 "The "odd couple" love story" | 2009-11-12 |
| - Reviewed By rama_r |
This is the first of the nine movies Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made together. The on-screen romance was carried over into their private lives that lasted 25 years. New York Times in its obituary column wrote "Her life and career were dominated by her love affair with Spencer Tracy, which created one of the great romantic legends and brilliant movie pairings of their day." Katharine Hepburn's independent life and strong-willed movie characters made her a role model for generations of young women for more than 60 years. Hepburn and Tracy became one of Hollywood's most recognizable couples. Hepburn had an agile mind and distinctive New England accent, which was complemented by Tracy's machismo
Woman of the year is a light hearted romantic comedy, which examines the lives of professional couples and how it affects their private lives. As you can guess there is certain amount of drama in the midst of a love story. The beautiful, brilliant and independent journalist Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) and the macho sportswriter Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy) clash over whether athletic events should be suspended for the duration of the war. She insists that sports column be abolished during war, but Sam believes that it is essential for morale. The editor brings them together to make peace but the pair when they see each other for the first time, they fall in love! When they start dating, things don't go easy on them. When Sam takes her to a ball game, Tess like the game, but when Tess introduces Sam to her international friends, he is not too thrilled. Nonetheless, they marry, but he quickly discovers she is so busy with her profession and that she has no time for him. When she adopts a war orphan without discussing with him, he realizes a drastic step must be taken, because she has no idea of being a wife and mother.
There are some very funny scenes in the movie; one of my favorite is when Tess drives back to Sam's apartment while he is sleeping; she decides to prove herself as a wife and a good cook. Using a recipe book she prepares his breakfast, which awakens Sam, and he silently watches as everything goes wrong for Tess, she breakdown when coffeepot and waffle iron both overflow, and the kitchen get messy. Sam then embraces her and says he doesn't want to change her; he merely wants their marriage to come first. The ending is somewhat discomforting for modern day feminists as it sounds too anti-family to be an independent professional woman. After all, this movie was made for audience of the year 1942, and they wouldn't have a liked it any other way than a woman learns a lesson, finally, that she has to be a caring wife, and not just a professional journalist and a political activist.
1. The Hepburn & Tracy Signature Collection (Woman of the Year / Pat and Mike / Adam's Rib / The Spencer Tracy Legacy)
2. TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby)
3. Katharine Hepburn Collection (Morning Glory / Undercurrent / Sylvia Scarlett / Without Love / Dragon Seed / The Corn Is Green [1979]) |
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| "he married a man: or a woman who was as good as a man?" | 2009-10-24 |
| - Reviewed By tftn@earthlink.net |
So you meet this beautiful dame and it is clear she is out of your class,
but dumb as you are you go after her anyway. And she appears to yield
and you get married,
only for you to find you are playing in the band
behind her work. Everything goes on the rocks through the rapids
in a leaky boat for you and her. I doubt this is a new story:
trying to marry a princess if you were just a boy from town must
be very like this. She has more languages than the UN and you speak
sports, and know the team doctors for the profession football
teams. She can't boil water and you are lost at an embassy party
for a visiting head of state, who went to the Swiss boarding school
in the same town as she did. So what do you talk about after the
bedroom?
This movie implies that there is some French Republican compromise
that can save such a marriage: only Ring Lardner could get away
with this sort of comedy fantasy?
I loved it still knowing that it was just pie in the sky!
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 "Silver Screen Magic" | 2008-08-04 |
| - Reviewed By nodice |
Talk about sparks! They were flying all over the place between Tracy and Hepburn. For the viewing public it's a definite treat to watch. I think the subject matter of Woman of The Year is still relevant to women of today. It's still a challenge to most women trying to find that balance with career and family-and I am glad that the suggestion of her being Harding-Craig meant that she didn't have to stop being herself. For a minute I was fearful that they were going to have the message that a woman's place was in the kitchen. It does feel a little long in places but overall, it's still a highly entertaining film.
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| "Perfection!" | 2008-07-03 |
| - Reviewed By lynnellingwood |
| I think this is the best of the Tracy-Hepburn films. It was also the first. It revived their fledgling careers and made them fresh and fun. It is a very romantic film about a woman who acts like a "man" - callous, indifferent, busy away from home, neglectful to her spouse, while the husband, a sports writer, is forced into the woman's role of waiting at home constantly for a spouse who is away, dependent on her attention and lonely most of the time. A wonderful insightful story about the sexes. |
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| "Craig's Wife" | 2008-06-18 |
| - Reviewed By gregory_callahan |
Everything you've heard about WOMAN OF THE YEAR is true. This was the first pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and, yes, the chemistry IS evident. Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner's script is intelligent and the dialogue is snappy for the most part. It does touch lightly on "issues of the day" (the war, obviously--and of course, the proverbial "battle of the sexes," the subtext of just about EVERY Tracy-Hepburn film ever made). And,yes, the baseball scene is pretty darn great.
But the film is not an unqualified success. The kitchen disaster scene towards the movie's end is cliched and just too darn slow. The flying toast, the boiling over coffee and that cussed watched pot that keeps boiling over are enough to try the patience of almost any contemporary viewer. Tracy is consigned to shameless mugging throughout the entire proceedings. Probably not his fault. I'm sure he was dutifully taking direction. But director George Stephens' sense of pacing--so effective in the baseball scene--fails him here.
The entire scene seems lifted from a THREE STOOGES short and is totally out of place with the sophisticated tone of the rest of the film.
Many have pointed out that the shift from breezy comedy to near-melodrama is a bit jarring at times. I would have to say that the writers deserve some credit for making the script a bit more nuanced than it might have been otherwise. Hepburn's change-of-heart at her father's wedding is not entirely convincing, but interestingly enough Tracy is not entirely convinced either. He calls her out on this very point. Is it a true change of heart or merely another of her many self-dramatizing whims?
And speaking of whims, am I the only viewer who found the segment with Chris, the young Greek orphan, kind of disturbing? That Kate's ambitious Tess Harding character would feel almost obliged to adopt a young refugee (and foist the child on her unsuspecting husband) is dubious enough. That she would neglect him on top of that, however, risks making her once charmingly eccentric character almost monstrous.
In fact, I kept wondering about the kid even after the big reconciliation scene between the principles. Did anyone think about going back to the orphanage and fetching the youngster and maybe starting a "real" family. By the film's end, you feel that Sam and Tess Harding Craig are coming to terms with themselves and their marriage. They get to start anew,and you're glad for them. But what about that poor kid?
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| "Katharine and Spencer at their very best!" | 2008-04-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2JTPHCOV4IJFE |
Woman of the Year was the first of nine movies that Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy did together, and, I think, the very best. They are an incredible team and their contrasting temperaments fit each other perfectly!
This movie matches the perfect story with the perfect team! Sam Craig and Tess Harding work for the same newspaper company. He covers sports; she covers the war. So when he overhears a radio program on which she says that American should give up baseball and turn their full attention toward the war effort, a dispute arises in the newspaper between their columns. But when the two of them meet, Sam is immediately drawn to her. He takes her to a baseball game where he tries to explain to her the fundamentals of the sport. As they spend time together a romance blossoms and they get married. Things begin to crumble, though, as Tess struggles to juggle both her demanding career and her marriage.
This movie leaves no doubt why Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are the incredible team they are! |
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