The Philadelphia Story (Cukor) was released in 1940, in some ways a critical juncture in the histories of the United States and of American film. On the national level, the United States had emerged from the 1930s Depression, but had yet to become directly involved in the Second World War. The transition from one era to the next would have an effect both on the United States people and on the film industry. On the filmic level, the Production Code and the studio system were at their peak, and heavily influenced the contents of every film released from Hollywood.
The Philadelphia Story can be approached as a product of this period, with audience tastes and values shaping its political and social content. Although the original play, by Philip Barry, functions more as comedy than as social commentary, what political content there is has been very much toned-down in the movie, and language and sexual references have been removed in accordance with the Production Code. One might expect that this deliberate catering to a mass public would lead to a watered-down story, but I intend to show that The Philadelphia Story's strength is its ability to appeal to a mass public in its own day, and carry a message universal enough to make it an enduring classic. In adapting itself to the screen, it successfully borrows elements from both the screwball comedy and the serious drama to bring its characters together and promote social harmony.
Although the overall plot of The Philadelphia Story is basically the same in its stage and cinema incarnations, the subtle changes that have been made between the two have a significant impact on the tone of the film version. The most predictable change is that the language has been made more "family friendly." The viewing public of the early 1940s was less open than today with swearing and sexual content in movies. Some evidence for this can be seen in the Production Code, which was instituted largely to make films more appealing, and protect them from state censorship. The Code explicitly bans the use of "oaths," "vulgar expressions," and "obscene language," except where necessary to the plot. It also goes to great lengths to curtail depictions of or even references to sex. [1] Words like "hell" and "damn" have thus been removed from the play, or replaced with milder expressions. Sexual references not integral to the plot have also been removed. For example, Tracy's question as to whether Mike and Liz are living together [2] has been changed to, "Are you going together?" Even so, Variety warned that the film was, "not a celluloid adventure for wee lads and lassies and no doubt some of the faithful watchers-out for other people's souls are going to have a word about that," [3] indicating that, at least in some circles, the movie was still considered a bit racy for 1940s tastes.
The play also contains more overt political references. In the movie, the social commentary is basically limited to the portrayal of the clash between people from different social classes: blue-collar New Yorkers versus blue-blooded Philadelphians. That is effectively the same situation in the play, but lines like Mike's, "Come the Revolution she'll be the first to go," [4] in the play do not appear in the film version. None of the characters is identified as very political in either version; Mike's question to Sandy about how he views the current administration doesn't lead to anything, and Mike says he's more of a Jeffersonian Democrat than a Communist. [5] This is the only sequence of the play where political affiliations are openly dealt with, but it is completely eliminated from the movie. Apparently, the filmmakers decided that their version of the story should be as uncontroversial as possible.
Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story is not a highly political play. Whatever political content it has hides under the surface. Mike's denial of being a Communist is a reminder that Communism was a concern in the 1930s. Tracy's question to Mike and Liz implies that it wasn't unheard of for unmarried couples to live together. Taking out such lines may appear to make the film completely apolitical. Yet if it is attempting to be apolitical, it is doing so in a distinctive way. The Philadelphia Story does not simply deny class differences, but attempts to reconcile them through its central characters. In this, it is very much heir to the screwball tradition of the 1930s. The attractiveness of screwball comedies to Depression-era audiences "had to do with the effort they made at reconciling the irreconcilable. They created an America of perfect Unity: all classes as one, the rural-urban divide breached, love and decency and neighborliness ascendant." [6] Although not a screwball comedy itself, The Philadelphia Story has many screwball elements. Its stars, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart, had all appeared in previous screwball comedies like You Can't Take It With You (Capra, 1938), Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938), and His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940). It focuses on characters who behave in unexpected, comical ways. It uses humour to bring people together, both in romance and in friendship. Just as acts of "inventive fantasy" [7] help to break down class barriers in It Happened One Night (Capra, 1934) and other movies, so the "imaginative play" [8] of the characters in The Philadelphia Story facilitates the formation of the group.
To understand how much The Philadelphia Story owes to the screwball tradition, it is necessary to see it as two stories. The story of the play is essentially about a priggish young woman, Tracy Lord, who must learn tolerance of other people's weaknesses in order to become fully human. [9] This is certainly an element of the movie as well, but the movie foregrounds two other plot-lines: the formation of the romantic couple, and the formation of the supportive group. [10] These two elements are derived from the play, but receive much more attention in the movie. A useful way to see how this is so is to look at the scenes written by Donald Ogden Stewart for the film that were not in Philip Barry's original.
