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. Katharine 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 point.
