Adam's Rib

Adam's Rib
Directed by	George Cukor
Produced by	Lawrence Weingarten
Written by	Ruth Gordon Garson Kanin
Starring	Spencer Tracy Katharine Hepburn
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography	George J. Folsey
Editing by	George Boemler
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	November 18, 1949
Running time	101 min.
Language	English

Adam's Rib is a 1949 film starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn and directed by George Cukor. The film was well-received upon its release and is considered a classic romantic comedy. Judy Holliday, who went on to fame in 1950's Born Yesterday, received her first substantial role in this film. The music was composed by Miklós Rózsa, except for the song "Farewell, Amanda", which was written by Cole Porter.

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Legal issues 2 Reception 3 Cast 4 Quotations from the movie 5 References 6 External links

Plot

Prosecutor Adam Bonner (Tracy) is assigned the case against a woman (Holliday) who tried to scare her adulterous husband (Tom Ewell) by shooting him repeatedly. Bonner's wife, Amanda (Hepburn), also a lawyer, decides to defend the woman in court. As the two use every technique they know to win the case, the courtroom tension carries over into the couple's household.

Legal issues

The defendant, Doris Attinger, when narrating to Amanda Bonner her version of the events on the day she shot her husband, describes recognizable symptoms of a dissociative episode. These include a divorcement from the reality of her actions and even psychogenic amnesia concerning her actual wounding of her husband. Given that, one might have expected Amanda to ask the jury for a verdict of not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity, because the defendant had been seized by an irresistible impulse.

Instead, Amanda asks for a simple verdict of not guilty, because all the defendant did was to "try to defend her home", and a man acting similarly might be acquitted. In short, she asks for jury nullification, and wins the case.

Reception

Ruth Gordon (later of Rosemary's Baby and Harold and Maude fame) and Garson Kanin were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 1950. In the decades since the film's release, it has attracted the esteem of many critics. In 1992, Adam's Rib was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Adam's Rib was acknowledged as the seventh best film in the romantic comedy genre.^[1]

The casting of Holliday in the role of Doris was considered by Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn to be Holliday's audition for the chance to re-create on film her Broadway success in Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. Receiving positive notices for Adam's Rib, Holliday was cast in the 1950 film version of Born Yesterday, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Cast

• Spencer Tracy – as Adam Bonner
• Katharine Hepburn – as Amanda Bonner
• Judy Holliday – as Doris Attinger
• Tom Ewell – as Warren Francis Attinger
• David Wayne – as Kip Lurie
• Jean Hagen – as Beryl Caighn
• Hope Emerson – as Olympia La Pere
• Eve March – as Grace
• Clarence Kolb – as Judge Reiser
• Polly Moran – as Mrs. McGrath
• Will Wright – as Judge Marcasson
• Madge Blake – as Mrs. Bonner, Adam's Mother

Quotations from the movie

"Is that what they taught you at, ah, Yale Law School?"

"Tell me something. What is marriage? I'll tell you what it is: Marriage is a contract. It's the law."

""Licorice, mmmm. If there's anything I'm a sucker for, it's licorice."

"What blow you think you were striking for women's rights, I am sure I don't know, but you've certainly fouled us up beyond all recognition."

"Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which comes idiot children and more lawyers."

References

External links

• Adam's Rib at the Internet Movie Database
• Adams Rib quotes at MovieWavs.com

v • d • e Films directed by George Cukor Grumpy (1930) • Virtuous Sin (1930) • The Royal Family of Broadway (1930) • Tarnished Lady (1931) • Girls About Town (1931) • A Bill of Divorcement (1932) • Rockabye (1932) • What Price Hollywood? (1932) • Dinner at Eight (1933) • Our Betters (1933) • Little Women (1933) • David Copperfield (1935) • No More Ladies (1935) • Sylvia Scarlett (1935) • Camille (1936) • Romeo and Juliet (1936) • Holiday (1938) • Zaza (1939) • The Women (1939) • The Philadelphia Story (1940) • Susan and God (1940) • Two-Faced Woman (1941) • A Woman's Face (1941) • Her Cardboard Lover (1942) • Keeper of the Flame (1942) • Gaslight (1944) • Winged Victory (1944) • A Double Life (1947) • Edward, My Son (1949) • Adam's Rib (1949) • Born Yesterday (1950) • A Life of Her Own (1950) • The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) • The Marrying Kind (1952) • Pat and Mike (1952) • The Actress (1953) • A Star Is Born (1954) • It Should Happen to You (1954) • Bhowani Junction (1956) • Les Girls (1957) • Wild Is the Wind (1957) • Heller in Pink Tights (1960) • Let's Make Love (1960) • The Chapman Report (1962) • My Fair Lady (1964) • Justine (1969) • Travels With My Aunt (1972) • The Blue Bird (1976) • Rich And Famous (1981)

v • d • e The Tracy & Hepburn films Woman of the Year (1942) • Keeper of the Flame (1942) • Without Love (1945) • The Sea of Grass (1947) • State of the Union (1948) • Adam's Rib (1949) • Pat and Mike (1952) • Desk Set (1957) • Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Why are we here?
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
This page is cache of Wikipedia. History