Adam's Rib

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, & Judy Holliday

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

When I'm in the mood for a classic film, I usually look for something with Spencer Tracy in it. In an era where so many things were over the top and hard to follow, Tracy was a breath of fresh air, so very far ahead of his time. Adam's Rib is one of nine films he made with Katharine Hepburn, and is considered to be the best of the lot, I completely disagree. The film is ahead of it's time in that it's focused on woman's rights and asserts an affirmative defense for a violent crime, but the fact that it was a comedy, making light of a very serious charge, made the film lose credibility, and as a result, the message it was trying to portray does not come across very well at all. Doris Attinger (Judy Holliday) has caught her husband cheating and responded by shooting him. It seems an open and shut case for prosecuting attorney, Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy), until his beautiful wife, Amanda (Katharine Hepburn) agrees to defend Mrs. Attinger. Her defense is an affirmative one, claiming that Doris Attinger should be acquitted, because a man arrested under similar circumstance would be. The claim is absolutely ridiculous even for 1949, because if anything, the justice system would have been harder on a man who shot his wife as opposed to her lover. Mrs. Bonner turns the trial into an absolute circus, embarrassing her husband, leading to an internal conflict in their marriage. This should have been where the comedy really came in, these fights between the two should have been hilarious, but they weren't. The couples fights were more serious, intense, and depressing than the trial itself. Everything about this film just seemed to be backwards and ridiculous, in particular Katharine Hepburn, who was so over the top in the courtroom, that it completely nullifies her argument. Here is a woman trying to stand up for woman's rights, by pulling ridiculous stunts and being unprofessional in the courtroom, how is that supposed to show that a woman can be just as good at her job as a man? The bottom line is that this film had a very serious message to spread, but everything was so backwards and misplaced, that it just loses any credibility it had, along with my interest about half way through. If Adam's Rib wasn't about a court case, and I wasn't waiting for the verdict, I probably wouldn't have sat through the whole thing.