User reviews

... then start here, where they were introduced to each other and fell in love. You can actually feel that love in their performances. Tracy plays a sportswriter, Sam Craig, not a particularly well traveled man or a deep thinker. Hepburn plays Tess Harding, an international affairs correspondent, and with the world at war there is much to correspond about. Thus she runs around at a dizzying pace and I lost count of how many languages Tess spoke. Her mother died when she was an infant, and she grew up globetrotting with her father, and only returned to America as an adult.

Tess and Sam meet when they have a war of words in their articles over baseball, and when the editor tells them to make up, that is when they begin seeing each other. Now Tess doesn't hide how busy she is, or how full her apartment often is of people from all over the world that she knows, yet Sam marries her and I get the feeling that he is disappointed that nothing changes. Their wedding being practically a drive through affair should have given him a hint.

So naturally the marriage eventually fails when Sam walks out. That is Tess' first surprise. Her second surprise is when the woman she has patterned herself after for years and years, Ellen Whitcomb (Fay Bainter), makes a totally unexpected, but not unwelcome, move. How does this all work out? Watch and find out.

I'm not sure this film is ultimately sexist or feminist. It does look like the script was trying to paint Hepburn's character as an ice queen, and she just acted her way out of being portrayed in that fashion. She ultimately plays it as a person who, if she takes up a task, goes all the way with it, right down to the humorous scene where she tries to make breakfast and acts like every utensil in the kitchen is from another planet, yet she persists in the face of hilarious adversity and inexperience. However, if you turn the roles of Sam and Tess around, you could say this was a feminist film, maybe giving men a dose of their own 1942 medicine when they expected women to just live with whatever work schedule the man had, even if they sat home alone at nights.

I'd highly recommend this as one of the great romantic films, and they didn't make many of those during WWII outside of Casablanca.

Legend has it that Spencer Tracy said he would cut Katharine Hepburn down to size when upon meeting her in heels for the first time on the set of Woman of the Year.

I think that's what the authors of the screenplay Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner, Jr., had in mind in the script as well. As mismatched a pair if there ever were, he a down to earth sports columnist and she a world famous news reporter and commentator, fall in love.

As her celebrity is much wider known than his, Hepburn expects to have it all her own way. The rest of the film is concerned with their efforts to adjust to each other.

Katharine Hepburn's character is based on liberal radio commentator and reporter Dorothy Thompson. Not surprising that no one has mentioned that yet in all the reviews so far. The giveaway is Tracy first hearing her voice on the radio while in his favorite sports bar on Information Please where Thompson was a guest. Her career petered out after World War II, so she's not known to today's audience.

Writers Kanin and Lardner had as a model for the Tracy character Lardner's own father. Ring Lardner was one the celebrated sports writers of the first half of the 20th century, a great reporter and humorist. While Tracy is not as witty as Ring Lardner, he is definitely as down to earth.

My favorite scene is Spencer Tracy trying to feel comfortable at an international gathering at her place, looking even for people who speak English. Of course she's equally as uncomfortable at William Bendix's bar where Tracy likes to hang out.

Hepburn, comfortable in her celebrity, just sails through life, getting awards here and there. When she thinks of a Greek orphan kid she gets pressured into taking in as another award, that's when Tracy puts his foot down.

Based on some real celebrities, Tracy and Hepburn become those celebrities in the flesh. It's an awesome debut for what turned out to be a great screen team.

Look for fine performances by William Bendix, Fay Bainter, Minor Watson and Dan Tobin. Kanin and Lardner copped the film's only Oscar for an original screenplay. Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress, but lost to Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver.

If Woman of the Year were remade today, the producers might consider making the woman the sports reporter. Seeing Jeannie Zelasko covering the World Series this year, I'm sure it would work very well.