In the play, Dexter does not appear until almost the end of Act I. In the movie, he is the very first character we meet, thanks to the silent prologue. This scene, in which Tracy throws him out of the house, is much more physical in nature than the dialogue-driven play, linking it to slapstick comedy. [11] It also sets up the relationship between Tracy and Dexter as a primary focus of the story. Theirs is the standard love-hate relationship. Like the characters in His Girl Friday, they must overcome their mutual antagonism and rediscover their love for each other in order to bring about the happy ending of romantic union. Indeed, Cary Grant's performance as Dexter is essentially a keyed-down version of his character in His Girl Friday [12] : the part charming, part irritating ex-husband who maintains an exterior of calm self-confidence while inwardly plotting to recapture the woman he loves.
Dexter disappears for the next ten minutes of the film, but quickly reenters the story, thanks to an adaptation that merges his character with the character of Sandy, Tracy's older brother, who appears in the play but not the movie. This was done in order to have another major male part in the film, so that Katherine Hepburn's request that she star opposite two major actors could be fulfilled. [13] It also has the effect of making the Tracy-Dexter story-line much more prominent. With Sandy's lines now being said by Dexter, there is much more opportunity to build up Dexter as the romantic lead, and to build up not only the confrontational aspect of Tracy and Dexter's relationship, but also its warmer, affectionate aspect.
The first original scene with dialogue occurs at the stables. It serves mostly to introduce some of the supporting characters, but it also helps to establish an important element of Tracy's personality. When her fiancé George arrives in his too-clean riding suit, Tracy affectionately knocks him down and rubs dirt on his pants. This shows not only that she has a different conception of wealth from him, but also that she is much more playful in spirit than he is. Although she plans to marry him, Tracy seems to belong more with her slightly wacky, fun-loving family than with George. [14] This is significant, because in the screwball comedy, it is "whackiness," [15] the ability to let oneself go and have fun, that allows people to come together. Tracy's actions in this and other scenes identify her as a "screwball" element, who will naturally be drawn to other screwballs.
The next scene helps to establish the other side of the story. Although the movie is partly about bringing together a man and a woman in romantic union, as in His Girl Friday, it is also about bringing together people from different social classes. It Happened One Night is a classic example of this process: a spoiled heiress and a cynical reporter go through a series of wacky adventures and discover they love each other. That description almost matches The Philadelphia Story, with the one variation that it is not the heiress and the reporter who end up getting married, but the heiress and her equally wealthy ex-husband. The screwball tradition of deconstructing class is preserved however, in the formation of the group relationship between Tracy, Dexter, Mike, and Liz. An other famous Capra comedy, You Can't Take It With You, also deals with the formation of the group. Although it is about a romance that grows between a working-class woman and her wealthy employer's son, the characters are unable to come together in marriage until harmony is also achieved between their families. The movie ends with the young man's parents rejecting their class privilege in favour of community with the young woman and her wacky, fun-loving family.
Although none of the main characters in The Philadelphia Story is quite as offbeat as the ones in the Capra film, a similar process of bridging the class divide is at work. In the play, the reporters are first encountered on their arrival at the Lord estate. An additional scene in the movie takes the story away from Philadelphia to give us a brief look at the news office in New York where they work. The opening sequence of this scene contains multiple ellipses as it moves the characters quickly through the building, suggesting a space that is large but fragmented, with people constantly on the go. This is the world of Mike and Liz: hard, fast-paced, and impersonal.
In Sydney Kidd's office, which is rather cold and barren-looking compared to the Lord mansion, [16] the characters quarrel about whether to take their assignment or not, the central dilemma being whether to privilege financial necessity or artistic integrity. This might seem to be a political discussion, and in some ways it is. Mike and Liz represent the working class who were not born into money the way Tracy was, who do not have the luxury of always living their lives exactly as they please. Yet this fact does not imply any call to collective action; it is simply the hard reality in the lives of ordinary individuals. In the play, Mike tells Sandy, "I'm opposed to everything you represent." [17] In the movie, the contempt leveled at the Lords is less principled, and more personal: Mike, the working stiff, despises those who live better than he does with no apparent effort. Having arrived at the Lord mansion, he is clearly ill-at-ease, constantly examining things with the air of someone lost in a strange environment. [18] Liz snaps pictures and cracks wise about the telephone that connects to the stables. Neither of them wants to understand their hosts; all they want is to get their story, get out, and get paid.
