One of the rare Tracy - Hepburn vehicles which plays as a drama, rather than their more usual light comedy fare and even though it was directed by their pet director George Cukor, none of them can rise above the rather stolid material they get to purvey here.
Made not long after America's entry into the Second World War, it has a credible message to sell in putting out a warning to any lingering isolationist waverers, especially if egged on by a national hero, recalling the America First movement of the time led by transatlantic pilot Charles Lindbergh as well as pointing up the importance of a free press, especially in times of war.
It's just that the story itself moves so slowly as Tracy's truth-seeking ethical, high-brow reporter Steve O'Malley, alone in these traits, it seems, of all the media circus which descends on the household of the widow of national hero Robert Forrest, there to report on his death after his car crashes to the bottom of a ravine where the bridge has failed in a storm. O'Malley, an admirer himself of Forrest, doesn't want to write about the great man's dramatic death however, but instead his life and example. However he gets inveigled into murky waters as he gets closer to the truth by tracking down his grieving wife, played by Hepburn, naturally, who has otherwise made herself incommunicado to the encroaching press.
Tracy seems disinterested in his part, rarely displaying the conviction his role demands while Hepburn on the other hand seems to over-compensate by trying too hard at times as she occasionally gazes away from the camera and recites her lines in full "calla-lilies' mode. There's a suggestion of romance between the two but too little too late and you're left thinking that maybe their vaunted screen chemistry only comes to life in comedies.
They're not helped by weak sub-plotting and a selection of supporting characters which vary from the insipid to the overdone, the former category including the father and son of the deceased man's gamekeeper, the latter, his faraway, in more ways than one, mother, his conniving male P.A. and worst of all a masticating, drawling cab-driver who does all he can to build up his part.
By the time we reach the conclusion, the heightened drama of which itself is at odds with the pedestrian pace of what precedes it, you sense the actors are glad to reach the end too.
I guess every day has its dog and for Spencer, Katherine and George, each so good in so many other things, this is definitely one of those.
Made not long after America's entry into the Second World War, it has a credible message to sell in putting out a warning to any lingering isolationist waverers, especially if egged on by a national hero, recalling the America First movement of the time led by transatlantic pilot Charles Lindbergh as well as pointing up the importance of a free press, especially in times of war.
It's just that the story itself moves so slowly as Tracy's truth-seeking ethical, high-brow reporter Steve O'Malley, alone in these traits, it seems, of all the media circus which descends on the household of the widow of national hero Robert Forrest, there to report on his death after his car crashes to the bottom of a ravine where the bridge has failed in a storm. O'Malley, an admirer himself of Forrest, doesn't want to write about the great man's dramatic death however, but instead his life and example. However he gets inveigled into murky waters as he gets closer to the truth by tracking down his grieving wife, played by Hepburn, naturally, who has otherwise made herself incommunicado to the encroaching press.
Tracy seems disinterested in his part, rarely displaying the conviction his role demands while Hepburn on the other hand seems to over-compensate by trying too hard at times as she occasionally gazes away from the camera and recites her lines in full "calla-lilies' mode. There's a suggestion of romance between the two but too little too late and you're left thinking that maybe their vaunted screen chemistry only comes to life in comedies.
They're not helped by weak sub-plotting and a selection of supporting characters which vary from the insipid to the overdone, the former category including the father and son of the deceased man's gamekeeper, the latter, his faraway, in more ways than one, mother, his conniving male P.A. and worst of all a masticating, drawling cab-driver who does all he can to build up his part.
By the time we reach the conclusion, the heightened drama of which itself is at odds with the pedestrian pace of what precedes it, you sense the actors are glad to reach the end too.
I guess every day has its dog and for Spencer, Katherine and George, each so good in so many other things, this is definitely one of those.