Who will she choose? Check out The Philadelphia Story (1941) to find out.
The Imperial Theatre’s Retro Film series returns to Saint John with one of the rom-com genre’s starriest classics, The Philadelphia Story (1940).
The film, based on the 1939 hit Broadway play of the same name, follows a tenacious Philadelphia Main Line socialite Tracy Lord, (Katherine Hepburn, who also played Tracy on Broadway) whose wedding plans are thrown in the lurch when her ex-husband C.K. Dexter, (Cary Grant) and an undercover tabloid magazine journalist Macaulay “Mike” Connor, (James Stewart) arrive at her family estate.
Philadelphia was released by MGM Studios, led by Saint John native Louis B. Mayer, at the height of the studio’s power and was directed by George Cukor (A Star is Born), bouncing back from being replaced as Gone With The Wind’s (1939) director.
The ensuing love quadrangle, hijinks, including a drunken midnight swim, and chemistry between Hepburn, Grant and Stewart made Philadelphia was a critical and commercial smash, and the fifth most popular film of 1941.
It was also Hepburn’s first big hit in a long while and acted as a comeback vehicle for her career; due to a recent string of film flops she was considered “box office poison” at the time.
The film was nominated for six Academy Awards in 1941 and won two; Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for James Stewart’s performance as upstanding journo Mike. It was also remade as a musical in 1956, renamed as High Society and starred Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra, and has become a screwball romantic comedy staple.
If you go: The Philadelphia Story will be screened at the Imperial Theatre on Monday, September 30, 2019. Tickets cost $10 and the screening will begin at 7:00PM.
