Adam's Rib - 1949

Katharine Hepburn Wall Mural
48 in. x 72 in.

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A great, sophisticated, battle-of-the-sexes comedy, one of Hollywood's greatest comedy classics, about husband-and-wife lawyers who take opposite sides of a court case, from a forward-looking screenplay with snappy dialogue by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin - the husband and wife's second collaboration with director George Cukor. Often rated as the best pairing of the nine films of the legendary screen team of Tracy and Hepburn - it was their sixth film together.

The film was originally titled Man and Wife. Chauvinistic District Attorney Adam Bonner (Tracy) prosecutes a 'dumb blonde' Doris Attinger (Holliday in her debut role) for attempted murder. The bombshell vengefully shot and wounded her philandering, two-timing husband Warren (Ewell) with mistress Beryl (Hagen). His savvy wife Amanda Bonner (Hepburn) victoriously defends the woman with feminist, women's rights arguments, upsetting sexist double standards. At film's end, Adam conclusively admits the profound differences between males and females: Vive la difference. Academy Award Nominations: 1, Best Story and Screenplay.

The Philadelphia Story - 1940

Philadelphia Story Framed Art Print
17.875 in. x 23.875 in.
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The Philadelphia Story (1940) is an intelligent, sophisticated, classic romantic comedy-farce (part screwball) of love and marriage, human growth and class distinctions. Its screenplay is a witty, sparkling, and bright adaptation of Philip Barry's Broadway hit play. (The play opened in late March 1939 and ran for a full year with more than 400 performances and a nationwide tour). [Barry's inspiration for the lead female character was derived from real-life Philadelphian WASP heiress Hope Montgomery Scott (1905-1995).] Barry, who is uncredited as the screenwriter in the film, wrote the part specifically for the talents of Katharine Hepburn who played the hit role in the theatre. [Hepburn's suggested title for the play was The Answer to This Malden's Prayer.]

After several commercial failures and labeled "box office poison" in 1938 by Photoplay Magazine, Hepburn struck out on her own by bringing the property to MGM after buying the film rights to the play. With producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz (for MGM), she was able to handpick the cast's co-stars (James Stewart and Cary Grant), screenwriter (Donald Ogden Stewart, who later won the Academy Award), and director (George Cukor). Cukor had already made four films with Hepburn.

Bringing Up Baby - 1938

Bringing Up Baby, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, 1938 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.
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Mounted



Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a versatile director Howard Hawks comedy funny and more often regarded as the definitive movie crazy. It is also one of the funniest, oddest movies and most inspired of all time with its breathless pace characteristically zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, the perfect sense of comic timing, cast completely screwball series of mishaps and wacky crazy, disasters, surprises and light romantic comedy. The non-stop, crackpot farce skewers many institutions, including psychiatry, the sterile field of science, the classes of the police and upper-class upper. At the time of its release, has failed miserably at the box office and was quickly forgotten until revived years later.

As is the case for many of Howard Hawks' finest films (including the movie Scarface Crime (1932) Twentieth Century (1934), His Girl Friday (1940), To Have or not (1944), the thriller The Big Sleep (1946), Monkey Business (1952) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)), this masterpiece has not been nominated for an Academy Award unique. Director Peter Bogdanovich has paid tribute to the Hollywood screwball comedy genre with a loose remake titled What's Up, Doc (1972) with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.

The fast-paced film is about the relationship of two unlikely people, played by actress Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant actor playing against type in a classic "conflict" between the sexes: a madcap, scheming, aggressive, impulsive, prone to accidents and heir of the company Daffy, and a clumsy, awkward, distracted paleontologist, right, corny and stifling a natural history museum. This was the second of four films co-starring Hepburn and Grant [the others were Sylvia Scarlett (1936), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940)]. Other characters are a sheriff in a small town, a drunken Irish gardener, a hunter of big game, and two leopards in Brazil.

The African Queen - 1951

African Queen, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, 1951 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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Mounted

The African Queen (1951) is the uncomplicated tale of two companions with mismatched, "opposites attract" personalities who develop an implausible love affair as they travel together downriver in Africa around the start of World War I. This quixotic film by director John Huston, based on the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester, is one of the classics of Hollywood adventure filmmaking, with comedy and romance besides. It was the first color film for the two leads and for director Huston.

The acting of the two principal actors - Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn - is some of the strongest ever registered on film, although this was their first and only pairing together. They portray an unshaven, drinking and smoking captain of a cranky tramp steamer, and a prissy and proper, but imperious and unorthodox WWI-era African missionary spinster. [This was 44 year-old Hepburn's first screen appearance as a spinster, and marked her transition to more mature roles for the rest of her career. At 52 years of age, Bogart was also past his prime as a handsome, hard-boiled detective.] John Mills, David Niven, and Bette Davis were, at one time, considered for the lead roles.

Directed on location (on the Ruiki in the then Belgian Congo and the British protectorate of Uganda) by John Huston (it was his ninth feature film and fifth film with Bogart), the film was nominated for four Academy Awards - Best Actress (Katharine Hepburn), Best Screenplay (James Agee and John Huston), Best Director, and Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart). Bogart was the only one to win - the film's sole Oscar. In hindsight, Bogart's award (his sole career Oscar) was probably consolation for the oversight he experienced three years earlier when he wasn't even nominated for one of his best roles as Fred C. Dobbs in Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).