Product Description
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She adjusts a stocking on one slim, elegant leg. He wanders in,
admiring the view. She glances up ... and it's magic. It stayed
magic for Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn for 25 years, from
that first movie meeting in Woman of the Year, through eight more
classic films. Cinema fans who have long celebrated the
remarkable couple's on-and-off-screen partnership have more to
celebrate with Tracy & Hepburn: The Definitive Collection, the
only place to find all the films they made together, plus a
glowing documentary about Tracy hosted by Hepburn. From witty
sophisticated comedies (Woman of the Year, Without Love, Adam's
Rib, Pat and Mike, Desk Set) to trenchent dramas (Keeper of the
Flame, The Sea of Grass, State of the Union) to their final film
rich with laughs and tears (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), this
unique collection captures every moment of the incomparable
Tracy-Hepburn screen magic.
Review
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Woman of the Year
The first film starring the legendary screen team of Spencer
Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, this savvy dramatic comedy from 1942
plays off the unlikely match of polar sites--the b sports
reporter Sam Craig (Tracy) and the brilliant political
commentator Tess Harding (Hepburn) from the New York
Chronicle--whose marriage grabs front-page headlines. Balancing
her flashy career with marital bliss turns out to be a
complicated challenge for the worldly Tess, whose down-to-earth
husband struggles to support her ambition while keeping their
marriage from falling apart. Though some of its sexual politics
are sure to seem outdated, this sparkling comedy is still
relevant to today's demanding professional lifestyles, and the
Hepburn-Tracy chemistry is a wonder to behold in some of their
all-time favorite scenes. Woman of the Year was gracefully
directed by George Stevens, from a screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr.
and Michael Kanin. --Jeff Shannon
Without Love
Without Love, from 1945, is one of the first films to team
Hepburn with Spencer Tracy, and yes, their onscreen chemistry is
palpable. The conceit is one they would go on to use successfully
time and again--plucky single woman resigned to living solo;
rumpled, affable, slightly clueless bachelor who only needs to be
shown just how much in love with our heroine he is. The
supporting cast includes a terrifically cast Lucille Ball and
Gloria Grahame.--A.T. Hurley
State of the Union
State of the Union is somewhat better as a Spencer
Tracy-Katharine Hepburn movie than it is as a Frank Capra
picture. No doubt about it, these are two good roles for the
smitten stars: Tracy is a self-made businessman reluctantly
drafted into a dark-horse presidential candidacy; Hepburn is his
estranged but whip-smart wife, who joins him on the campaign
trail. Adding intrigue is the newspaper heiress (played with
relish by baby-faced Angela Lansbury) who's the cause of their
marital problems. She's also the one who convinces a longtime
political horse-trader (Adolphe Menjou) to take up the
campaign--which leads to a series of compromises for the
candidate.
The Capra flavor is here, in the paeans to liberty and the
American Way, and in the crackling pacing of dialogue scenes.
Capra's affection for supporting players is also evident, with
standout stuff from Menjou, Van Johnson (as a cynical aide),
Lewis Stone, and Raymond Walburn. But the film's roots as a hit
play (by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse) are a little too
evident, and the film as a whole doesn't feel as bracingly
Capraesque as the director's 1930s work. Having said that, the
political satire is as relevant today as it was in 1948, although
the rapid-fire topical references might be puzzling to
non-campaign buffs. Note for bloopers collectors: Hepburn's name
is spelled "Katherine" in the opening credits. --Robert Horton
Sea of Grass
It's no surprise that Elia Kazan directed the oddly political Sea
of Grass, the story of a man (Spencer Tracy) who reveres the
grass plains and thinks they are no place for homesteaders and
farmers. His wife (Katharine Hepburn) disagrees, however, and the
two find themselves at odds. But putting politics aside, this is
a melodrama with a capital "M," so throw in some adultery, an
out-of-wedlock baby, and Hepburn speaking even more breathlessly
than usual, and you might find yourself giggling at some of the
more dramatic moments. Even more out of place, Strangers on a
Train star Robert Walker plays Hepburn and Tracy's grown son, who
cares more about cards and drinking than the land. There are
sweet moments in this film, but the politics of the land is
ultimately more compelling than the relationships. --Paige Newman
Adam's Rib
There are two great husband-wife teams (one on-screen, the other
off) involved in this classic 1949 comedy. Not only do Katharine
Hepburn and Spencer Tracy throw comedic sparks as a married team
of lawyers on sing sides of a high-profile case, but their
exquisite verbal jousting was scripted by the outstanding team of
Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. Leading all of this stellar talent
was director George Cukor at the prime of his career. The result
is one of Hollywood's greatest comedy classics, still packing a
punch with its sophisticated gender politics. Arguably the best
of the Tracy-Hepburn vehicles, Adam's Rib shows the stars at
their finest in roles that not only made their off-screen love so
entertainingly obvious, but also defined their timeless screen
personas--she the intelligent, savvy, rebellious woman ahead of
her time, he the easygoing but obstinate modern man who can't
help but love her. Screen teams don't get any better than this.