First 70 minutes: 9 stars. I marveled over the chemistry between Hepburn and Tracy, and even more over her character, who is a highly sophisticated, intelligent, strong, funny, and romantic woman. She calls the shots, interviews heads of state, flies all over the world, speaks what seems like every language, and can hold her own drinking Scotch. At the same time, she falls for this salty sports reporter and her body language and affection for him are so tender, including when she re-assures him that he won't feel like a weekend guest while staying in her apartment on their honeymoon night with a wonderful little hint of seductiveness, and when she says "hello daddy" in a baby voice when he comes home one night. My favorite bit of dialogue was this though, where he shows such interest and acceptance of her; the way that they look at each other is wonderful:

Hebpurn: Well, we're alone. Talk. You do have something to talk about? Tracy: Yeah, yeah. You. You. I'd like to know what you like and don't like, and how you feel about being you. Hepburn: I feel very good about it. Always have. I like knowing more about what goes on than most people. Tracy: And telling them. Hepburn: Yeah, and telling them.

Last 45 minutes: 5 stars. The film starts unraveling with Hepburn's rash decision to adopt a refugee, not because that's a bad thing (it's a great thing), but because she does so without telling her husband, or without the slightest thought to actually caring for the child. It spirals from there until that horrific prolonged ending scene, where this intelligent, brilliant woman fumbles around in the kitchen, apparently not knowing how to use a toaster. It's, quite frankly, god-awful on every possible level.

The message is loud and clear: if a woman chooses to focus on a career, she will neglect her husband, not have a clue about raising kids, and be incompetent at performing wifely tasks like making breakfast. It's terribly insulting, and undoes a lot of the great things it did in the first 70 minutes. Hepburn's character wins the "Woman of the Year" award, but it's ironically Tracy who is showcased as award-worthy, for having put up with the "difficult case" of his wife, remained level-headed, and taught her a good lesson in what it takes to have a good marriage.

The only small saving grace is that his character suggests she can have both, a career and a family, as long as she doesn't go to extremes in either. It's only too bad the film didn't simply show us how women can do this balancing just as well as men, but it was 1942, and a lot of people - including those in powerful positions - were simply not ready for this message.

Most commentators on this movie miss the its point completely, and criticize what they misunderstand as the outdated sexual politics of the 1940's from the standpoint of the outdated sexual politics of the 1970's. Blinded by political correctness, they miss the many virtues of the sparkling script.

The point of the script is actually relatively modest. It is not, in fact it is far from, The Taming of the Shrew, or the subjugation of the independent woman. Tracy's character admires Hepburn's character's independence and competence, and he doesn't want her to renounce them to become the "little woman" -- that is the burden of his "kitchen speech" at the end. He simply understands better than she does, at least until the end of the film, that maintaining a relationship and a marriage requires time, work, and attention. That may well be an unwelcome message, but it is not an unwise one.

The comedy of the film comes from their characters' different worlds -- Tracy is a sportswriter and Hepburn an international politics columnist. The drama comes from their different levels of commitment to being a couple. The script delicately and for the most part successfully (with the possible exception of the Greek orphan subplot), balances these two conflicts and the comedy and drama.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in their first film together, his Sam Craig matched with her Tess Harding; his subtle, underplaying acting style with her stylised, personality-driven performance. It's an acting tour de force, to be sure--the two of them make the best of (and often far surpass) a somewhat limited script and interesting but stiffly played-out plot. In fact, their chemistry in this film is palpable. When someone speaks of cinematic magic, of chemistry sparking off (if not engulfing) the screen, *this*--Tracy, Hepburn, Tracy and Hepburn--is what they are talking about, even back in the days of the Hays Code. It's all mostly chaste kisses and long eye contact, often carried out in semi-darkness, and yet the two main players establish a relationship more sexual and believable than so many of the relationships portrayed in films these days. (Take the tiny moment in the cab--not the drunk scene that everyone loves, but that moment when he says, "I've got to get something off my chest", and she mumbles, "I'm too heavy", and raises her head. When he gently pulls it back to where you feel it would always belong, you know that these actors are doing something incredible.)

This isn't to say that the film is without flaws. Far from it. The writing is clipped and most of the words on their own have little spark. (It takes Spencer Tracy's glowering eyes, or Katharine Hepburn's radiant smile, to add life to those words.) Even the relationship between Sam and Tess isn't set up in the most fluid of ways, leap-frogging from moment to moment, from scene to scene, without quite making the necessary connections--if you believe in Sam and Tess together (and I do), it's only because you can truly believe in Tracy and Hepburn together. The film occasionally feels like a play cobbled together from various scenes, until it hits its stride midway through the film (after Sam and Tess get married).

