The Philadelphia Story (1995, VHS)

"The Philadelphia Story," doubtlessly revived 4 time Oscar-winning, Katherine Hepburn's 50 year acting career. Though Jimmy Stewart is the only actor who took home an Oscar for his performance, this is Miss Hepburn's show of shows.

. . . and the story goes, Tracy Lord (Hepburn) is a heiress from Philadephia who's enagaged to George Kittridge (John Howard), a coal-mining executive. Their wedding, being a socialite event, becomes the focus of "Spy" magazine's publisher, Sidney Kidd (Henry Daniell). Lord's ex-husband, Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), is the writer Kidd uses to get the insider scoop about the wedding of the year. Kidd & Haven enlist a notorious hack scandal writer, Macauley Connor (Jimmy Stewart), to create a scoundrel's sensation out of the event. The problem is the bride (Hepburn) herself. Lord charms the scoundrels away from their scandal-seeking paths.

Hepburn made the show a Broadway hit; got the screen rights; the lead in the film; then, landed everyone she wanted for the film from director, George Cukor, producer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, screenwriter, Donald Ogden Stewart (who won an Oscar for his screenplay), a top-notch cast with both Cary Grant & Jimmy Stewart (who also won an Oscar for his performance), as well as a great supporting cast with Virginia Weidler & Ruth Hussey. See why I 1st wrote this is Hepburn's show of shows?!

Nominated for 6 Oscars, it took 2, with Hepburn being nominated for Best Actress. Hepburn put out a quarter of the Broadway play's production budget, had no salary & netted nearly half of the profits from the Broadway sensation. What a shrewd business woman in a man-dominated business at that time!

Hepburn's real test would be the film she made with Spencer Tracy that followed this major triumph. Instead of "The Philadelphia Story," becoming Hepburn's career ending smash hit, she paired up for the 1st time with the man she carried a love torch for, Spencer Tracy, in "Woman of the Year." Though she chose not to have the openly gay Cukor direct the Hepburn-Tracy 1st, Hepburn would make 9 more films with Cukor directing. Obviously, the Hepburn-Tracy corpus of films are legendary.

I don't believe generations that follow(ed) could truly understand how Hepburn transcended a tradition of limits upon power women could wield. So even if the story isn't your cup of tea, the woman behind it made it a legend because she used power like a man in a way that was well ahead of her generation.

There is a "colorized" VHS version of this classic film~