The first teaming of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, the beginning of their love affair. He was on one of his sober periods at the time.
But it's not really a comedy, despite two protracted scenes of genius: one, where he explains the rules of baseball to her, and the finale (apparently added after initial previews) where without dialogue she attempts to make breakfast. I'm glad it wasn't a total cop-out ending though, where she has to just be Mrs Spencer Tracy. In fact I don't think she would have agreed to it. The writers are Ring Lardner Jr. (MASH) and Michael Kanin, who won the Oscar; Kate was nominated, and looks gorgeous, lit by Joe Ruttenberg (who like her also won four Oscars).
With Fay Bainter, William Bendix, Reginald Owen, Minor Watson (her father), Gladys Blake, Dan Tobin again (her annoying assistant), Roscoe Karns, Jimmy Conlin (uncredited).
Stevens likes long takes, and that's all right with me too. Good score from Franz Waxman.
This is the first we see of Hepburn:
Then the camera tracks up:
We cut to Tracy's reaction briefly:
 |
And her's back at him:
It was produced by Joe Mankiewicz at MGM.
No comments:
Post a Comment