{"id":186,"date":"2013-12-03T23:22:47","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T23:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jemontague.com\/?p=186"},"modified":"2013-12-03T23:22:47","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T23:22:47","slug":"the-philadelphia-story-gasp-a-new-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jemontague.com\/?p=186","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Story (Gasp, a new post!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been watching new films recently – I wanted to write about this one.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only been a few years since I discovered It\u2019s a Wonderful Life, it not having travelled to the UK as a staple of the Christmas holidays in quite the same way it is in America. The main thing I came away with from that film was a strong respect for Jimmy Stewart. I\u2019d never seen him in anything else, but I was content for that to be my experience of him \u2013 there are plenty of actors I\u2019ve only seen in one film.<\/p>\n

My appetite for more Jimmy Stewart was bizarrely whetted by an event I went to back in 2009 at the Glasgow Film Festival, where I was the director for a small film crew covering an event called Remembering Mary Gordon. Mary Gordon was a fairly fascinating Scottish woman who was an extra in a lot of American films, notably westerns and a Laurel & Hardy film. Amidst the films that were discussed was one featuring the lovely Jimmy Stewart, playing a character that was at the same time so similar but completely different than George Bailey.\u00a0 At the time I thought \u201cI must watch more of this odd tall man\u201d, but did nothing more.<\/p>\n

Jump forward to a few months ago, when I was bored and had just finished an article about Rear Window online. I knew it was a Hitchcock film, and had a good idea of what I was going to be watching, but I was genuinely surprised that Jimmy Stewart was in it. Jimmy Stewart? In a thriller? Everything I was given to understand about him was clearly wrong.<\/p>\n

So I watched Rear Window, and I fell in love. With Grace Kelly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Grace<\/a>
Oh grace, you have my heart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Actually, more accurately, I fell back in love with Grace Kelly, because while I haven\u2019t seen many classic films, I have seen many musicals, and she was the beautiful, charming heiress in the 1956 film High Society \u2013 a musical about a rich divorcee marrying a \u201ccommon man done good\u201d but dealing with two other love interests at the same time. It\u2019s not the best musical ever, but it was enjoyable, and in my little girl way I\u2019d fallen in love with no fewer than four (maybe five) cast members when I was young.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the effortlessly charming Jimmy Stewart with the beautiful and Charming Grace Kelly in a thriller with an interesting framing device \u2013 I loved it, and this time it was only a few months before I sought out Jimmy Stewart again, this time in The Philadelphia Story (1940).<\/p>\n

I settled in to watch this film which was so highly recommended and was instantly faced with Cary Grant refraining from hitting Katherine Hepburn only to push her to the floor by her face. But it\u2019s the 1940\u2019s, right? So, It\u2019s like slapstick comedy \u2013 I\u2019d better settle in for the idea that this isn\u2019t going to adhere to my 2013 standards in every way.<\/p>\n

Just as I\u2019m thinking this, there\u2019s a page of exposition comes up and any analytical thoughts of the movie are wiped out by the names \u201cSeth Lord\u201d and \u201cGeorge Kittredge\u201d. I know these names \u2013 but where do I know them from?<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
This is all oddly familiar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It didn\u2019t take me long to realise that this film was about a rich divorcee marrying a \u201ccommon man done good\u201d but dealing with two other love interests at the same time. This is the movie High Society is based on (well, they\u2019re both based on the play, actually).<\/p>\n

So, what follows is my opinions and thoughts on the movie, but it\u2019s also mostly just a comparison to High Society, because these films are word-for-word the same in places to the extent that in one scene I could hear the lines that would have prompted the song \u201cwho wants to be a millionaire\u201d and for a moment I thought I heard the music starting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So comparisons between The Philadelphia Story and High Society:<\/p>\n