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Adam's Rib Overview:

Adam's Rib (1949) was a Comedy - Drama Film directed by George Cukor and produced by Lawrence Weingarten.

SYNOPSIS

Tracy and Hepburn at their best as two married lawyers who take opposite sides of a front-page case. District Attorney Tracy heads the prosecution when a pistol-packing blonde goes after her girl-chasing husband and his mistress. But wife Hepburn thinks women should have the right to do exactly what men have done for years - get revenge! So it's Hepburn for the defense in a trial that proves all's fair in love, war, and court.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Adam's Rib was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1992.

Academy Awards 1950 --- Ceremony Number 23 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best WritingRuth Gordon, Garson KaninNominated
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Adam's Rib BlogHub Articles:

CMBA Spring Blogathon: "Adam's Rib," or Court and Spark

By David on Apr 14, 2016 From The Man on the Flying Trapeze

This is part of the CMBA Spring Blogathon: Words, Words, Words! Check out all entries! SCENE: Upper middle-class New York City apartment, evening. Wife waits patiently by door. Husband enters. Husband: Hello, thing. Wife: Hello at last. Husband: Well well well. Wife: Well well well what? Hu... Read full article

CMBA Spring Blogathon: "Adam's Rib," or Court and Spark

By David on Apr 14, 2016 From The Man on the Flying Trapeze

This is part of the CMBA Spring Blogathon: Words, Words, Words! Check out all entries! SCENE: Upper middle-class New York City apartment, evening. Wife waits patiently by door. Husband enters. Husband: Hello, thing. Wife: Hello at last. Husband: Well well well. Wife: Well well well what? Hu... Read full article

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Adam's Rib Quotes:

Amanda Bonner: No part of marriage is the exclusive province of any one sex.
Amanda Bonner: Mr. Attinger had never touched you before this time?
Beryl Caighn: Sure
Amanda Bonner: Ahh!
Beryl Caighn: We used to shake hands quite a lot.
Amanda Bonner: I see. Did you enjoy it?
Amanda Bonner: Now, you look here, Kip. I'm fighting my prejudices, but it's clear that you're behaving like a, like a - well, I'd hate to put it this way - like a *man*.
Kip Lurie: You watch your language.
Beryl Caighn: She tried to shoot me.
Adam Bonner: How do you know that?
Beryl Caighn: Because she did.
Adam Bonner: Ah. Guaranteed heart-melter. A few female tears, stronger than any acid.
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Adam's Rib Facts
To help build up Judy Holliday's image, particularly in the eyes of Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn, Katharine Hepburn deliberately leaked stories to the gossip columns suggesting that her performance in Adam's Rib was so good that it had stolen the spotlight from Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. This got Cohn's attention and Holliday won the part in Born Yesterday.
Inspired by the real-life story of husband-and-wife lawyers William Dwight Whitney and Dorothy Whitney, who represented Raymond Massey and his ex-wife Adrienne Allen in their divorce. After the Massey divorce was over, the Whitneys divorced each other and married the respective Masseys.
Katharine Hepburn reportedly urged director George Cukor to focus the camera on Judy Holliday during a number of their shared scenes, not only because she was a fan of the new-to-movies Holliday but because it was hoped the studios would see how terrific Holliday was and cast her as the lead in Born Yesterday, the role she'd created on Broadway. It worked.
The movie's line "Licorice, mmmm. If there's anything I'm a sucker for, it's licorice." was voted as the #60 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
In the scene in which Amanda is driving Adam to work, he tells her, "Oh, you're giving me the Bryn Mawr accent". Bryn Mawr College was Katharine Hepburn's alma mater, where she claimed to have gained her distinctive voice.
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