Script aside, the plot is interesting, and certainly quite radical for its time. However, the ending (a hilarious set-piece of comedy though it might be) leaves things largely unresolved. We have a wonderful, strong female character in Tess Harding--this is clear enough in the first half of the film. But her strength, her forceful personality and go-getting attitude, become her weakness in the second half, so much so that she becomes almost a caricature of the original Tess Harding. Some of the things she does (her 'humanitarian' wholesale adoption of Chris, for example; her rudeness and blithe ignorance of Sam's worth) are truly reprehensible, and the point the writers are making is clear--a female who tries too hard to be a male loses her feminity, and cannot ever really be fulfilled. In this sense, the gender politics, as other commenters have pointed out, is 'deplorable'.

And yet there is a grain of truth in it; if one *can* be brought to believe that Tess could really treat Chris and Sam in the way she does, one can't help but applaud Sam's decision to leave. The role reversal is almost complete--Sam himself comments on the fact that she 'makes love' to him to smooth over their quarrels. She charges on her own merry way without asking him about his life, his opinion, or anything that remotely matters to him. Their union was neither perfect, nor a marriage, as he justifiably charges.

The uneasy tension between the admirable and the deplorable Tess Hardings comes at the end: you most certainly get the impression that the film itself didn't quite know whether or not to affirm the Tess character. In fact, by all accounts (even Hepburn's own), the film originally ended with an unqualified affirmation of Tess's character--promising to be more involved in her husband's life, Tess is depicted at a baseball game, cheering alongside Sam, getting louder and louder and rising higher in her seat above him. It was both an affirmation of Tess the character, and a lingering question mark about the Harding-Craig reunion.

Test audiences didn't like it. (Apparently, it was the *women* who felt threatened by the character Hepburn portrayed on screen. She was too strong, too beautiful, too *everything* all at once.)

What transpired in the end, then, was a re-shot ending that muddied the moral of the film in suggesting that women could not really be fulfilled without their men. Sam wants her to be Tess Harding Craig; she wants to be Mrs. Craig; she wants to change; he thinks (and probably knows) she can't. The logical ending would have seen Tess, cast as she had been in the traditional masculine role, wooing Sam back, only to cast doubt over whether her atypical (for the time) strength as a female would unequivocally threaten the typical male figure as embodied in Tracy's character. The original ending would have better borne out the logic of the film--a valuable DVD extra if ever there was one. You can perhaps applaud the spirit of the film, without accepting the fact that it seems to let that spirit fade away in the end.

So what is there of worth in WOMAN OF THE YEAR, with its original ending gone, and its revolutionary potential muted by a slapstick scene in a kitchen with exploding waffles, too much coffee, and a woman who just can't seem to figure out how to separate eggs? Well, the answer is simple, and it's already been given. This is a movie to watch, and to watch *again*, because it is the first cinematic pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. For a couple of hours, you're allowed to watch these two great, mythical actors playing two people in love... while falling in love themselves. That is most certainly a rare privilege, if ever there was one.

Hepburn shines as a beautiful, world-famous political columnist. It is hard to believe that she would fall for an Average Joe sports columnist like Tracy and the latter's performance is too dull to make her attraction to him believable. The first teaming of the pair has its moments but can't quite decide if it is a comedy or a drama. The basic message of this movie seems to be that a woman's place is in the kitchen although there is an amusing sequence in the kitchen where Hepburn tries to disprove this notion. Something seems to be missing from the timing/delivery of the humor. In 1942, the same year as this movie, Director Stevens had much better success with "The More the Merrier."

Right off I have to say that this is at once the funniest, most romantic, most intelligent & most realistic depiction of a romantic relationship I have ever seen.(For perspective, I'm a 60 year-old multi-lingual film buff).

Whatever kind of film George Stevens tried, he did it to perfection. Witness Gunga Din, Swingtime & A Place in the Sun to mention just a few. It was like watching something by Hawks, Lubitch & Sturges all rolled into one.