The hostility that Mike and Liz have for the world of the wealthy is mirrored in the attitudes of Tracy and Dexter toward them. This is first indicated while the characters are still in Kidd's office, when Dexter enters the room and meets Mike for the first time. Mike's attitude in this sequence is suspicious, Dexter's guarded. Neither has any reason to like the other, so they automatically decide to dislike each other. This prejudice, rooted in class, is what the characters will have to overcome over the course of the film. Although it is a factor in the play, this knee-jerk hostility toward members of a different class - as opposed to well-reasoned political objections to social inequality and nepotism - is played-up in the movie. Where Sandy in the play appeals to Mike to give his family a break, [19] Dexter tells him rather rudely to take his hat off. Tracy, in both the play and the movie, rants about the reporters, "watching every little mannerism - jotting down notes on how we sit, and stand, and talk, and eat and move - [...] - And all in the horrible snide corkscrew English!" [20] She hasn't even met Mike and Liz; she is simply operating from a preconceived notion of what reporters are like.
Thus the lines of conflict in the movie are drawn between the working-class reporters and the landed aristocracy. It is through a combination of scenes, both original and derived from the play, that this conflict will be resolved, absorbing the four protagonists into a unified group.
In both the play and the movie, Tracy begins to warm to Mike after she gets hold of his book and begins reading his short stories. Mike is impressed by Tracy's reaction, and an understanding begins to develop between them. This shifts them both away from their initial prejudices, and also sets up the romantic interlude that will take place later. In between, there are two more scenes which do not appear in the play, and which continue to develop the screwball element of the story. The first is at a party being held in Tracy's honour at her Uncle Willie's house. The scene opens with Tracy and George dancing together. Tracy, who has been drinking all evening, tells George a romantic story about a Chinese boy who drowned trying to kiss the moon in a river. Just as in the scene at the stables, George is caught off guard, not knowing how to react. [21] Mike makes a much more suitable dance partner for Tracy when he shows up, also plastered.
The next scene is even more interesting. Mike goes to Dexter's house, and together they hatch a scheme of counter-blackmail against Sydney Kidd. In terms of its relevance to the plot, this scene is entirely derived from the play. In the play, Tracy comes up with the blackmail idea; she and Sandy pump the unwitting Mike for information; and then Sandy steals pictures from Liz and spends the rest of the morning writing the story up. In the movie, the plan is the same, but it is hatched differently, with completely new dialogue. Mike knocks Dexter up for no particular reason, and the two of them come up with the idea together. The scene, between the inebriated Mike and the sober but sleepy Dexter, is one of the funniest of the movie, and the comedic element is used to bring the characters closer together. As Mike says near the beginning of the scene, "Champagne is a great leveler. It makes you my equal." Alcohol having temporarily suspended his sense of social norms, including class hierarchy, he makes bold enough to question Dexter on the rather personal issue of his relationship with Tracy, and Dexter, too tired to object, humours him. As the characters exchange jibes, Dexter easily matches Mike's drunken ranting with his own dry wit, indicating, among other things, that he has more of a sense of humour than George does. Then Dexter gets the idea of using Mike's knowledge to write a story on Sydney Kidd, and they begin a more concrete bonding exercise. In the screwball comedy, "invention broke down walls rooted invariably in class." [22] In the creative act of writing the article, class is forgotten as Mike dictates and Dexter takes notes, both men cooperating in order to save Tracy from the unscrupulous gossip hound.
When Tracy and Liz arrive, the characters are reshuffled. Liz stays to help Dexter type the story up, while Mike and Tracy drive home together. Again, the resultant pairings cut across class lines. Mike and Tracy get even more drunk, and eventually kiss and decide to go for a swim together, just as they do in the play. The love scene between them is not a screwball comedy scene, but it does show up the screwy elements in both characters. Alcohol having dulled their inhibitions, they are free to engage in playful behaviour like dancing around the pond together, or pushing each other around in the lawn chair. [23] The last class barriers between them are broken down, and they have their predictable Hollywood romantic moment.
