Adam’s Rib (1949) [D: George Cukor. Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy.] Adam Bonner (Tracy) prosecutes and Amanda Bonner (Hepburn) defends a woman who fired a gun at her husband and his mistress. An early example of a movie that argues for equal rights for women, albeit as a comedy (so it’s not a serious issue), and of course with Hepburn regretting the possible break-up of her marriage. Tracy is the one who manages to mend the breach, so Father Knows Best after all. The characters are amusing, and oddly childish: did men and women really act that way 60 years ago? The dialogue is well done, the courtroom scenes have a few moments of farce, all’s well that ends well. If you can get past the dated notions of gender roles, you will see that the subtext is about mutual respect and the need for love. Adam and Amanda each want the other to show not only affection but respect; and both realise that loving each other matters most, whatever professional sparring they get into (or indulge in).
Watching 60-year-old movie reminds us how much has changed. It’s not just the visible bits, the subway, the cars, the clothes (Hepburn’s clothes are very definitely fashionable), or the furniture. It’s the little things like the crew-cut on the young neighbour who puts the moves on Hepburn when her marriage appears to breaking up (and that phrase is also dated). Or the way that Amanda and Adam co-operate in getting their supper: Adam even answers the door wearing an apron. Clearly, he’s a “liberated” husband, one who considers his marriage a partnership (“contract” is the word he uses). It’s unspoken assumptions such as these that inform the dialogue and ground the jokes: the courtroom humour breaks the unspoken code of decorous behaviour. Later on, on TV’s Night Court, it became a means of oblique comment on the shifting values of the 1970s and 80s. Here, it’s used to give point to the rivalry between husband and wife, and to point up her obliviousness to the humiliation she is visiting on him. She hasn’t grasped what feminists emphasised: the personal is political: home and work are separated not by a brick wall, not even by a fence, but by an imaginary line that’s constantly shifting.
In short, this movie is more complex than it appears to be. Like all good social comedy, it supports, reveals, and criticises the values of the society in which the story is set. Hepburn and Tracy are a pleasure to watch working together. By this time they had been a couple for several years, they know and trust each other not only as actors but as people. I liked this movie, not despite but because of its firm cultural anchoring. The writers knew they were dealing with themes (domestic violence, marriage, gender roles) that people had begun to see as requiring reexamination. They managed to do this within the constraints of a Hollywood romantic comedy, and so created a subtly subversive work. Well done. ***
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