Hepburn never appeared softer, more vulnerable, less mannered than in Woman of the Year. I fall in love with her all over again every time I watch it, which is surprisingly often, especially in the scene where she carries on about Oswald Spengler while plastered under the table.

Then there's Tracy, the most honest actor who ever lived. But not just that: there was his ability to delve seemingly without effort into an infinite bag of gestures & expressions & tones & just plain old-fashioned but highly manifest wisdom & come up with the most richly nuanced guy ever depicted on-screen. Tracy was a giant, a genius, the Rembrandt of film.

A delightful, dazzlingly perfect grown-up movie.

Watching this first pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, it's easy to see why the two became a legendary screen couple (and real-life couple for that matter). They seem perfectly suited for one another, and you can't imagine either of them with anyone else.

But it's hard from a 21st Century sensibility not to be appalled at this WWII-era George Stevens dramedy. Tracy is a sports writer and Hepburn an international reporter for the same newspaper. They meet, marry and fight when she won't abandon her career to settle down into dutiful motherhood. In the end, she gets her comeuppance and realizes that what she wants more than anything is to learn how to separate eggs and make coffee.

Try to forgive it its decidedly un-feminist message though. This came out at a time when the culture was particularly threatened by the idea of women supplanting men in areas traditionally reserved for men, and it wouldn't have been good for soldier morale for men to think women back at home could carry on just fine without them. And at the very end, Tracy does come around and tell Hepburn that he doesn't necessarily want a barefoot and pregnant version of a wife any more than he wants a career-oriented wife who will put her work before her home, but rather wishes she could be something in between. As things play out in the film, this comes as too little too late, but it's a sophisticated attitude for the time and makes the movie much more relevant today, when women are being forced to juggle multiple roles.

Overall I enjoyed this movie, but I thought it was strangely directed by Stevens. I usually enjoy his 40s comedies, but his instincts feel off here. The way he chooses to shoot scenes many times seem in tone to be at odds with what's actually happening in them, so I wasn't always sure what was supposed to be light-hearted and funny and what wasn't. A striking example of this comes in the scene in which Tracy comes back to Hepburn's apartment after their first date. It's supposed to be an erotic and sexually charged scene, but it's shot like a film noir, with Hepburn silhouetted against brightly lit windows and the room in sinister shadow. There's a ponderousness to Stevens' direction that serves as a sneak preview of his prevailing style in the 50s, when he started to make socially "important" movies.

A solidly made but uneven film. If you're expecting a frothy comedy you will be disappointed.

Grade: B

"Woman of the Year" marked the first of nine big screen pairings of Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy. In it, a down-to-earth sports writer falls for an internationally minded political columnist. Their unlikely attraction results in marriage but things do not go smoothly as Hepburn's character pays more attention to her career than her husband.

The chemistry between Hepburn & Tracy isn't as refined here as it would become in later pictures but one can sense a spark between them. The contrasting characters make for some spirited interplay while Hepburn's deft performance landed her an Oscar nomination. There's little worth remarking upon in the supporting roles, though the actors are all capable.

I found the film's biggest fault to be the screenplay, which nevertheless won an Oscar. The script fails to establish a consistent tone, as if the screenwriters couldn't decide between a comedy or a serious drama. They ought to have committed to one or the other since they make an awkward mix here.

George Stevens' direction is well done and so is the score by Franz Waxman. Neither really warrants any special attention, though.

In the end, "Woman of the Year" isn't entirely unsuccessful but I wouldn't particularly recommend it either. There are better Hepburn/Tracy films that aren't impaired by odd shifts in tone.

Katharine Hepburn already established the headstrong aspect of her screen persona in 1938's "Holiday" and 1940's "The Philadelphia Story", but she adds a worldly intellect and a beguiling sexual ardor that prove most fetching in her portrayal of multilingual political journalist Tess Harding in this 1942 film classic. In her first teaming with lifelong off-screen partner Spencer Tracy, she sets off palpable sparks with the normally taciturn actor, who plays sportswriter Sam Craig working at the same newspaper. Written by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin, the plot is about the characters' whirlwind courtship from an immediate sexual attraction to an impulsive marriage, all the while struggling with each other's priorities. Needless to say, given that it's a product of its era, it becomes a matter of time before Tess bends to Sam's will but not until some intriguing observations are made about sex roles in a basically fractious relationship.

