Number 163 on IMDb's Top 250
Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn), is a wealthy "main line" Philadelphian socialite who has divorced C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) and is about to marry nouveau riche George Kittredge (John Howard). Wedding preparations are complicated when she is blackmailed into granting an exclusive story to tabloid reporter Macaulay "Mike" Connor (Jimmy Stewart) and photographer Elizabeth Imbrie (Ruth Hussey). In exchange for letting the event be covered by Spy magazine, the antics of Tracy's philandering father will not be exposed. Dexter has helped cook up this scheme and does everything he can to derail the marriage because he still loves Tracy. As the wedding nears, Tracy finds herself torn between Mike, Dexter and George. Hilarity ensues.
Trivia: Jimmy Stewart had no plans to attend the Oscar ceremony the year he was nominated for this film. Just before the ceremony began, he received a call at home "advising" him to slip into a dinner jacket and attend the ceremony. He did and he received the award for Best Actor. This was in the days before an accounting firm kept the Oscar voting results secret. Jimmy Stewart himself was of the opinion that his Best Actor Oscar was "...deferred payment for my work on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)". The film was shot in eight weeks, and required no retakes. Jimmy Stewart thought of hiccupping in the drunk scene himself, without telling Cary Grant. When he began hiccuping, Grant turned to Stewart saying, "Excuse me." The scene required only one take. During the scene you can see Cary Grant looking down and grinning. Since the hiccup wasn't scripted Grant was on the verge of breaking out laughing and had to compose himself quickly.
Okay, take the stars of Bringing Up Baby about a woman who wants to sabotage a man's wedding because she love him, switch it to a man wanting to sabotage the woman's wedding for the same reason, give them better characters but keep the chemistry, replace the leopard with another major star, and some more chemistry, take most of the madcap out of the humor, shake well, and you have this movie. This was just a wonderful movie. How can you go wrong with three actors like Hepburn, Grant, and Stewart.
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3 comments:
Sometimes AFN gets it right. We have a movie channel here and they usually play movies repeatedly like "Fast and Furious", "Top Gun" or some other thing we've all seen a million times. But yesterday they got it right by running a movie with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey in it called "Desk Set". I ran across it mid-movie, but was immediately riveted to the TV. The funny thing is that Colby came home from school and he was immediately riveted to the TV too. I adored that the scenes all seemed like they were done on a stage with continuous shooting. No break aways to each actors face. No changing positions in the room. When they acted a scene, it was truly a full scene. It was a lot of fun to watch....just ask Colby.
Colby, was it a lot of fun to watch?
In Desk Set, Katherine Hepburn played a character named Bunny Watson. Heh heh, that's cool.
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