The human race is having a nervous breakdown

Do you believe in equal rights for women? Adam’s Rib (1949, George Cukor) is a courtroom romcom that asks us to consider a topic that’s always been fertile for laughs: the double standards that exist between the male and female sexes.

     Mother of 2 treated like shit by her husband. He beats her. He cheats on her. She infiltrates love nest and opens fire. He’s lightly wounded. The other woman uninjured. ADAM (Spencer Tracy) is old fashioned. He believes men and women are different. His wife AMANDA (Katherine Hepburn) believes in equality. Anything a man can do a woman can do better. If a man catches his wife cheating and kills her it’s sad. But if a woman were to catch her husband cheating and kills him it’s horrifying. Why? What’s the difference?
     Adam’s the prosecuting attorney. Amanda’s defending MRS. ATTINGER (Judy Holliday). The defendant is found not guilty. In her closing argument there’s a scene where Amanda asks the jury to consider sexual relativism. There’s a tribe somewhere where the female sex rule and the males are subservient. And “every living being is capable of attack if adequately provoked.”
     During her closing remarks though we also get a series of singles on the other woman, Mrs. Attinger and Mrs. Attinger where the jury is asked to consider them for a moment as if they were the other sex. So three consecutive shots where each of them transforms into the binary counterpart gender to that of their trad cis one. And in the movie, in the court case, the point is to see that Mrs. Attinger would get away with it; free of our stringent moral condemnation, were she a man. However. In a way something else happens.
     When each of the two women are in their drag king shots—thanks to John Waters movies for where I picked up that term—there’s something dramatic about it. Serious. They’re dashing. But when it’s finally on Tommy Ewell, in drag, he’s a clown act. He looks ridiculous. Of course it’s played for laughs. But I think it brings up an interesting point to ponder about society. Am I allowed to say that there are trans and nonbinary people that I’ve taken seriously, yet there have also been times when that initial reaction has been less so?

 

Adam and Amanda have a dream domestic life together. I derive so much comfort vicariously when he’s going through the fridge and sorting through the lamb, chutney, wine and on a whim they decide on curry. They’re happy. The get along at home and argue in court.
     After the verdict they’re on the rocks. The neighbor is coming onto her and Adam busts in pistol drawn. Amanda breaks down and decries “Adam, no one has a right to [murder their spouse].” So Amanda won the legal argument, but Adam won the moral argument. Tricky?
     They reconcile. At home Adam mentions running on some Republican platform, to which Amanda counters that she’s interested in running against him as a Dem. Adam then threatens to cry if she does. She’s incredulous. He proves to her that when he cried during the legal division of their assets with the accountant as part of their divorce he was faking. The final word in the movie is that the whole time some part of Adam has known there’s not really that much of a difference between the sexes.
     But they both agree to the compromise that there is. A little difference. And I’ve always thought Americans, if not all people, are wired in some way to respond to a good fight between two opposing forces. They will it into existence. Like a boxing match. Like all the sports between two teams. Democrat vs Republican. Men vs Women. Prosecution vs Defense. God and the Devil. Good vs Evil. Adam and Eve. Free will vs human nature. Will and representation. Spirit vs the flesh. Shot reverse shot. Film and video.

With the rich and mighty always a little patience

If I haven’t exceeded my capacity for superlative esteem beyond meaning The Philadelphia Story (1940, George Cukor) my friends is the most perfect film Hollywood has ever made to gift us with the uh stuff that dreams are made of. The dream of true love to be precise. It’s self-reflexive in that it both expresses a disdain for the American public’s pathetic moronic indulgence in tabloid celebrity gossip rag culture while allowing us into the ultimate inner lives expose of the young, rich, good-looking trying desperately to hide away from the public light couple as we steal our very own voyeuristic intrusion into their world. The Philadelphia Story is a domestic psychological dissection of the female mind and her growth into maturity screwball luxury excursion drama away into the seas of the wealthy class, which makes that rarest of all forays, sympathizing with them, allowing us to empathize with them, understand true love through them, and most importantly of all to laugh with them. 

