This week I watched The Philadelphia Story. When I first put this in my Netflix queue list I thought it was a movie about AIDs and homosexuals... I was wrong. Just so you don't make the same mistake as me. This is Philadelphia, this is The Philadelphia Story. Now, as I have mentioned before, I do not like old movies, especially black and white movies, so I really did not want to watch this. I was trying to convince my girlfriend to watch a different movie but she didn't want to. So like I said, this week I watched The Philadelphia Story.
The Philadelphia Story is based off of a Broadway play of the same name and was also Kathrine Hepburn's first major role after a series of flops and even used the help of Howard "The Aviator" Hughes to get the rights to the play so she could star in the movie. Why don't actors do this more often? maybe the do, but I feel that it would be cool to buy the rights to a movie just so you could act and look awesome in it. The Philadelphia Story was nominated for six Academy Awards and won two: Jimmy Stewart (also why did I grow up my whole life calling him Jimmy when in the credits his name is James?) for Best Actor and Daniel Ogden Stewart for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Now lets take a look how the interwebs has critiqued this film:
IMDB= 8.1 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes (Critic Rating)= 100%
Rotten Tomatoes (Audience Rating)= 92%
So looking at these score I feel like this movie has to be one of the greatest movies of all time. Though critics gave it fantastic reviews audiences seem to give the movie around a B+. These rating gave me some hope as I watched the movie. The internet can't be wrong, can it?
Now its time for my personal look at the movie, starting with the characters. We will start with Mother Lord and Father Lord. They are fine and do not really have big enough roles. Honestly I felt at times as if these characters were not really needed. Uncle Willie is... well he is creepy (more on that later). Dinah is a great character and very funny. My only negative thing to say about this character is that I wish she was in it more and did funnier stuff. Now one of the other funny characters is Elizabeth Imbrie played by Ruth Hussey. She has a real quick wit and just great comedic timing. Her character was very enjoyable and I wish she had more opportunities to show her comedic skills. John Howard as George Kittredge was important as far as plot goes but as a character was boring, bland, and not very likeable, though that may be the point of the character. Now we will get to the three stars of the film, Cary Grant, Kathrine Hepburn, and James (Jimmy) Stewart. Cary Grant plays Dexter Haven and my girlfriend loves him, I don't know why. My thing with this character is that I am not sure if I am supposed to like this guy and root for him or not like him at all. I have a hard time being neutral on characters and I want to but Dexter into one category or the other and by the end of the film I wasn't sure how the audience was supposed to feel about him. James (Jimmy) Stewart plays Macaulay Connor. While watching this movie I realized James (Jimmy) Stewart plays the same character in everything he is in (Note: I have only now seen him in this and It's a Wonderful Life).
Here he is in It's a Wonderful Life:
And here he is in The Philadelphia Story:
Now just because he seems to act the same in his movies doesn't make him unenjoyable. Actors like Michael Cera, Jennifer Aniston, and Ryan Reynolds seem to play the same characters all the time and I still like them. Finally we will talk about Kathrine Hepburn. First off I need to ask if you guys think she has annoying voice. After the movie my mom and girlfriend were discussing Hepburn and her voice and how it wasn't as annoying in this movie as it is in other movies. I didn't notice anything wrong with her voice and felt out of the loop so maybe you guys can help me out. Ok moving on, I didn't feel like she was anything special in this movie, especially given that this was a break out role for her of sorts. She did play off the male characters well though.
Now the story is really what made this film not workout for me. I don't want to spoil the movie so I won't go into details. The premise that I thought the movie was originally going to go for when James (Jimmy) Stewart's character showed up would have been great but it seemed that idea lasted about 30 seconds. Then the story went into this messy love triangle story where I wasn't sure which character I was supposed to want to get the girl in the end. This "romantic" movie's ending really got me confused but I don't want to spoil it here. Also I learned two things from this movie:
#1: Domestic abuse is fine and even funny?
#2: Sexual harassment is funny, especially if it comes from a family member
I am not a hardcore feminist or anything but wow did this movie seem to show that females are men's toys to play with.
Now lets talk about a few other things that go into making a movie starting with the lighting. There were many times that the lighting was so bright or something it seemed that Hepburn was glowing, like she was some kind of angel or something. I don't know if this was just the style back then or something that just happened more often in black and white movies or what. I am not a film student or anything I just know it was weird. Another weird thing was the costumes. There was at one point where Kathrine Hepburn looked as if she was wearing a night cap. I don't know if this was all the rage back then but it looked silly.
Overall this movie was okay. It did have funny moments, even if I didn't understand some of the sayings, and the acting was good. The think that really ruined this movie for me was the plot. I can not get over how this movie views domestic abuse. Also I do not understand why this movie is in the AFI top 100. Maybe later I will feel different about this movie but for now I give this movie a D+
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