Woman of the Year Details

The first teaming of one of Hollywood's greatest couples: the inimitable Katharine Hepburn and laconic, rugged Spencer Tracy. They're beautifully matched, she a columnist wishing to ban baseball until the end of the Second World War, he a reporter defending the sport in print. They meet, wed and generally provide a high old time for audiences everywhere. This is close to the apex of sophisticated romantic comedy, today marred slightly by its wartime conventions and a subplot involving the adoption of a young refugee. Nevertheless, adroit director George Stevens doesn't let the fun get bogged down, and just watching Tracy attempt to cut Hepburn down to size is to revel in the obvious affection these two great stars felt for one another, an affection that spilled into real life and a partnership that lasted for 25 years, broken only by Tracy's death.

Simple, effective, mildly sophisticated comedy which allows two splendid stars, in harness for the first time, to do their thing to the general benefit.