Adam's Rib is the perfect title for this cleverly structured movie, which is sui generis: a feminist screwball romcom. The problem is the bullet-hole-ridden plot, and the screenplay. The "That Evening" scenes are lively and enjoyable, especially when David Wayne is part of them. As for the murder trial, I'd ask for pro se privileges before allowing Amanda to represent me, unless the prosecutor was as inept as Adam.
In the sensational wife-shoots-husband-in-love-nest trial, Judy Holiday does a true star turn as Dolores, the wife, and Jean Hagen is almost as good as Beryl, the home-wrecker. Unfortunately, Tom Ewell as the husband only prompts the question, what's wrong with these women?
The movie begins with the crime: Dolores shoots open the door where her husband is canoodling with Beryl, then closes her eyes and begins firing wildly into the room. Her husband ends up in critical condition. No forensic evidence on those stray bullets is collected, or if it is, Adam never uses any. He sticks to countering Amanda's sole defense strategy: that women should be judged the way men are when they sleep around or their home is invaded: justifiable.
Amanda's strategy is not just silly and irrelevant; it stoops to insult. Her pronouncements lack even basic legal acumen, e.g.: "For years, women have been ridiculed, pampered, chucked under the chin. I ask you, on behalf of us all: be fair to the fair sex." Then she stoops to inventing a "civilization far older than ours in South America... the Lorcañanos, descended from the Amazons," where women rule. No such culture exists (and by the way Amazons were a Greek myth, not a South American one), nor has any credible evidence ever been found of a matriarchal society anywhere in history or prehistory.
Did writers Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon really have so little real dedication to equality that they had to fabricate a false myth to argue that women are equal? It can't all be blamed on the Hays Code.
Tracy and Hepburn bring their extraordinary talents to the roles of married couple, but when, after it's over, Adam and Amanda both compliment each other on their respective strategies and summations, all I could say was, "I object."
In the sensational wife-shoots-husband-in-love-nest trial, Judy Holiday does a true star turn as Dolores, the wife, and Jean Hagen is almost as good as Beryl, the home-wrecker. Unfortunately, Tom Ewell as the husband only prompts the question, what's wrong with these women?
The movie begins with the crime: Dolores shoots open the door where her husband is canoodling with Beryl, then closes her eyes and begins firing wildly into the room. Her husband ends up in critical condition. No forensic evidence on those stray bullets is collected, or if it is, Adam never uses any. He sticks to countering Amanda's sole defense strategy: that women should be judged the way men are when they sleep around or their home is invaded: justifiable.
Amanda's strategy is not just silly and irrelevant; it stoops to insult. Her pronouncements lack even basic legal acumen, e.g.: "For years, women have been ridiculed, pampered, chucked under the chin. I ask you, on behalf of us all: be fair to the fair sex." Then she stoops to inventing a "civilization far older than ours in South America... the Lorcañanos, descended from the Amazons," where women rule. No such culture exists (and by the way Amazons were a Greek myth, not a South American one), nor has any credible evidence ever been found of a matriarchal society anywhere in history or prehistory.
Did writers Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon really have so little real dedication to equality that they had to fabricate a false myth to argue that women are equal? It can't all be blamed on the Hays Code.
Tracy and Hepburn bring their extraordinary talents to the roles of married couple, but when, after it's over, Adam and Amanda both compliment each other on their respective strategies and summations, all I could say was, "I object."
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