ADAM’S RIB (1949)

We’ve all had arguments with our spouses. However, few of us have ever had an argument with our significant other so publicly, or so prolongedly, as Adam (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn). Husband and wife, lawyer and lawyer, the pair decide to represent clients opposing each other in court: Amanda is defending Doris Attinger (Judy Holliday), a young woman who shot her cheating husband, while Adam is prosecuting her for attempted murder. The gloves are coming off: as society’s different treatment of men and women is excavated, along with other social mores, it may just pull Adam and Amanda apart.

As a classic comedy, Adam’s Rib is stellar, and remains one of my favourites. But in revisiting this classic piece, watching it with as objective an eye as possible, it’s evident that the film isn’t quite as good as some of its contemporaries. There are missed opportunities in the story plotting, pacing issues that cause the film to meander (even if only slightly), and the dialogue never reaches levels of wit or hilarity as George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940). Still, Adam’s Rib remains an enjoyable classic picture, and proves to be essential viewing for any romantic-comedy aficionado.

Indeed, anyone who appreciates films from the Golden Age of Hollywood will probably find something they appreciate in Cukor’s classic, which has even been ranked 22nd on AFI’s list of ‘Best American Comedies’. It features all the fast-talking badinage which one might find in other classics from this era, such as Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). The quick-fire exchanges especially mirror the witty, cutting dialogue of His Girl Friday (1940), merely moving the drama from a newspaper room to a courthouse.

Furthermore, screenwriters Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin indulge their audience in the kind of wordplay that’s simultaneously intelligent and silly. After the wounded husband, Warren Attinger (Tom Ewell), is convalescing in hospital, Adam requests if he can ask him a series of questions, to which Warren responds: “Shoot. I mean— go ahead…” Personally, I wish there was more of this kind of writing in Hollywood today; it’s timeless humour which is so woefully absent from modern comedies.

Another timeless aspect to this film is the battle of the sexes, which surprisingly hasn’t shown its age even after seventy-five years. It was a dynamic which the film producers were keen on exploiting, with a rather misleading tagline reading: “The hilarious answer to who wears the pants…” This misconstrues the central conflict, because neither Amanda nor Adam are concerned about women in the workplace, and Adam is never dissatisfied with Amanda working the same job as him.

With this in mind, it soon becomes apparent that, while Amanda’s feminism is sincere, it’s slightly incongruent with the story. Though she fights for her cause fiercely, it often feels as though she’s chosen the wrong hill to die on. As Amanda immediately gets fired up about how society treats men and women differently (which is true), it seems strange that she should choose this particular case to make her stand: the woman shot her unarmed husband, after all.

Consequently, much of the feminist rhetoric here feels slightly misplaced —she’s practically arguing that her client had a moral obligation to shoot her husband (though Doris claims this was an accident, and that she only meant to scare them), as it was the only way she could protect her family from dissolving. This was not the act of a crazed, jealous wife, but a desperate mother trying to defend the institution of the American nuclear family. It’s a clever game of semantics which Amanda skilfully employs, but it doesn’t always convince.

The reason why is that she’s arguing from the wrong side: if she were criticising the rampant violence against women in society, her position would be completely defendable. Tellingly, when this film was made, Italy had a law in effect known as delitto d’onore, which granted extreme leniency to husbands who killed their wives when they were caught cheating. This overtly misogynistic legislation is obviously barbaric (and it was only in 1981 that this law was abolished), but Gordon and Kanin seem to argue the other way.

Namely, Doris wasn’t in the wrong for shooting her philandering husband — it’s just that society perceives her that way because she’s a woman. Amanda claims she’s only doing the right thing: “I dramatised an injustice, that’s all I’m trying to do.” However, it only feels as though she’s conflating two issues (sexual mores of men and women and the ethics of armed violence). She interrogates her jurors — “Do you believe in equal rights for women?” — but Adam rightly observes that she’s using the courts to play a game, bending the law to her whim.

Suffice to say, I don’t think the feminism on display in Adam’s Rib is all that ideological. It strikes me as unlikely that either Gordon or Kanin were keen on imparting a serious message. Instead, the feminist angle behind the script really just serves as a catalyst to get Adam and Amanda arguing fiercely. There aren’t any true philosophical underpinnings to their competition, and it soon becomes apparent that it’s just competition, plain and simple: “I am going to cut you into twelve little pieces and feed you to the jury, so get prepared for it.” They are both playing a game at times, and both want to win.

This would have been fine, too. Unfortunately, one can’t help but feel as though Cukor, Gordon, and Kanin miss opportunities to make the most of its premise. Cukor fails to build momentum in critical scenes which occur between courthouse drama. Neither Amanda nor Adam bring home their work initially, meaning that they get on exceptionally well after a day of jousting in court.

While it’s very healthy in the real world, the cessation of hostilities reflects a slump in pace: they appear to truly forget about their professional lives when alone together, and subsequently, the audience is left dangling. Too many scenes meander along aimlessly, and though it’s a joy to watch Hepburn and Tracy onscreen together, there’s no central conflict in these scenes to keep us involved. Particularly for the first 45 minutes or so, there is a dearth of tension or drama; it needs an injection of life.

This is unlike other legal dramas, where even when combatants aren’t locked in a courtroom together, the war for the truth dominates each and every moment. In Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), a battle of the sexes drama which has a very clear understanding of its thesis, arguments proliferate when neither man nor woman are on the stand. Even My Cousin Vinny (1992) did this to great effect.

Here, not so much. While their professional mentalities do eventually spill over into their personal lives — including one scene where Adam spanks Amanda too hard for it to have been considered purely playful — one can’t help but think there was more potential in these earlier scenes to get at the crux of their disagreement. The story ultimately would be more compelling had it analysed their different perspectives more incisively.

Despite these criticisms, the film is still very enjoyable. There’s almost zero exposition in the beginning, and the dialogue is often amusing. A particular favourite of mine comes from Amanda’s friend: “Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called in-breeding; from this comes idiot children, and more lawyers.”

So, even though I was disappointed it wasn’t quite as stellar as I remembered it to be, it’s always a pleasure to watch Hepburn, and Tracy is splendid here, too. If you’re a sucker for classic romcoms like I am, then you’d struggle not to have a good time, even if it’s not the funniest film of its era, nor the most charming.

USA | 1949 | 101 MINUTES | 1.37:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: George Cukor.
writers: Ruth Gordon & Garson Kanin.
starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne, Jean Hagen, Hope Emerson, Eve March, Clarence Kolb, Emerson Treacy, Polly Moran & Will Wright.