However, rather than the comic fireworks generated by their later collaboration, 1949's "Adam's Rib", this film treads in unexpectedly sentimental melodrama, especially in the episodes where Tess has to let go of a Greek orphan she wants to adopt and in the climactic scene when she tearfully recognizes her wifely responsibilities as her aunt Ellen marries her father. Still, the pair's familiar bantering occurs when Sam explains the rules of baseball to Tess and in the final feminist reversal as she fails miserably in her attempt at domesticity. George Stevens directed the film, and he displays his sure hand with actors and an acute sense of craftsmanship throughout. Intriguingly, for a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle, it feels much more like her movie than his, and consequently their rapport is not quite up to their normal standard here. The supporting characters also feel more incidental here, even though Fay Bainter shines briefly as Ellen. It's not my favorite of their films together, but it is certainly required viewing for their fans. There are no extras with the 2000 DVD.

Have loved a lot of Spencer Tracy's and Katharine Hepburn's performances and their pairing is deservedly widely considered one of the greatest pairings/collaborations in cinematic history. Can never get enough of seeing them together and it is not hard at all to see why it lasted for so long (all the way up to 1967 with Tracy's death). Also like to love quite a number of the films directed by George Stevens, 'Shane', 'A Place in the Sun' and 'Swing Time' in particular and remember being very fond of 'Penny Serenade'.

'Woman of the Year' is most notable for being the first pairing of Tracy and Hepburn. It is one well worth seeing, but to me it is not one of their best films and that they went onto much better things, my personal favourite of their films being 'Adam's Rib'. That it is one of their lesser films and still have a lot working and be mostly very good is testament to how the standard of their collaborations is generally so high. That 'Woman of the Year' is their first film together is the main interest point but it is far from the only one.

Any faults that 'Woman of the Year' has do not lie with Tracy and Hepburn. Both are superb in polar opposite roles, with Tracy being significantly more subtle yet always with immense appeal and Hepburn having the showier role and thrillingly throws herself into it. It is not often when polar opposites sparkle, thrill and entertain on film, the contrasting roles do all three here and one doesn't get it to this extent all the time. Tracy and Hepburn at this point work so well together, the wit and tension in their chemistry near-second to none in all their films together.

The supporting cast also fare very strongly, if not quite reaching the same level as Tracy and Hepburn. Hence why they tend to be overlooked and they shouldn't really be. Fay Bainter and William Bendix are especially fine. Stevens directs with adroit subtlety, while the snappy wit, poignant pathos and sharp sophistication of the script is to be admired, a lot of extremely funny moments and it is without emotion and relatability regardless of how of the time some of the material is. 'Woman of the Year' is well-made visually and Franz Waxman's score is lush and stirring without being overwrought.

For all those good points, 'Woman of the Year' is not without weaker elements. The tonal shift from comedy to melodrama is rather jarring and the second half does feel like a different film, one that's far from badly done but one that juxtaposed a bit too much tonally. The drama is poignant certainly but at times feels on the heavy side.

Apparent particularly in the adoption subplot, well intended but a bit out of place and draggy. Did get some amusement out of the ending, but it also felt on the contrived and abrupt sides.

In summary, good but not great. 7/10 Bethany Cox

"Women should be kept clean, like canaries," secondary character Phil Whittaker (Roscoe Karns) muses at a baseball game. In attendance is Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy), a sportswriter, and his date, foreign correspondent Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn). You see, the two are sitting in the coveted section of the arena set for journalists. While the other writers are attempting to get a story from the day's event, the loud Tess, wearing a large hat that blocks the view of hungry onlookers, constantly interrupts the tension by asking questions any non-sports fan would be curious about. It annoys everyone around her, except for the enchanted Sam — Phil's (jokingly?) sexist comment is well-timed but funny, as we're aware that Tess is a ball of fire that just won't be constrained like some clean canary.

