Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.
Last year we dedicated the summer to some damn fine directors, from Jane Campion, Dario Argento (who was also the topic of our most recent espresso) and Ida Lupino to Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese. This year, we decided to look at some of the great collaborations of cinema, and for the first instalment in our Summer of Collaborations, Julie has been talking to Alan and Sam about one of the legendary couples of Hollywood, both on- and off-screen: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The two starred in nine films, many of them romantic comedies banking on the palpable chemistry that was apparent between Hepburn and Tracy from the first. Our trio of cultural baristas takes a closer look at the first collaboration between the two, Woman of the Year (1942); their last, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), finished just 17 days before Tracy’s death; and perhaps their most iconic film together, Adam’s Rib (1949), which Julie previously wrote about. What made this one of the most sparkling acting collaborations in Hollywood? Why was there this fascination with Hepburn’s characters being knocked down a peg? And how well do these films, the issues they address and the way they address these issues hold up more than half a century later?
For last year’s summer series of podcasts, check this link:
A Lesson in Love doesn’t exactly start very well, at least from a contemporary perspective: after an arch voiceover telling us to prepare ourselves for a comedy for grownups, we first meet a comely but angry young woman, Susanne (played by Yvonne Lombard), listing the failings of her older lover, the gynaecologist David Erneman (Bergman regular Gunnar Björnstrand). The lines are sharp, even witty, but it still seems that we’re watching what is essentially a male fantasy: obviously the young, attractive patients of a middle-aged, jaded gynaecologist would fall over themselves to undress for him in private as well as in his practice. It’s not that Bergman spares his protagonist, but whatever criticism is leveled at David, in the end it doesn’t matter. Young women seem magically attracted to him, and even as Susanne berates him for his cynicism, she still can’t help begging him to continue being her lover.
Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
Adam’s Rib is a George Cukor comedy or, if you take into account the amount of doors slammed, a farce. It is about married couple Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) an assistant district attorney, and Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) a lawyer. It relates how they cope and bicker in a marriage where Amanda is a “modern woman”, which is to say a kind of (shorthand) feminist.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 