80 years of The Philadelphia Story
On December 5, 1940, George Cukor's romantic comedy "The Philadelphia Story" premiered in six cities across the US. This rather unusual start of the film demonstration had its reasons.
The script for the film "The Philadelphia Story" was based on the play of the same name, written by playwright Philip Barry especially for Katharine Hepburn, at her request. And by that time, the former lover of Katharine Hepburn, the extravagant billionaire Howard Hughes, paid for this order. (In 2004, Martin Scorsese directed the film "The Aviator", starring Leonardo DiCaprio, about the man.)
The need to create a special play for Katharine Hepburn was dictated by the fact that by 1938 the actress had acquired the nickname "box office poison" among American filmmakers. The fact is that the actress, who was awarded the Oscar in 1934 for her leading female role in the film "Morning Glory", began a streak of failures in 1934: all films with her participation, and such for the period from 1934 until 1938, there are about 10, suffered a failure at the box office. Producers and directors began to refuse the actress under various pretexts. For example, when she offered herself for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind", she was turned down for lack of sexuality that no one would believe that Clark Gable would pursue her for many years. (I don’t know what explanation of refusal for a woman would be less offensive: lack of cash potential or lack of sexuality.) And then she turned to men for help: close friend Philip Barry and ex-boyfriend Hughes. As a result, Hughes presented Katharine with a play written by Barry.
Philip Barry, so to speak, “copied” the image of the main character of his play from the wife of his friend, the real “socialite” Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, who was called “the unofficial queen of the WASP oligarchy of Philadelphia”, “the embodiment of Pennsylvania high society" and "a symbol of aristocratic, free-spirited elegance". By the way, when it came to filming the film, the management of the film studio, in order to make it more credible, decided to shoot the film in a real estate owned by this very Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, but when they saw the size of this estate and the luxurious decoration of the house, they abandoned this idea, considering that the audience will not believe that this is possible in America in the 30s.
But before the filming of the film, there was still a theatrical production. The first performance of The Philadelphia Story took place at the Schubert Theater on Broadway on March 28, 1939. The last one is March 30, 1940. During the year, 417 performances took place, in each of which Katharine Hepburn shone on stage. The fact that, on average, more than one performance per day was given during the year and that the performance brought in more than one million dollars in profit, speaks of the extraordinary success of both the play itself and its stage implementation. And then Hepburn realized that it was possible to make a film based on this play.
Hepburn offered MGM to buy the rights to stage such a lucrative play from her for only $ 250,000, but in exchange demanded that she be given the right to determine the director, producers and actors of the future film. Using this right, she actually appointed George Cukor as the director of the film, with whom she has already successfully starred in two films. For the main male roles, Hepburn wanted to invite Clark Gable (apparently remembering the reason for her refusal to play Scarlett O'Hara announced to her) and Spencer Tracy, her future longtime lover and film partner. But she soon found out that Gable and Cukor were "incompatible things." (We wrote about the reasons here.) And Tracey was just busy filming the movie "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." As a result, the main male roles went to James Stewart and Cary Grant.
Be that as it may, on July 5, 1940, filming began and ended on August 14, 5 days ahead of schedule. However, the premiere of the film took several months. The fact is that, as it was said, on March 30, the last performance based on the play "The Philadelphia Story" took place. But this is in New York. And given the significant box office potential of the performance, theater producers, in agreement with film producers, have launched touring trips across the country. I had to postpone the premiere of the film. But in order for the film to be nominated for the 1941 Oscar, the premiere had to take place before the end of 1940. Again, according to an agreement between theatrical and film producers, the premiere in New York could not take place until the end of the "touring chaos". That is why on December 5, the film was first shown almost simultaneously in 6 not the largest cities in different parts of America. And the commercial potential of the play during its tour of the country was fully realized: in 9 months, 250 performances were given, which brought 750 thousand dollars in profit.
In early 1941, "The Philadelphia Story" received 6 Academy Award nominations. It won two of them: Best Screenplay and Best Lead Actor. This Oscar was awarded to James Stewart. There is a legend, or maybe even a reality, that Stewart had no thoughts about winning the nomination. And he was not going to the ceremony. But a couple of hours before the ceremony, someone called him and "strongly recommended" to put on a tuxedo and to arrive to the ceremony. Which he did. And, supposedly, it was after this incident that it was decided to instruct a special auditing firm to keep the voting results secret until the winners were announced.
In the Best Picture nomination, the victory went to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca", in the Best Director nomination, George Cukor lost to John Ford, the director of "The Grapes of Wrath". And in the contest for the Oscar in the nomination for Best Lead Actress, Katharine Hepburn lost to Ginger Rogers, who played the lead role in the rather average film "Kitty Foyle". But it didn't really matter to Hepburn. The main thing is that she got rid of the reputation of "box office poison": the film "The Philadelphia Story" by George Cukor, with a budget of $ 914 thousand, grossed $ 3.3 million at the box office.
And after the “The Philadelphia Story,” Katharine Hepburn won three more Oscars. And according to their total number - 4 - to this day she is the record holder among actors. Moreover, the last, 4th Oscar, Katharine Hepburn received back in 1982, 38 years ago. And until now, none of the actors can surpass her in this indicator.
The film's box office bears witness to the film's huge success with the 1940 audience. One can only add to this that, according to the famous Russian film critic, the film was watched by 27 million people in the United States, which was about 20 percent of the then population of America. But even among the modern cinema goer, George Cukor's film "The Philadelphia Story" enjoys serious success. Suffice it to say that 68% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated this movie from 8 to 10.
With that said, FilmGourmand rated George Cukor's "The Philadelphia Story" at 7,864, making it 901st in the Golden Thousand.
The film was not shown in the Soviet Union. At least until the beginning of perestroika.
