Woman of the Year (
1942The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, Casablanca..-Events:...
) is a romantic comedy film in which an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband try to negotiate a path to marital bliss . The film stars
Spencer TracySpencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Tracy among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 9th on the list...
and
Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, television and stage.Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four, from 12 nominations. Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1976 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was nominated for four other Emmys, two...
with
Fay BainterFay Okell Bainter was an American actress. She is the aunt of actress Dorothy Burgess and sister-in-law to actress Grace Burgess.-Early life:...
,
Reginald OwenReginald Owen, or John Reginald Owen, was a British character actor known for playing in many film roles in British and American movies and later in television programs...
,
Minor WatsonMinor Watson was a prominent character actor. He appeared in 111 movies made between 1913 and 1956. His credits included, Boys Town , Yankee Doodle Dandy , Kings Row , Guadalcanal Diary , Bewitched , The Virginian , and The Jackie Robinson Story .He is buried in Alton Cemetery...
and
William BendixWilliam Bendix was an American film actor.-Early life:Bendix, named for his paternal grandfather, was born in Manhattan, New York City, the only son of Cleveland-born Oscar and London-born Hilda Bendix...
. It was directed by
George StevensGeorge Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.-Film career:Born in Oakland, California, Stevens broke into the movie business as a cameraman, working on many Laurel and Hardy shorts...
, produced by
Joseph L. MankiewiczJoseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.-Early life:Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany. He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz , and a brother, Herman J...
and written by
Ring Lardner Jr.Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter, who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
and
Michael KaninMichael Kanin was an American director, producer, playwright and screenwriter who shared an Academy Award with Ring Lardner Jr. in 1942 for writing the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film comedy Woman of the Year....
(his brother
Garson KaninGarson Kanin was an American writer and director of plays and films. Born in Rochester, New York, he is most notable for...
thought up the original idea and worked with
Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, television and stage.Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four, from 12 nominations. Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1976 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was nominated for four other Emmys, two...
along with brother Michael and Lardner on the early drafts, without credit.) The music score was by
Franz WaxmanFranz Waxman was a Jewish German American composer, known for his bravura Carmen Fantasie for violin and orchestra, based on musical themes from the Bizet opera Carmen, and for his musical scores for films....
and the cinematography by
Joseph RuttenbergJoseph Ruttenberg, A.S.C. was a photojournalist and Academy Award-winning cinematographer.Ruttenberg was accomplished winning accolades. At MGM, Ruttenberg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography ten times, winning four...
.
Woman of the Year (
1942The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, Casablanca..-Events:...
) is a romantic comedy film in which an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband try to negotiate a path to marital bliss . The film stars
Spencer TracySpencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Tracy among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 9th on the list...
and
Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, television and stage.Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four, from 12 nominations. Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1976 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was nominated for four other Emmys, two...
with
Fay BainterFay Okell Bainter was an American actress. She is the aunt of actress Dorothy Burgess and sister-in-law to actress Grace Burgess.-Early life:...
,
Reginald OwenReginald Owen, or John Reginald Owen, was a British character actor known for playing in many film roles in British and American movies and later in television programs...
,
Minor WatsonMinor Watson was a prominent character actor. He appeared in 111 movies made between 1913 and 1956. His credits included, Boys Town , Yankee Doodle Dandy , Kings Row , Guadalcanal Diary , Bewitched , The Virginian , and The Jackie Robinson Story .He is buried in Alton Cemetery...
and
William BendixWilliam Bendix was an American film actor.-Early life:Bendix, named for his paternal grandfather, was born in Manhattan, New York City, the only son of Cleveland-born Oscar and London-born Hilda Bendix...
. It was directed by
George StevensGeorge Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.-Film career:Born in Oakland, California, Stevens broke into the movie business as a cameraman, working on many Laurel and Hardy shorts...
, produced by
Joseph L. MankiewiczJoseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.-Early life:Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany. He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz , and a brother, Herman J...
and written by
Ring Lardner Jr.Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter, who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
and
Michael KaninMichael Kanin was an American director, producer, playwright and screenwriter who shared an Academy Award with Ring Lardner Jr. in 1942 for writing the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film comedy Woman of the Year....
(his brother
Garson KaninGarson Kanin was an American writer and director of plays and films. Born in Rochester, New York, he is most notable for...
thought up the original idea and worked with
Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, television and stage.Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four, from 12 nominations. Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1976 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was nominated for four other Emmys, two...
along with brother Michael and Lardner on the early drafts, without credit.) The music score was by
Franz WaxmanFranz Waxman was a Jewish German American composer, known for his bravura Carmen Fantasie for violin and orchestra, based on musical themes from the Bizet opera Carmen, and for his musical scores for films....
and the cinematography by
Joseph RuttenbergJoseph Ruttenberg, A.S.C. was a photojournalist and Academy Award-winning cinematographer.Ruttenberg was accomplished winning accolades. At MGM, Ruttenberg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography ten times, winning four...
