That was an excellent one.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Woman of the Year is famous for many reasons, all of them falling under the heading of the off-screen romance it spawned. Katharine Hepburn, the famous feminist pioneer, and a married Spencer Tracy fell in love on the set, and their twenty-five year affair was one of the most famous Hollywood romances ever. Rumor has it that Katharine Hepburn's first words to her costar were that she was too tall for him, and Joe Mankiewicz reassured her, "Don't worry, honey. He'll soon cut you down to size." That quote sums up Woman of the Year perfectly.In the film, Kate and Spence clash during their first meeting. They work for the same newspaper and have different worldviews. Then, of course, they fall in love. In one famous scene, Spence takes her to a baseball game, and while he starts out having to explain every little detail to her about the rules, by the end, she's yelling herself hoarse and rooting for the right team. The meat of the film is a dramatic battle-of-the-sexes, much like their off-screen personas. Kate is a feminist at heart and doesn't want to change, even after she switches her role from woman to wife. Spence is an old-fashioned man and likes the gender roles the way they are. As the pair strives to remain a couple, they expose 1940s moviegoers to a new societal struggle: feminism.There are lots of reasons to rent this classic if you haven't yet seen it. It's a classic romance—films that involve an off-screen couple are always fun to watch—and it represents a very interesting cultural shift in the twentieth century. When the men were off fighting in WWII, women stayed home and, in essence, took over. They learned they could be breadwinners and have careers, and they enjoyed their independence. Gender roles and romantic responsibilities would never be the same again. Woman of the Year introduces that concept before the end of the war, warning audiences of the impending change.

With the help of the New York Public Library and the DVD wing of Netflix, I have set out to try and watch every movie on the top 100 list of the American Film Institute. As with any venture, however, there are some side roads one takes on the road to the final destination. I was looking through the AFI top ten romantic comedies a few years ago and realized I have never seen Adam's Rib. My wife and I loved the pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn so much that this summer I decided we ought to try out every move with the famous duo.Tonight we watched Woman of the Year (1942) directed by George Stevens and starring Hepburn and Tracy. Having recently also finished Five Came Back on Netflix about the lives of five major directors who put their careers on hold to make propaganda films during World War II, I was eager to view this film as a lens into Stevens pre-war movie career.The movie, the first to star Tracy and Hepburn together, starts the two off as rivals, but they quickly fall for each other in spite of their competitiveness. They fall quite quickly for one another for reasons not immediately clear to the audience. My wife and I were both confused at first as to why they were falling for one another. I suspended my disbelief for the sake of the story and their on- screen chemistry almost forced the romance with their long glances and intimate moments. Still yet, I had trouble following the motivations of the characters.The writing itself was probably revolutionary for the time, but the story feels too much like an indictment of Hepburn's character who wins "Woman of the Year" despite the fact that she does very little that would be stereotypically "female" for the time period. Without giving away too much of the plot in the review, Hepburn's lack of "womanness" causes many problems in their marriage and her pursuit of what might later be called feminism often leaves Spencer in the dust. She looks down on Spencer's sports column as small potatoes as compared to her important work (including humanitarian aid during World War II). She speaks multiple languages and is constantly being pulled away from Spencer in a kind of role reversal where the woman is a workaholic.In a series of events, Hepburn finally "realizes" what she has with Spencer and there is a kind of rapprochement that feels dated when watched by a modern audience and a bit out of touch. By the end, I almost don't want the two of them together and the story does not necessarily lead to a happily ever after (much is left up to the audience to decide for themselves).Overall, the movie is a bit long and it drags in places. Some of the scenes feel cobbled together and the Spencer and Tracy really save the script with their good acting rather than the other way around. I was really rooting for the two characters, but almost in an abstract way because I love the idea of Hepburn and Tracy together. If I had to choose to watch any Spencer/Hepburn duo movie, I would still choose Adam's Rib or State of the Union over this one. Still, I did enjoy some of the understated acting especially on the part of Spencer Tracy and I loved the idea behind Katherine Hepburn's character. The role reversal was a clever idea, but perhaps needed a better writer or a cutting of some of the fat to make a truly great movie. This movie, in light of modern sexism and woman's right movements, ought to be remade for a modern audience.

I saw Woman of the Year again a few weeks ago, when I happened to be reading The Good Earth, Pearl Buck's award-winning novel from 1931. As I watched WotY, I kept getting the feeling that Hepburn's character was at least in part a send-up of some woman then in the spot-light, the way Kaufman and Hart's The Man who came to Dinner from three years before was a send-up, in part, of Alexander Woollcott. When I started to read about Buck after finishing The Good Earth, I was convinced that the inspiration for Tess Harding, in addition to Mrs. Roosevelt, may well have been Pearl Buck. I've now read a biography of Buck, and I'm more convinced than ever that Garson Kanin and Ring Lardner had Buck in mind when developing the role of Tess, the woman who spoke with world leaders, championed adoption of war-refugee children, etc.Buck's last years were very sad, almost pitiful. She allowed herself to be used, financially and otherwise, by several young men who knew how to play to her very large ego and view of herself as "a very important woman." There is, perhaps, a sequel of sorts to be made to "Woman of the Year" that would make use of what became of such a woman in later life. It would have to maintain at least some of WotY's humor, though, or it would become too pitiful.Below is my original review of Woman of the Year, before I made the connection with Pearl Buck.----------------------------------------This is really one very fine movie. The dialogue is uniformly intelligent, the acting first-rate all around. My only problem with it is that it states the "moral" of the movie in a sentence at the end and then never goes anywhere with it.It is the story of Tess Harding, a female Sheridan Whitesides, a woman who knows every important figure in world politics and can keep up with the best of them. She is very bright, and very admired, and she knows it and is fascinated by it.Then she falls in love with someone from a different, far less glamorous world - although Sam Craig is an important sports reporter, and certainly not the Joe Average he is made out to be. Tess doesn't know how to carry on a relationship, giving it the time and devotion necessary. At first she gives it short shrift and, of course, it suffers. Sam leaves her. Then she decides to switch, and tries to become a mindless housewife - at which she is a complete failure.Sam tells her that he wants something in between, and the movie ends.That's the problem. No, Tess shouldn't have to give up her career and her intellectual life to be a wife. But how would a woman go about balancing the two? That the movie never shows. It cops out and comes to a quick end instead.As I said, this is an intelligent script with great acting. It's a joy to watch from beginning to end. But it spends the whole movie setting up the problem of how an intelligent, ambitious young woman might balance career and family life, and then never considers how it might be done.Not to be missed: the kitchen scene where Tess displays an astounding ignorance of even the basic culinary knowledge.

From their first moment on screen together the rapport between Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy couldn't be more obvious, but it's too bad their chemistry wasn't better served by more dynamic direction. The formula romantic comedy plot moves like clockwork, with Hepburn and Tracy very much in character playing a globetrotting political journalist and an old-style sports reporter; the two meet, marry, and only then realize how little (besides love) they have in common. A half-century ago the scenario might have been fresh, but don't be too sure. It was produced in 1942, but under the deliberate (heavy-handed, to be less polite) direction of George Stevens the film looks like it was made a decade earlier. The best reason to see it today is to simply enjoy the ease with which its two stars play off each other.