The first forty-five minutes of "Woman of the Year" are a romantic comedy dream, a battle- of-the-sexes marriage satire that wonders aloud if a tough-guy like Spencer Tracy can handle having a wife that wears the pants of the relationship and brings home most of the bacon, while he, a mere sportswriter, sits around, waiting to be loved. But once those forty-five minutes are up, things sour, turning into a feminist nightmare. The film decides to turn against its titular Woman of the Year, critical that she likes to work hard, wishing that she could become a dream spouse, a wife full-time. Ugh.

"Woman of the Year" is, famously, the first pairing of Hepburn and Tracy, who endured a relationship lasting until his death in 1967. Unlike many of the other on screen/offscreen couples of the era (Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward), the two were never married, and Hepburn, most of the time, seemed to dominate the relationship, with her trouser-wearing, exercise-loving persona. Tracy, in the meantime, was her foil, the guy who kept her from saying things like "I'm a personality as well as a star" most of the time. They were and are a dynamite pair, but "Woman of the Year" depletes what makes them so charismatic (though not all the time), placing them in roles that attempt to turn them into that old, cute married couple upstairs.

When Tess Harding and Sam Craig first hear of each other, fireworks hardly set off. Sam hears Tess dismiss the sports industry on the radio, favoring a world that focuses on the important things rather than the fluffers, and decides to write an article that criticizes her sensible ideas. Tess writes back, deflating his ego, and so on, and so on. They become rivals — until their very first meeting. Sam is struck by her intelligently sexy poise; Tess is attracted to Sam's gentlemanly instincts. They court, ultimately marrying. But what was once magnetic to Sam is getting old. Tess is so in love with her job that he can hardly count on her to greet him at home after a long day of work. Can she be the Woman of the Year and the Wife of the Year, too?

There isn't anything wrong with a marriage drama — but "Woman of the Year" initially promises that we're going to get a brainy romantic comedy, and, unexpectedly, turns into a drama with seldom comedy and not enough romance. It feels like Tess and Sam spend more of the film in turmoil than in love, and laughs exist only in the first and final acts — anything in-between is slightly bitter. So much of the time is used up with Tracy pouting about Hepburn's chronic busyness. I would have preferred a story in which Tess maybe brought Sam along with her on her many globetrotting endeavors, turning him into an odd- man-out while enjoying some pleasing comedic situations.

But most of the time, "Woman of the Year" stays serious, a disappointing fact considering how funny it can be. The ending, which sees Tess trying to be the perfect housewife by making Sam breakfast in bed, rings with potential hilarity. Hepburn is game, and her timing is flawless. In fact, the scene is hilarious. But it's also coated in wasted energy; why couldn't more of "Woman of the Year" had scenes like this? The film's many failures are not the fault of Hepburn and Tracy, though — Hepburn, in an Oscar nominated performance, slides through comedic, dramatic, and romantic scenes like a grizzled veteran, and Tracy, always an appealing lead, manages to keep Sam from going down too harsh of a path.

"Woman of the Year" would have been better as a screwball comedy, or a romantic drama without Tracy that saw career woman Hepburn flying around the globe, using men along the way, perhaps falling in love accidentally. But the film doesn't know if it wants to be a romantic comedy or a marriage drama. It's unsatisfying.

Aside from the historical value of first teaming Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (she had wanted Tracy in the previous year's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, but scheduling conflicts had prevented it), WOMAN OF THE YEAR holds its own as a bright, smart 'Odd Couple' romantic comedy/drama, with witty dialog, a rich, textured performance by the reliable Tracy, and Hepburn showing a sexiness that she rarely gets to project on film.

