Philip Barry Movies
High Society is a glossy Technicolor-and-VistaVision musical remake of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story (1940), decked out with million-watt star power and a Cole Porter score. Set amongst the rich and famous in Newport, RI, the story revolves around the wedding plans of socialite Tracy Lord (Grace Kelly). Tracy is all set to marry stuffy George Kittridge (John Lund), while magazine writer Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) intend to cover the ceremony. Meanwhile, Tracy's ex-husband C.K. Dexter-Haven (Bing Crosby) also comes calling, ostensibly to the attend the annual Newport Jazz Festival, but actually for the purpose of winning Tracy back. In the course of events, Mike falls in love with Tracy, and she with him. The Jazz Festival subplot allows scriptwriter John Patrick to bring Louis Armstrong into the proceedings, much to the delight of anyone who cares anything about music. The Cole Porter tunes include the Crosby-Sinatra duet "Well, Did You Evah?," the Crosby-Armstrong teaming "Now You Has Jazz," the Kelly-Crosby romantic ballad "True Love," and the Sinatra solo "You're Sensational." Though it lacks the satiric edge of the Philip Barry original (Barry, incidentally, is not given any screen credit), High Society succeeds on its own lighthearted terms. The film represents Grace Kelly's final acting assignment before her real-life wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, (more)
- 1946
In this comedy, an adaptation of the play The Animal Kingdom, a liberal, social reformist photographer falls in love with a wealthy gadabout, and finds she abhors his decadent life even though she loves him. She then takes up with another whom she marries. Unfortunately, she still loves the playboy. This does not make her new hubby very happy especially when she and her ex-love meet again and begin carrying on. The husband ends up headed for a quickie divorce in Reno. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, (more)
In their third film together, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn created one of the box-office sensations of 1945, a sparklingly witty wartime comedy about a marriage entered on the theory that love only gums up a relationship. Invited by a drunken Quintin Ladd (Keenan Wynn), devoted scientist Patrick Jamieson (Tracy) moves into the Washington mansion belonging to Ladd's cousin Mrs. Jamie Rowan (Hepburn), a widow, who, it soon appears, shares Pat's distaste of romantic love. Highly interested in the scientist's attempt to develop a high-altitude oxygen helmet for the war department, and tired of being hit on by men, an emboldened Jamie proposes marriage to Pat, insisting that theirs should be a union uncomplicated by love. Pat readily agrees and the two settle into a seemingly well-functioning life of shared passion for the oxygen experiments. But when Pat's former girlfriend turns up, Jamie discovers that she has fallen in love with her husband after all and attempts to win him back. The ploy, however, seems to backfire -- or does it? Originally written for Katharine Hepburn by her frequent collaborator Philip Barry, Without Love had enjoyed a moderately successful run on Broadway from 1942-1943 with Elliott Nugent as the scientist. The much more successful screen version became the final film of MGM contract director Harold S. Bouquet, who died of cancer soon after. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, (more)
We open on Philadelphia socialite C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) as he's being tossed out of his palatial home by his wife, Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn). Adding insult to injury, Tracy breaks one of C.K.'s precious golf clubs. He gallantly responds by knocking her down on her million-dollar keester. A couple of years after the breakup, Tracy is about to marry George Kittridge (John Howard), a wealthy stuffed shirt whose principal recommendation is that he's not a Philadelphia "mainliner," as C.K. was. Still holding a torch for Tracy, C.K. is galvanized into action when he learns that Sidney Kidd (Henry Daniell), the publisher of Spy Magazine, plans to publish an exposé concerning Tracy's philandering father (John Halliday). To keep Kidd from spilling the beans, C.K. agrees to smuggle Spy reporter Macauley Connor (James Stewart) and photographer Elizabeth Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) into the exclusive Lord-Kittridge wedding ceremony. How could C.K. have foreseen that Connor would fall in love with Tracy, thereby nearly lousing up the nuptials? As it turns out, of course, it is C.K. himself who pulls the "louse-up," reclaiming Tracy as his bride. A consistently bright, bubbly, witty delight, The Philadelphia Story could just as well have been titled "The Revenge of Katharine Hepburn." Having been written off as "box-office poison" in 1938, Hepburn returned to Broadway in a vehicle tailor-made for her talents by playwright Philip Barry. That property, of course, was The Philadelphia Story; and when MGM bought the rights to this sure-fire box-office success, it had to take Hepburn along with the package -- and also her veto as to who her producer, director, and co-stars would be. Her strategy paid off: after the film's release, Hepburn was back on top of the Hollywood heap. While she didn't win the Oscar that many thought she richly deserved, the little gold statuette was bestowed upon her co-star Stewart, perhaps as compensation for his non-win for 1939's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Donald Ogden Stewart (no relation to Jimmy) also copped an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Philadelphia Story was remade in 1956 with a Cole Porter musical score as High Society. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, (more)