. The art direction was by
Cedric GibbonsAustin Cedric Gibbons was an Irish American art director who was one of the most important and influential in the field in the history of American film. He also made a great impact on motion picture theater architecture through the 1930s to 1950s, the period considered the golden-era of theater...
and
Randall DuellRandall Duell was an American architect and art director. Duell attended the University of Southern California School of Architecture and graduated in 1925...
and the costume design by
AdrianAdrian Adolph Greenberg , most widely known as Adrian, was an American costume designer whose most famous costumes were for The Wizard of Oz and other Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films of the 1930s and 1940s. During his career, he designed costumes for over 250 films and his screen credits usually read as...
.
Woman of the Year won an
Academy AwardThe Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...
for Best Writing, Original Screenplay and was nominated for
Best Actress in a Leading RolePerformance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. In 1999, this film was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Synopsis
Sam Craig and Tess Harding (Tracy and Hepburn) are journalists for the same New York newspaper in the early 1940s. Tess, the daughter of a diplomat, is an internationally inclined political affairs columnist, a linguist educated in various prestigious European universities who has traveled the world. He is an everyman sportswriter who worked his way up.
A feud in their columns, specifically over baseball, develops into romance, love, and marriage, despite their different backgrounds and worlds. At a baseball game, Tess breaks the men only rule in the press box, but is confused and uninterested over the rules of the sport.
After their quickly conducted marriage, a conflict arises over having children. Tess takes on the care of a Greek refugee child without consulting her husband, and accidentally leading Sam into believing that she is pregnant. He is thrilled at the thought of biological children, but unconvinced about taking on an orphan with whom he cannot even communicate.
On the evening of her award as 'Woman of the Year', Sam wonders who will be looking after the boy, and is unsatisfied with her answer of "I'll ask one of the bellboys to look in on him". Sam decided to stay home, wounding Tess - she wants him to be beside her on her big night, and is embarrassed at the thought that the public will wonder where he is. Tess insensitively queries whether anyone would believe that Sam could find something more important to do than attend her dinner. That evening he returns the child to the home for Greek refugee children and walks out on the marriage (Tess makes an unsuccessful attempt to reclaim custody of the boy later).
Tess invites Sam to the home of her father and the aunt who raised her, but he claims to be covering an important boxing match on the same evening. When Tess arrives alone, she is told that the aunt and her father are to be married that night, after fifteen years of "making the same mistake" and saying nothing of their attraction. Listening to the words of the wedding ceremony encourages Tess to attempt a reconciliation.
She illicitly gains entry to Sam's new riverside home the next morning and starts to prepare breakfast. Sam is eventually woken by her noisy manual incompetence in the kitchen. She proclaims her new intentions of being a perfect wife to him, which he rebuffs and challenges. Trying to prove herself, Tess once again takes up the creation of breakfast, only to roundly fail. Sam berates her for always going to extremes, telling her he doesn't want Tess Harding OR Mrs Craig, but can't she be Mrs Tess Harding-Craig? To which Tess happily agrees that she can. Gerald, Tess' inconsiderate secretary, arrives with a bottle of champagne and reminds Tess of her commitment to launch a ship at 8.30am. Gerald is taken outside by Sam, a bottle is heard being smashed and Sam returns claiming to have launched Gerald.
Background
- This is the first of nine films Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were to make together. They met for the first time on this shoot. In the 1993 documentary
Documentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
Katharine Hepburn: All About Me, Hepburn herself says she was wearing high heels at the first meeting with Tracy and producer Joseph L. MankiewiczJoseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.-Early life:Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany. He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz , and a brother, Herman J...
, and said "I'm afraid I'm a bit tall for you, Mr. Tracy". Mankiewicz then responded, "Don't worry, Kate, he'll cut you down to size."
- Hepburn's character of Tess Harding is widely thought to be based on American journalist Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist, who was noted by Time magazine in 1939 as one of the two most influential women in America, the other being Eleanor Roosevelt....
.
Awards and honors
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
recognition
- 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs is a list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema. A wide variety of comedies were nominated for the distinction that included slapstick comedy, romantic comedy, satire, black comedy, musical comedy, comedy of manners and comedy...
#90
- 2002: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Passions is a list of the top 100 love stories in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 11, 2002 in a CBS television special hosted by American film and TV actress Candice Bergen.-The...
#74