Adam's Rib

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn worked so smoothly together that it's almost difficult to fault their films. Hepburn's admiration for Tracy off-screen is hard to ignore, but she was a character actress first and foremost (and THEN a movie star), and she's deeply in character here and believable. Tracy, on the other hand, took movie-making with a grain of salt--we don't see his indifference, but we do see his casual 'naturalness,' his underplaying. Spencer Tracy overacts at underplaying, mumbling some of his throwaway lines for effect or overlapping Hepburn's dialogue with his. This non-effort actually shows effort, and turns this comedy into an actor's exercise. It's not very funny anyway: married lawyers take opposite sides of a spousal-abuse case. Dated battle-of-the-sexes doesn't give Judy Holliday much to work with (word has it this was her screen-test for "Born Yesterday"). It's all very smart and sophisticated on the surface, but callow at its core. Screenwriters Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin received Oscar nominations for their script, which disintegrates into door-slamming farce. ** from ****