It’s remarkable how much or little we have changed in America.
Around the center of George Stevens’s 1942 Woman of the Year, recently married couple Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy) and Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) are going through a newlywed rough patch and come to the conclusion a child would be a great quick fix.
Tess, without much forethought, reveals that she has already gone ahead and adopted a Greek refugee child (of the World War 2 variety), much to the dismay and irritation of Sam who was just elated with the prospect of having his own genetic brood. It’s certainly a noble gesture but for Tess it’s the most indicative action of her character, her career as a political reporter matters more than her obligations at home with her husband.
It’s even more so when she can’t bother to get anybody to watch the poor, non-English speaking son, and her husband is now obligated to stay home to do so while she goes to accept her “Woman of the Year” award. Tess is frankly a faulty woman as she’s too smart and ambitious for her own good. Woman of the Year may be a simple love story, but it’s also a political one. The war in Europe was a big deal to some (Tess) and not such a big deal to others (Sam). Stevens’s political outlook had crept into the script as he was sensing a growing apathy in his fellow American who he felt would of sided with Sam and his buddies who felt America’s political indifference was only matched by their love of baseball and what that represented to our way of life.
Woman of the Year is very much a product of it’s time, namely 1940’s WWII America, where a woman’s place was expected to be at home trying to please a husband, raising a family, keeping a home in check rather than gallivanting around town trying to carve a decent career for oneself and accepting extravagant awards. The film is never coarse about this, but the idea hangs over Sam and Tess’s turbulent matrimony like a cloud. Hepburn might be the literal woman of the year, but she can’t seem to have that and a workable marriage.
Perhaps the more subversive parts of the film is the fact that Hepburn’s character is actually import to her field, acclaimed, and is marrying a mere sports writer out of love. Tess is an independent woman and what you would call “a real go-getter”, but the film unfortunately treats Hepburn’s bustling career more of a lark or a hobby than something to be greatly esteemed.
It’s more of an unfortunate calculation on the scripts part that Hepburn actually was a big co-conspirator on. Around this time Hepburn was considered too “threatening” to male audiences who found her quite intimidating to placate and titillate their movie-going fantasies. Woman of the Year is a bit of an answer to that as Hepburn by the end literally tries to become woman enough by cooking her man a hearty breakfast only to end up with a misbegotten comedic mess. It’s an ending that actually worked for audiences (woman strangely in particular) at the time after it was reconstituted after negative screenings initially.
Wonky endings aside, in the end the movie is about two people to who rush into marriage, are incapable to adjust to each other, and somehow still remind each other that love is most important component for matrimonial bliss, which is where the film really shines in particular. The only caveat is that Tess has to tone down her career to do so. But while that does send perhaps a horrible message that marriages can only work if you sacrifice only for your male counterpart, the film does showcase what a talent Hepburn was and how willing to shape her own perception she was. The film, despite its suspect implications, has a lot going for it with the driving duel energy of Spencer and Hepburn (who at the time were big MGM powerhouses), as they would become lifelong partners on screen appearing in total of eight films together and in life. Woman of the Year was a considerable hit critically and at the box office, winning an Oscar for best screenplay for that year and cemented as a classic by being preserved by the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Hepburn would even get an Academy Award nomination for her performance and would continue to help rejuvenate her once boisterous career. It’s a fascinating preservation of the time and the attitudes the film struggles with.
Woman of the Year arrives for the first time on the Criterion Collection with a new 2K digital restoration with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. It includes a new interview with George Stevens Jr on reflections of his father and making the film, a 1967 audio interview with George Stevens on working with Katherine Hepburn and his relationship working with her, a new interview with George Stevens biographer Marilyn Ann Moss, a new interview with writer Claudia Roth Pierpont on Hepburn, George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey, a 112-minute 1984 documentary by George Stevens Jr, The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn, an 86-minute documentary from 1986, a very lively trailer, and a rousing film essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek. It’s a great release and the transfer is strong for its era. If you have any yearning for an old-school romantic comedy or to see where the great Hepburn and Tracey got their start, I implore getting this release. The bountiful supplemental materials are all great and informative. “Remember this prediction; Picture of the Year!”
Woman of the Year
United States (1942)
George Stevens
Spine #867
Available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Filmstruck
