1942 – Katharine Hepburn
Woman of the Year
I’ve always loved Katharine Hepburn as an actress, and here, she turns in yet another fun performance. And this movie everything. There was a bit of comedy that had me laughing, and a bit of drama that nearly had me tearing up. There was tricky dialogue that must have been a challenge for the actress, and great on-screen chemistry with Spencer Tracy. And Hepburn delivered. She always seemed at ease, no matter what a scene required of her.
She played the character of Tess Harding, a woman whose drive to succeed in everything she did was so strong, she never learned how to truly interact with the world or the people around her. She was so focused on herself and her own career and desires, she never considered how her actions affected other people. But then she falls in love, and really has no idea how to be in a relationship. She remains focused on herself, and insensitively ignores her husband, making major life-changing decisions without consulting him, not understanding that a marriage needs to be a partnership between two people, not just the desires of one.
And as for her chemistry with Spencer Tracy, I think it’s interesting to note that this was the first of their nine films together. The romance between them looked real in the film, maybe because the actors became romantically involved in the real world, a relationship that, according to my research, lasted until Tracy died in 1967.
And Hepburn’s style of acting, one we’ve seen in other films like Morning Glory and The Philadelphia Story, is one of self-confidence and quick, wordy dialogue. That was still present in this film, but it had the extra challenge of lines in foreign languages, which I found pretty impressive. Throughout the movie she had to whip out lines of dialogue in six different languages, if you include English. She also spoke French, Russian, German, Spanish, and Greek. And it all sounded natural for her. She rattled it all off with an ease that was pretty amazing. Yes, once again, I would describe Hepburn’s performance as impressive. I particularly liked her real tears in the movie’s emotional climax at her mother and father’s wedding, and her great timing in the physical comedy scenes. Apparently she could do it all.