you think? I haven't read the play. I have read HOLIDAY and THE ANIMAL KINGDOM which I wouldn't say have any special pleading for the wealthy as much as an apt understanding of the price of wealth. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 06:24 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - singleticket 06:04 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
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| I confess I haven't read the play in ages, and I was thinking of a certain line in the movie version when I made my comment above. That exact line may not be in the play--but I suspect that something very much like it is, as I don't think Stewart would have taken such liberties with Barry as to reverse the meaning of something, or to introduce a new theme. | |
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