Meanwhile, Dexter and Liz are also engaged in their own bonding exercise, although with less alcohol and no romance. Their time together largely takes place off-screen, but by the time they drive back to the Lord mansion, they have clearly reached a kind of mutual understanding. In the play, this scene takes place between Sandy and Liz, and here it is useful to point out an other result of combining Sandy's character with Dexter's. In the play, Dexter spends very little time alone with Mike, and none with Liz, while the opposite is true of Sandy. Thus, while the play is in part about breaking down class barriers, most of this activity seems to be taking place between the reporters and the Lords generally, or between Mike and Tracy specifically. Cukor instead sets this process within a discrete four-person group. He is not dealing abstractly with the way in which two different kinds of people learn to accept each other, but concretely with four individuals. The nighttime scenes are about bringing these four individuals together through successive pairings: Dexter and Mike, Mike and Tracy, Dexter and Liz.
All four characters appear together only once in these scenes, at Dexter's house, between Tracy's arrival with Liz and her departure with Mike. The brief uniting of the four immediately follows a short sequence between Tracy and Dexter, when he goes down to the car to talk to her. Tracy and Dexter do not stay together long, just as the group does not stay together, but this small scene foreshadows the formation of both romantic couple and group that will end the film.
The final act of unity is made possible when Tracy breaks off her engagement with George, he storms off angrily, and the four characters are left alone together. In a brief sequence that does not appear in the written stage play, they immediately celebrate by slipping into some of the wackiest behaviour of the film: Dexter bursts into song and begins playing with the table arrangements, and Mike and Liz start dancing. It is as though, with the departure of George, they are all free to let their screwy, playful natures come out. The group having thus been solidified, the only remaining question is that of who will form the romantic couple.
If this were a screwball comedy, one might almost expect the heiress and the reporter to be together at the end, but that is not what The Philadelphia Story is. Despite all its screwball elements, it remains firmly grounded in reality. When Tracy rejects Mike's proposal, the reasons are obvious. They are from different social spheres; they may have become friends, but there is no reason to think they could successfully build a life together. They barely know each other; despite their night of drinking and various antics they have nothing like the deep affectionate bonds that tie Tracy and Dexter together. Finally, as Cukor underscores with a cut, first to Dexter, then to Liz, they are both already claimed by other people. This last point is not so much part of screwball tradition as of Cukor's own film style, which tends to privilege the group over the couple. [24] If Mike and Tracy got together, the merging of upper and lower classes would be complete, but the group would be destroyed.
It is Tracy and Dexter whose marriage closes the movie. Their romance has been played out under the surface of the entire film, both through the form of the screwball comedy and through the more serious comedy-drama, another Cukor specialty. [25] In comedic moments, Dexter has revealed that he is more playful than George, therefore better suited to Tracy, but in serious moments he has also shown deep caring for her, as when he comforts her before the wedding. Tracy has moved from hostility in their earlier scenes, to penitence, to rapturous excitement at his proposal. In classic screwball tradition, the film closes with a mad rush to the alter.
The ending of the play is essentially preserved in the movie, but a kind of coda reiterates the theme one more time. The play ends where Tracy and her father, having reconciled their differences, prepare to walk down the aisle together. The movie adds a final gag: just as Tracy joins Dexter at the alter, Sydney Kidd shows up and snaps a photograph of them. Tracy, Dexter, Mike, and Liz all turn in surprise to the camera, and are captured together in the film's final shot, which turns into an image in a magazine article. This is partly used as a funny way to end the movie, but it also has ironic significance for Mike and Liz. Having come reluctantly to cover Tracy's wedding, they have been absorbed into it, Mike standing in as Best Man, and Liz as Matron of Honour. The final proof of this is that they have become part of Spy magazine's story, "The Philadelphia Story," which is both the impetus for the plot of the movie, and, in an analogous way, The Philadelphia Story itself.
That The Philadelphia Story appealed to contemporary audiences is obvious from its critical and commercial success. It broke the attendance record at the Radio City Music Hall, [26] and was one of the top-grossing films of 1941. [27] Otis Fergison of The New Republic called the story, "at once painful, touching, and funny," [28] summing up the skill with which comic and dramatic elements are combined in it. Its status as a continuation of an earlier genre is indicated in Bosley Crowther's New York Times review, where he wrote, "Money and talent are mostly going these days into elaborate outdoor epics and rugged individualist films. It is like old times to see one about the trials and tribulations of the rich." [29]
The movie also has the ability to appeal to a modern audience, as evidenced by its continued popularity. While other films of that era reflected the tastes only of a particular moment in time, The Philadelphia Story can be seen as a "timeless fairy tale" [30] whose naïve themes of tolerance, classlessness, and romantic love are still capable of charming and entertaining audiences. More lavish than many other films of that period, more serious than its screwball predecessors, and more innocent than the films that would follow in the War and post-War years, it captures the best qualities of classical Hollywood in a story that is both wildly fantastic and warmly human.