--Jeff Shannon
Pat and Mike
Kate plays Pat Pemberton, a college physical education teacher
who excels at just about every sport there is. She's also a great
athletic competitor, except when her overbearing, worrywart
fiancé, Collier Weld, is around. (As Weld, William Ching does an
admirable job in a thankless role.) All Pat has to do is see
Collier's face on the sidelines and her golf swing loses its
power; her tennis game goes haywire. It takes crooked sports
manager Mike Conovan (Spencer Tracy, of course) to recognize
Pat's outstanding talent. He takes her on as his most important
client and handles her with the same loving care that he gives to
his favorite racehorse. Naturally, Pat and Mike's relationship is
destined to overstep its professional boundaries. The mutual
attraction grows from the moment they meet. Watching Pat walk
away, Mike comments to his partner, "Not much meat on her, but
what's there is 'cherce'."
The film carries a powerful feminist message, especially
considering that it was made in the early 1950s: Pat is undone by
Collier, who would rather have her stick to being "the little
woman" and forget about succeeding. But with Mike in her corner,
Pat can have a great career. Her union with him is a true
partnership; everything is, as he says, "Five-oh, five-oh." In
the end, he's secure enough to be comfortable as "the man behind
the woman." The film features terrific comic performances by Aldo
Ray as a -headed boxer, a young Charles Bronson (before he
changed his name from Buchinski) as a small-time gangster, and
Our Gang's Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as a high-strung bus boy.
--Laura Mirsky
Desk Set
One of the later Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn matchups, this
time pitting efficiency expert--sorry, that's "methods
engineer"--Richard Sumner (Tracy) against TV-network research
whiz Bunny Watson (Hepburn) over adding a new-fangled
computer--again, sorry, that's "electronic brain"--to her
department, thereby threatening her and her colleagues'
livelihoods. Gig Young appears as Bunny's beau, an ambitious
network executive who strings her along and becomes apoplectic at
the idea that she doesn't need him. But as always, it's Hepburn
and Tracy's bickering-flirting that makes this such a winning
enterprise--a lunch date that turns into an interrogation and
their sly repartee during a Christmas party are a couple of the
movie's hilarious highlights. Interestingly, what starts out as
something of a technophobic exercise--Hepburn fears for her job,
and a computer goes haywire--takes an abrupt turn (perhaps the
IBM product placement had something to do with that). Briskly
scripted by Henry and Phoebe Ephron (Nora and Delia's parents)
from a play by William Marchant. --David Kronke
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Spencer Tracy's last performance was in this well-meaning,
handsome film by Stanley Kramer about a pair of white parents
(Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) trying to make sense of their
daughter's impending marriage to an African American doctor
(Sidney Poitier). The film has been knocked over the years for
padding conflict and stoking easy liberalism by making Poitier's
character in every socioeconomic sense a good catch: But what if
Kramer had made this stranger a factory worker? Would the
audience still find it as easy to accept a mixed-race
relationship? But there's no denying the drawing power of this
movie, which gets most of its integrity from the stirring
performances of Tracy and Hepburn. When the former (who had been
so ill that the production could not get completion insurance)
gives a speech toward the end about race, love, and much else,
it's impossible not to be affected by the last great moment in a
great actor's life and career. --Tom Keogh
Keeper of the Flame
It's no surprise that Keeper of the Flame came out in 1942, the
same year as Casablanca. In this would-be film noir, the problems
of two little people again don't a to a hill of beans when
it comes to fighting fascism in other countries--not to mention
the United States. Spencer Tracy stars as Steven O'Malley, a war
correspondent who comes home to write a book about a great
industrialist who's died under mysterious circumstances. He hopes
to gain in from the man's wife (Katharine Hepburn), but she
is reticent to play along with the reporter. It's not difficult
to figure out the "truth" that Tracy discovers, but the film is
an interesting piece of period propaganda. Director George Cukor
(who also directed Tracy and Hepburn in Adam's Rib and Pat and
Mike) is definitely making what they used to call a message
picture, but Tracy and Hepburn's always-apparent chemistry keeps
it fun to watch. --Paige Newman