The scenario is simple; Beautiful, brilliant Claire Booth Luce-type journalist(Hepburn) and practical, salt-of-the-earth sportswriter (Tracy) clash over whether athletic events should be suspended for the duration of the war (she finds them too frivolous in such serious times, he believes them essential for morale). After she makes some insensitive comments on the radio, he criticizes her in his sports column. Despite the paper-selling feud that results, their editor brings them together to make peace...and the pair, seeing one another in person for the first time, fall in love! Despite their busy schedules, he takes her to a ball game (which she loves) and she introduces him to her international friends (which he doesn't). Nonetheless, they marry, but he quickly discovers she is so busy 'saving the world' that she can't make time for him...and then she 'adopts' a war orphan, without consulting him, or considering how little time for 'motherhood' she's willing to give. He realizes a drastic step must be taken, as she is clueless about what being a 'wife' and 'mother' means...

While the domesticity scene concluding the film seems out of place (the story goes that MGM added it to make Tracy the 'winner' of the 'battle of the sexes', to a much more chauvinistic 40s audience), so many scenes ring true that the film goes beyond simple comedy/drama to a timeless statement about commitment, priorities, and accountability for one's actions. And despite the serious issues raised, it makes you laugh, too! Hepburn's reactions at the ball game, and Tracy, trying to be inconspicuous at the women's club meeting, are among the comic highlights. The star duo are so natural together that it's hard to believe this was their first teaming, and the chemistry carried over into their private lives as well, beginning a romance that lasted 25 years.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR is, deservedly, a classic!

A lot of reviews on romantic comedies and the like talk about this thing called "chemistry" between actors, when it seems the two actors are capable of really presenting true, real life emotions between them. When it comes to the Spenser Tracy/Katherine Hepburn pairing, the word "chemistry" is used quite often. The thing about it is, though, that this stuff goes way beyond chemistry. This is real, honest-to-life drama.

Spenser Tracy's character is utterly relatable. He reacts and he does what it seems any guy of the era, or even today, would do in such a situation. His character is torn between his absolute adoration of Tess, and the knowledge that not only will he never amount to what Tess is, he also is pretty much emasculated by her self-actualization.

And for Katherine Hepburn, who plays Tess, there couldn't have been a better role. Hepburn, who was naturally independent anyway, plays the role of a knowledgeable Woman's Woman without needing an extra breath.

The thing about the films with these two are that they actually present a relationship, not just a courtship and a "and then they lived happily ever after, for all time" ending. They show the real issues with communication, work, space, and borders, everything that must be understood about a person to make it work. And they are absolutely adoring of each other.

Just like in the later film, Adam's Rib (1949), this film presents the issues and friction in their relationship almost spectacularly well from both sides. I can't say that this film was as good as Adam's Rib (George Steven's directing is just a tad off-balanced and the pacing is a little uneven), but at any rate it's a real joy to watch, from the beginning courting to the slapstick ending.

--PolarisDiB

I've always admired Kate Hepburn's strong-willed and self-contained persona, but I never found her very attractive. Who knew that she could be sexy? Well, in WOMAN OF THE YEAR she manages to exude that sex appeal - even shows a little leg.

Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are paired up for their first time and began their real-life romance with this film. They always make a wonderful team in general, but I didn't find this debut as strong as the latter ADAM'S RIB. Here, they are both newspaper columnists - Tracy writes about sports, and Hepburn is a celebrated feminist who's involved in politics. Though they're mismatched they start seeing each other and then ultimately get married, which turns out not to be the best idea; Spencer feels left out and alone while Katharine is hopping around and keeping active with her influential friends.

Though there are some humorous moments (the baseball game is a highlight) the film's not consistently funny and after a while I found myself not very interested in the bumps these two were experiencing in their personal life together. ** out of ****

In their first of nine co-star rings, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play Tess Harding and Sam Craig, reporters at a newspaper who get married. Naturally, Sam assumes that Tess will "settle down" and just be a wife, but she is very independent, with events to cover all over the world. They sort of forget that they're married.

You just can't beat a pairing like Tracy and Hepburn. "Woman of the Year" moves along like a...I can't even come up with a good comparison, but I basically mean that it's very brisk. It's impossible not to like this movie. You would have to be a full-scale sourpuss not to like this movie. A comedy classic.

Woman of the Year (1942)

There are a few George Stevens films that I've connected with (Swing Time, of course, but that's not Stevens that makes it work, and Penny Serenade with Cary Grant, and Giant with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor much later). But most of his films have some awkward or artless feeling to them that put me off, like Shane, a western of some fame that I can't even make it through, and I'll watch almost anything.

