Woman of the Year: A Hepburn/Tracy Friendly Dinosaur

 

 

WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942)

Directed by George Stevens

MGM/Loew's, 114 minutes, Not-rated

★★★

 

Woman of the Year was the first of nine Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy films. They met on the set and became lovers. Rumors hold that both were bisexual or perhaps gay beards for each another but as much as many wish that to be true, it probably isn't. Nearly all of the “evidence” came from either dead sources or gossip columnists. Please note the modifier “gossip.” It's conceivable they might have had same-sex relationships, but you simply cannot watch Woman of the Year without seeing sexual frisson between Hepburn and Tracy that would nearly impossible to fake.

 

Woman of the Year only captured one Oscar in its day, a Best Original Screenplay nod for Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin, though Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress. It was declared a culturally significant film by the Library of Congress; as such there is much to admire and some that’s as dated as The Mayflower Compact. I doubt post-Second Wave feminists will sing its praises, but parts of the film are poignant and others that are screamingly funny.

 

Call the film a mix of the battle of the sexes, a romance, a class comedy, and an example of wartime movie making. It involves the unlikely attraction between well-educated upper-class international news reporter Tess Harding (Hepburn), and rumpled sportswriter Sam Craig (Tracy). In other words, it's embassies, black-tie parties, personal calls from world leaders, and international intrigue versus Yankee Stadium, racetracks, barrooms, and locker room tall tales. The two first meet in their newspaper's publisher's office after Tess lampooned sports in her world affairs column and Sam countered with a left hook on the sports page. Sam takes one look at Tess pulling up her stockings before agreeing to a truce and inviting her to go to a ballgame. She loves it!

 

Will an independent woman involved in refugee rescue who grew up in a wealthy Connecticut suburb, and speaks multiple languages have the vocabulary to fall for a guy like Sam? Hello! Hepburn and Tracy! His crusty bachelor ways notwithstanding, Sam charms both Tess's widowed father, Senator William Harding (Minor Watson), and her aunt, Ellen Whitcomb (Fay Bainter), a feminist icon. It’s a match, if Sam can ever get past Harding's prissy and protective personal secretary Gerald (Dan Tobin), the gayest character in the film. There's also the matter of the world in serious crisis to which Tess needs to turn her attention; in 1942, when thus film debuted, U.S. involvement in World War II was less than a year old. The war appears around the edges of the film, not because director George Stevens, Lardner, or Kanin wished to ignore it, but because a good romance was part of Hollywood's charge to boost morale.

 

This brings me to the part of Woman of the Year that will most trouble women today. The title comes from an award Tess wins for advancing women’s rights, one given by no less a personage than Aunt Ellen. There are so many intruders upon their relationship that Sam is fed up. I remind viewers that, in 1942, the assumption remained that marriage was the highest status to which women aspired. When Ellen makes a decision that isn't exactly out of Betty Friedan, can Tess be far behind?

The good news is that Tess's initial attempt at domestic goddess behavior is side-splitting hysterical. How does a gal who grew up with servants, has a live-in housekeeper, and the obsequious errand-running Gerald learn to make coffee or cook waffles? You simply must see this nearly silent slice of film. The only comparable food disaster that pops to mind is Lucille Ball's chocolate assembly line debacle and in my mind Hepburn's comic turn is funnier as it rings more plausible despite its absurdity. Let's just say that an ill-mannered goat has more cooking ability than Tess.

 

The film's final scene offers small compensation for its non-feminist turn, but the real juice of the film is the aforementioned chemistry between Hepburn and Tracy. To be sure, both were accomplished actors, but the sparks in their eyes are genuine. It always helps to remind yourself that a film such as Woman of the Year is an 80-year-old artifact, not sociological commentary. In many ways, this film is a dinosaur, but it's friendly like Barney, not a Velociraptor.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: A compromise over the gay rumors is to take Hepburn’s approach that personal matters are nobody's business. Plus, Hollywood has never been a center of conventional morality.