1. "The Motion Picture Code of 1930," The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America, ed. Gerald Mast (Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1982) 326-329.
2. Philip Barry, The Philadelphia Story (New York, NY: Samuel French, 1942) 36.
3. "The Philadelphia Story," Variety Film Reviews 1907-1980 6 (1983): November 27, 1940.
4. Barry, 47.
5. Barry, 28-29.
6. Andrew Bergman, "Frank Capra and the Screwball Comedy 1931-1941," We're in the Money: Depression America and Its Films (New York, NY: New York UP, 1971) 133.
7. Bergman, 137-138.
8. James Bernardoni, George Cukor: A Critical Study and Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1985) 34.
9. Emanuel Levy, George Cukor, Master of Elegance (New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994) 135.
10. Bernardoni, 33.
11. Janine Basinger, "Audio Commentary," The Philadelphia Story, DVD, Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video Inc., 2005, disc 1.
12. Basinger.
13. Patrick McGilligan, George Cukor: A Double Life (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991) 161.
14. Bernardoni, 34-35.
15. Bergman, 133.
16. Bernardoni, 35.
17. Barry, 28.
18. Basinger.
19. Barry, 28.
20. Barry, 22.
21. Bernardoni, 40.
22. Bergman, 138.
23. Bernardoni, 42-43.
24. Bernardoni, 31.
25. Levy, 103.
26. Levy, 137.
27. Susan Sackett, The Hollywood Reporter Book of Box Office Hits (New York, NY: Billboard Books, 1996) 35.
28. Otis Ferguson, "The Philadlephia Story," American Film Criticism: From Beginnings to Citizen Kane, ed. Stanley Kauffman & Bruce Henstell (New York, NY: Liveright, 1972) 405.
29. Bosley Crowther, "The Philadelphia Story," The New York Times Film Reviews 1913-1968 3 (1970): 1758.
30. Bernardoni, 31.
Barry, Philip. The Philadelphia Story. New York, NY: Samuel French, 1942.
Basinger, Janine. "Audio Commentary." The Philadelphia Story. DVD. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video Inc., 2005. Disc 1.
Bergman, Andrew. "Frank Capra and the Screwball Comedy 1931-1941." We're in the Money: Depression America and Its Films. New York, NY: New York UP, 1971. 132-148.
Bernardoni, James. George Cukor: A Critical Study and Filmography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1985.
Crowther, Bosley. "The Philadelphia Story." The New York Times Film Reviews 1913-1968 3 (1970): 1758.
Ferguson, Otis. "The Philadlephia Story." American Film Criticism: From Beginnings to Citizen Kane. Ed. Stanley Kauffman & Bruce Henstell. New York, NY: Liveright, 1972. 404-405.
Levy, Emanuel. George Cukor, Master of Elegance. New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994.
McGilligan, Patrick. George Cukor: A Double Life. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991.
Sackett, Susan. The Hollywood Reporter Book of Box Office Hits. New York, NY: Billboard Books, 1996.
"The Motion Picture Code of 1930." The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America. Ed. Gerald Mast. Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1982. 321-333.
The Philadelphia Story. Prod. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Dir. George Cukor. DVD. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video Inc., 2005. Disc 1.
"The Philadelphia Story." Variety Film Reviews 1907-1980 6 (1983): November 27, 1940.
Comments: This essay offers an especially well researched examination of how the film translates key genres and comments on class structures in the US well. Your thesis is good, but slightly general in the introduction, since the paper that follows moves quite fluidly between examining genre and class topics, and does so skillfully; try returning to your thesis when you finish the first draft of the next essay, rereading the essay and recognizing how to put key elements of your discussion into 1-2 sentences that define their relationship. Your writing is clear, and repeatedly you raise thoughtful insights into the film and both its film and social historical contexts; this motion between the two dimensions to history is one of your strengths here. So is your ability to do close readings of particular moments in the film, moments of analysis that work to support your thesis well. You could perhaps build back in some of the reviews/primary sources from your first paper a bit more, but overall you've done very well with this assignment, and I can see you've built on suggestions made in previous work.
Mark: 87%