And so there is this one, somewhere in the middle. It's oddly called Woman of the Year (for an award she wins that doesn't completely matter to the plot). It stars two of the most lovable and funny people out there, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in their first film. (They made nine together.) Maybe Stevens was too busy making anti-Nazi films to notice that he had some goods here that other directors would die for, but the plot drags, the filming is surprisingly lifeless (even though Stevens started out as a cinematographer). Most of all, the two actors are rarely given room to make their chemistry ignite. And I'm a fan of the two of them, so there was fence to cross on that score.

I know, I know, the movie even won academy awards for the writing. So take this all as just one person's take. And see for yourself. It is in fact well written, and the idea is fresh enough to start. It just should have more velocity than it does.

The plot circles around an unlikely romance (very screwball comedy stuff) that gets consummated (a screwball comedy no-no, until the last scene), and then has some funny but now familiar gags in the home (the kitchen scene in particular). This is actually odd for 1942, when men are mostly likely not competing for kitchen space with their new wives, but are instead going to war. (It's like there's a Depression backdrop here that someone forgot to notice was no longer appropriate. In 1937, moviegoers might dream of having just such a kitchen and such a life, and when things go wrong it's truly funny, but I'm not so sure in 1942.)

Take two very opposite news writers and have them clashing and then falling in love (the woman a worldly political writer who speaks a dozen languages, the man a likable but uncomplicated sports writer). Have their careers get in the way of their love affair. Have a Euro-based intellectual set and the salty stadium and bar crowd mingle (including one of my favorites, William Bendix). You get the idea. If there are not always sparks, there is a little smoke.

This delight from director George Stevens was the first Tracy/Hepburn collaboration and as we all know by now, they fell in love.

That the film doesn't always portray them as a loving couple is down to their superb acting - they had to act as though they hated each other at times.

Back at the time, during WW2 (film was released in 1942) and with women having more and more general employment, due to the men having been conscripted, many could see possibly a situation where the woman wore the trousers, to coin an outdated expression. We have Ms Hepburn, running here and there - the film starts with press releases telling us that she is interviewing Winston Churchill - she is a very important and much in demand person.

Similar in a way to their later 'Adam's Rib', we have in the other corner, an everyday bloke, set in his ways and here he is someone who has a very male-dominated profession - that of a sports correspondent. Naturally, Tess (Hepburn) who's extremely intelligent and inquisitive, wants to know the ins and outs of baseball. She tries to enter and understand his world.

Naturally, this all causes slight havoc. She's always got her personal assistant hanging round her. She never knows which senior politician is going to phone her up - or when. Then, she is voted "Woman Of the Year". Her fiancé, Sam (Tracy) should be delighted. But isn't. The dreams he had of a normal, happy marriage slips further away from him....

The narrative flow IS a bit lumpy - there are scenes - the final kitchen scene is in real-time and we just let it unfold naturally - but that's what life - and love - is often about. I rather like the way it is broken up by changing tempos and situations, being more natural and as a result, the pair seem very real to us.

Some fans of the two actors believe that this is their best pairing, others think Adam's Rib is. I'm going to go for the second, myself, as it is slightly cleverer and the story is a touch stronger. Never-the- less, this is still extraordinarily good film-making and a fine movie.

I watched the DVD as part of the Tracy/Hepburn 4 disc boxset.

Tracy and Hepburn's first movie is like two separate movies in one. One is a screwball comedy that takes up most of the first half of the movie. It covers the romance between Sam, the average Joe sports columnist, and Tess, the sophisticated, globe-trotting political columnist. The scenes where they both try and adapt to the others life are hysterical.

The second movie covers the relationship as it implausibly deepens into romance, leading to marriage. The clash of lifestyles and personalities drives the couple further and further apart endangering the marriage. This movie is not a comedy.

The first half of the movie is mostly comedy, the second mostly drama. Comedy does raise it's head throughout, and this, in my opinion saves the movie from catastrophe. As it is, it's pretty good, but not a classic by any stretch in my opinion.