#867: STEVENS, George: Woman Of The Year (1942)
STEVENS, George (United States)
Woman Of The Year [1942]
Spine #867
Blu-ray
114 minutes
The Booklet
Woman Of The Year [1942]
Spine #867
Blu-ray
George Stevens's Woman of the Year, conceived to build on the smashing comeback Katharine Hepburn had made in The Philadelphia Story, marked the beginning of the personal and professional union between Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, who would go on to make eight more films together. This tale of two newspaper reporters who wed and then discover that their careers aren't so compatible forges a fresh and realistic vision of what marriage can be. The freewheeling but pinpoint-sharp screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin won an Academy Award, and Hepburn received a nomination for her performance. Woman of the Year is a dazzling, funny, and rueful observation of what it takes for men and women to get along — both in the workplace and outside of it.
114 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2017
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2017
Director/Writers
Original screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin.
George Stevens was 38 when he directed Woman of the Year.
Other Stevens films in the Collection:
#979: Swing Time (1936)
The Film
Other Stevens films in the Collection:
#979: Swing Time (1936)
The Film
Woman of the Year is quite simply a deliciously completely watchable film.
It is one of those films where you just cannot look away from the screen. The credit goes to a lot of folks; primarily the stunningly natural performances of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, but also to Stevens’ solid directing and a fine script by Kanin and Lardner Jr.
Tess Harding (Hepburn, based on Dorothy Thompson — the second most famous lady of her time, after Eleanor Roosevelt) is on the radio talking about how baseball shouldn’t be played while the War was going on. Sam Craig (Tracy) is at a bar and is outraged. Baseball, after all, is the American pastime — not to mention of an important beat on his work as a sportswriter, employed by the same newspaper as Tess.
They duel through their newspaper columns, until the boss calls them in to his office to make peace. Here, their first meeting on screen (they would make eight more films together after this one) certainly feels like it imitates their first real-life romance, which lasted until Tracy’s death in 1967.
Tess is showing off her legs while she fiddles with her stockings, and the look on Sam’s face tells it all. He is smitten.
“Haven’t you met Miss Harding?” asks the boss.
“Yes, yes — in a belligerent sort of way,” says Sam.
“He hit me first … hello,” Tess responds, offering her hand.
And they’re off …
**
The writers, Louis B. Mayer, the preview audience — they all hated the original ending (mostly filmed) where Tess shows a greater interest in Sam’s sports beat and attends a boxing match.
So they came up with the semi-slapstick “making breakfast” ending that spans the last few minutes of this fabulous film. They mostly all still hated it — after all, Tess’s blubbering that’s she’ll give up her career, become a regular housewife, etc. just doesn’t fit the previous 7/8ths of the picture. It seems ridiculous.
But Sam’s final speech brings it all back into focus.
“I don’t want to be married to Tess Harding, any more than I want you to be just Mrs. Sam Craig. Why can’t you be Tess Harding Craig?”
**
Surely Lucille Ball stole the toast-catching scene from an early episode of her show from this!
Film Rating (0-60):
57
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek.
“ … One of the movie’s best moments relies little on dialogue. After Tess has contrived to have Sam escort her to the airport, she tells him she has done so in the hopes that he’ll kiss her. He obliges, and the moment is erotic, electrified, intensely private … Stevens shoots the kiss so we can’t see Tracy’s face at all, and Hepburn’s is visible only in a fleeting quarter view. It should be unsatisfying, as movie kisses go, but somehow it gives us all we’d ever dare to ask of two characters — and two actors — who are falling deeply in love before our eyes.”
Commentary
None.
Interview 1
Interview 1
With George Stevens Jr.
Fond remembrance of dad. He would go on to make a much larger project of the whole thing (see below).
Interview 2
Interview 2
1967 audio interview with Stevens.
Very interesting stuff about why he insisted upon final cut (as much as you could in those days), and his relationship with Hepburn.
Interview 3
With Stevens biographer Marilyn Ann Moss.
Interview 3
With Stevens biographer Marilyn Ann Moss.
More great info on the director.
Interview 4
With writer Claudia Roth Pierpont on actor Hepburn.
Brilliant analysis of make Kate so great.
Documentary 1
Documentary 1
A Filmmaker’s Journey, a 112-minute documentary by George Stevens, Jr.
Showcasing all his pictures. He had very few flops.
Documentary 2
The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn, an 86-minute documentary from 1986.
This might be the best extra, with Hepburn narrating Tracy’s life of filmmaking. It is all about his amazing craft, until the very end — when she reads a four-page letter she wrote to him after his death.
Check your pulse if you’re not tearing up.
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