     If Lubitsch shows us how sex is luxury, George Cukor distances us from the wealthy so that we can appreciate love’s high price tag without necessarily needing to let us take it home ourselves; so that next time we go shopping we’re a little better discerning in how we go about it. Cukor feels like our own American Lubitsch. Lubitsch is the Riviera. Cukor is Mid-Atlantic.
     In The Philadelphia Story the middle-class journalists mock the decadence and refinement of the upper-class household. But they also want to be a part of it. There’s no rags to riches Cinderella crap here. They can’t. And by the end they’ve stopped making jokes about them. That’s the arc. But there’s also this aspect to the narrative whereby the family is blackmailed by the tabloid to allow the tabloid to sneak a spread of their wedding, but have the tables turned on them, yet just at the moment they’ve taken the spoils, the final twist ending is that the tabloid loses the high stakes but still walks away with what they came for—and sell it to us with the end superimposed over our gluttonous eye candy. That’s the pitch-black noir-tinged screwball edge: the house always wins. 
     C.K. DEXTER HAVEN (Cary Grant) is screwball characteristically alpha. Everyone in the family acknowledges his binge drinking and wife beating in the most charming light. When the little girl mentions the violent assaults she’s full of glee and phrases it like “I wonder if he’s gonna sock her again?” TRACY LORD (Katherine Hepburn) is confronted with the truth by her father in Act II when he tells her she’s a prig who lacks an understanding heart. These aren’t Lubitsch ideal lovers. They’re deeply flawed. They’re relatable because they’re human. But we see them working on becoming better people. They are exemplary of the truth that love takes work.
     It’s also cool how in The Philadelphia Story the Ralph is actually a loser. When KITTRIDGE tells Tracy she’s a goddess and he wants to worship her, it isn’t how sweet, it’s how nauseating. The Ralph is typically neutral or naïve, but Kittridge is repulsive. Most of The Philadelphia Story is posh indulgence interspersed with flights of sublime wit; but there’s always that cynical bloodthirsty clawed wild nature of it all just slightly underneath. Hearth fires and holocausts is right.
     My favorite gag is when MIKE and LIZ are invited outside for sherry with the family. The sound of Liz’s camera shutter snapping offscreen with the cut revealing each shot subsequently gets increasingly off-putting to the point of aggravation. When Cukor films the wide with Tracy kicking over the table and breaking Liz’s camera that’s the kind of robust cathartic laugh which utilizes the reserve energy of the aggravation to fuel the explosion. An exhaust valve is therapeutic.
     Finally for me Tracy is my way into all this and the star in every sense. The way Act III is entirely Tracy hungover and piecing together what occurred during her blackout the night before is revelatory. She’s the light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long emotionally. Right there with you Tracy. That final exchange between Tracy and Dext tells us everything we need to understand what makes this picture work so well: “How do I look?” “Like a queen. Like a goddess.” “How do I feel? Like a human being.” 

What man has done man can do

Adding to the list I’m compiling of characteristic screwball elements how could I forget lavish digs? Especially when it’s someone who’s new to the life led by people with tons of money. Rags to riches is one of the oldest premises though. I was surprised when I first realized Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986, Paul Mazursky) is a remake of a 30s Renoir film.
     Oh and snap judgements. Meeting a complete stranger for the first time and then instantly deciding to get engaged or married. Mark it part of the list. And mental illness as a comedic device.

Holiday (1938, George Cukor) is a prestige picture adapted from the stage heavy philosophical romance film situated among the American capitalist ruling class interrogating its ethics in the domestic sphere. The tone is serious. Vacillates between tender pathos and maudlin pining. It's set in this gorgeous amazing enormous palatial mansion. But like The Philadelphia Story (1940, Cukor) also adapted from the stage, you might like me sometimes be bummed like oh great we’re stuck in this set for the whole thing.
     JOHNNY CASE (Cary Grant) meets a rich socialite on the streets of New York and impulsively they get engaged that very moment. What happened to when people used to be this decisive? When he shows up in her mansion and Katherine Hepburn is playing LINDA the sister, we know its she who will end up with Grant’s character because they’re both big stars, Grant can’t marry the nobody. It’s not a spoiler. Just look at the poster. 
     Neither of the parents approve of the engagement. (Well Johnny doesn’t have parents but he has these cool eccentric friends NICK and SUSAN and Nick is played by Edward Everett Horton). But it’s JULIA’S business tycoon (do people still use that word?) father who has a major problem with Johnny’s “strange new spirited type of work today. A spirit of revolt.” Is the rich dad’s objection coded as being opposed to Marxism? But so okay Holiday deals with some real hefty stakes: love bundled with noble virtue ideology pending the approval of the rich family. Unless that is, if you disapprove of Johnny’s life goals.
     Johnny’s self made. Been working since he was 10. Wants to earn a small fortune so that by 30 he can stop working and go after his goal of finding out what life’s really about. There’s no way Julia or her rich father are going to be okay with this. And we know he’s going to end up with Linda anyway. But what about Linda? She’s supposedly deranged. The family doesn’t let her out of the playroom because it’s too risky she’s likely to cause a scene in front of guests. The film leaves it to our imagination though. We never know what she suffers from or anything about her history. Those events are only ever vaguely referred to. Her mental illness isn't played for laughs in this movie. There are a few close-ups of Hepburn in the playroom near the end of Act II where her tears sparkle like the diamonds in her necklace and her distantly removed forlorn yearning tell us what she wants, who she wants.
     This thing is so well acted. And I’m invested and moved and all for the crazy rich black sheep daughter and the freethinker who doesn’t want to work going off sailing into the happily ever after. But sometimes the whole message about how money being the god of the rest of the family is too heavy handed. That’s my only quibble. Doesn’t stop me from cherishing it as a totally satisfying escapist love story depicting a dream after my own heart.