Classic Comedies Tonight on TCM

9:15pm
Bringing Up Baby (1938) A madcap heiress upsets the staid existence of a straitlaced scientist.Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Ruggles. Dir: Howard Hawks. BW-102 mins, TV - G

12:15am
Philadelphia Story, The (1940) Tabloid reporters crash a society marriage.Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart. Dir: George Cukor. BW-112 mins, TV-G

2:15am
Woman Of The Year (1942) Opposites distract when a sophisticated political columnist falls for a sportswriter.Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter. Dir: George Stevens. BW-114 mins, TV-PG

Three significant comedies from three significant directors. I mentioned that Howard Hawks is in my top 5, and it's really for his ability to work at the very peak of any genre he tried his hand at. Here he makes what some believe to be the ultimate screwball comedy. Good stuff with lots of nice touches. See also, His Girl Friday if you get the chance.

The Philadelphia Story is one of my favorites. It's not a screwball comedy, even though it features the classic screwball mixture of newspeople, rich people and booze. Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart are at their pre-war peaks and are uniformly great in this picture. It was based on a Philip Barry play that Hepburn had starred in on Broadway. Donald Ogden Stewart, notable for his shimmering dialogue, wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for his efforts. That's right, it's well written. George Cukor, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cukor who's famous for many things, including getting fired from Gone With the Wind, directs. Everything works in this one.

Woman of the Year was the first teaming of Hepburn with Spencer Tracy. A classy, well articulated comedy that lead to a fine series of movies starring the two of them basically coping with each other. In this one, Hep's a world famous political commentator and Spence is a crusty sports writer, you just can't miss with that kind of arrangement. The movie was written by sportswriting scion Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin and directed by George Stevens, who also directed Gunga Din!!!!! and a lot of heavy post World War II movies. This is one of the last of his comedies and a very enjoyable movie.

Check em out!