The Philadelphia Story is a 1940 romantic screwball comedy starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart. Based on a Broadway play of the same name by Philip Barry, the film is about a bride-to-be whose plans are complicated by the simultaneous arrival of her ex-husband and a handsome journalist. It is considered one of the best examples of a comedy of remarriage, a genre popular in the 1930s and 1940s, in which a couple divorce, flirt with outsiders and then remarry - a useful ploy at a time when depicting extra-marital affairs was banned in American film.
The American Film Institute ranked The Philadelphia Story #51 in its list of the 100 best movies in American cinema, #15 among the 100 best American comedies and #44 in the 100 best American romances.
The dialogue between these three *STARS* is what makes this one of the best movies ever..it has to be one of the 'wittiest' scripts in Cinematic History. Katherine Hepburn is THE STAR and the CENTER OF ATTENTION (of course); Cary Grant is HILARIOUS, and James Stewart won his ONLY Academy Award ever, for his performance as the 'handsome journalist.'
You have to watch it a cpl of times to get all of the jokes--it's great. And the ending is one of the craftiest I've ever seen--not THE USUAL SUSPECTS crafty, but you get the pt.