Both film versions of Phillip Barry's stage comedy Holiday have their merits, but the 1938 version has the added advantage of supercharged star power. Katharine Hepburn and Doris Nolan play Linda and Julia Seton, two daughters of a very well-to-do family. Linda feels a bit lost in the shuffle as sister Julia prepares to marry self-made financier Cary Grant. Hepburn has always rebelled against her privileged trappings, and finds a kindred spirit in the unorthodox, iconoclastic Grant. On the verge of compromising his down-to-earth values with his marriage to the wealth-obsessed Nolan, Grant chooses instead to plight his troth with soul-mate Hepburn, celebrating his "liberation" by doing several cartwheels. Donald Ogden Stewart is careful to bring the pre-Depression frivolities of the Barry play up-to-date, first by changing the character of Grant's best friend (played in both films by Edward Everett Horton) from a lazy socialite to a dedicated professor, and by including several lines indicating how out of touch the privileged classes are--and choose to remain--with 1930s realities. The only element in which the remake does not improve on the original is in the casting of Hepburn's alcoholic younger brother; charming though Lew Ayres is in the 1938 film, he is still outclassed by Monroe Owsley in Holiday (1930). Katharine Hepburn managed to temporarily defray her "box office poison" onus when Holiday proved to be a success; alas, her next film, Bringing Up Baby (which reteamed her with Grant), was a financial bust, compelling her to return to Broadway--where she made a spectacular comeback in another Philip Barry play, The Philadelphia Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, (more)
- 1938
In this collegiate romance, the love affair between two seniors is threatened by their different graduation plans. The fellow and his roommate are planning a two-year trek through Europe after the ceremony. This doesn't set well with the young woman who uses all her feminine wiles to convince him to stay. She succeeds and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maureen O'Sullivan, Lew Ayres, (more)
- 1932
In this drama, a frustrated wife, unable to get pregnant by her husband, decides to sleep with another in hopes of finally getting the child she so desperately wants. She ends up having an affair with a brain surgeon. He manages to get her pregnant and after it is born, she claims the child is her husband's. Years pass. One day the boy falls off a horse and is seriously injured. After the surgeon saves his life, the boy's mother confesses that he is the boy's real father, but then she tells him she still wants to stay with her husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, (more)
- 1932
The first film version of Philip Barry's Broadway play The Animal Kingdom stars Ann Harding, Leslie Howard and Myrna Loy. Howard plays a wealthy publisher who decides to marry the socially prominent Loy, leaving his mistress Harding in the lurch. In comically convoluted fashion, Loy behaves like a callous libertine, while Harding is the soul of love and fidelity. The frustrated Howard declares at the end that he is going back to his "wife"--meaning, of course, the faithful Harding. Animal Kingdom was long withdrawn from public view due to the 1946 remake One More Tomorrow; a pristine 35-millimeter print was discovered in the Warner Bros. vaults in the mid-1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, (more)
- 1931
Philip Barry's wistful comedy You and I was brought to the screen by its original stage director Robert Milton. All it lacked was its original title; First National Pictures felt that The Bargain was a more saleable cognomen. Lewis Stone stars as a successful soapmaker who'd wanted to be a painter in his youth. Stone's son John Darrow likewise forsakes the world of art for the world of business. The frustrated Stone retires and tries to paint again, but he's lost the gift. He then determines that his son will not make the same mistakes that he had. The type-cast cast includes ingenue Evalyn Knapp, philosophical butler Charles Butterworth, and wise-cracking comedy relief Una Merkel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Evelyn Knapp, Charles Butterworth, (more)
- 1930
- PG13
The first of the filmizations of Philip Barry's play, Holiday centers around a society wedding. Julia Seton (Mary Astor) intends to marry John Case (Robert Ames), a young Wall Street lion with "radical" ideas that go against the grain of Julia's conservative family. Julia's freewheeling younger sister Linda (Ann Harding), thrilled at the prospect of the unorthodox Case shaking up her household, finds herself drawn to the young man herself. When John shows signs of toning down his recklessness and becoming just another stuffy old financier, Linda is crushed, but eventually the two free spirits are united. Edward Everett Horton, who plays an "idle rich" family friend in Holiday, recreated the role (albeit as a more responsible character) in the 1938 remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Harding, Robert Ames, (more)
- 1929
This drama is an adaptation of a popular 1927 play and tells the story of a pair of married liberals who are content to remain faithful in spirit only. The ends up having an affair with a musician while her husband heads for Europe. When he returns he tells her about his affair with a French woman. The wife is devastated, for never did she believe her husband would actually sleep with another. In the end, they decide to re-adopt traditional marital morals and remain monogamous. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Harding, Fredric March, (more)
