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Adam's Rib
Theatrical release poster
Directed byGeorge Cukor
Written byRuth Gordon
Garson Kanin
Produced byLawrence Weingarten
StarringSpencer Tracy
Katharine Hepburn
Judy Holliday
Tom Ewell
David Wayne
Jean Hagen
CinematographyGeorge J. Folsey
Edited byGeorge Boemler
Music byMiklós Rózsa
Production
company
Distributed byLoew's Inc.[1]
Release date
  • November 18, 1949 (1949-11-18)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1,728,000[2]
Box office$3,947,000[2]

Adam's Rib is a 1949 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor from a screenplay written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. It stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as married lawyers who come to oppose each other in court. Judy Holliday co-stars as the third lead in her second credited movie role. Also featured are Tom Ewell, David Wayne, and Jean Hagen. The music was composed by Miklós Rózsa, and the song "Farewell, Amanda" was written by Cole Porter.

The film was well received upon its release and is considered a classic romantic comedy. It ranked at No. 22 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. In 1992, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[3][4][5]

Plot

[edit]
Tracy and Hepburn as Adam and Amanda

Doris Attinger follows her husband with a gun in Manhattan one day, suspecting he is having an affair with another woman. In her rage, she fires wildly and blindly around the room and at the couple multiple times. One of the bullets hits her husband in the shoulder. His lover escapes unscathed.

The following morning, the married New York lawyers Adam and Amanda Bonner read about the incident in the newspaper. Adam is an assistant district attorney, while Amanda is a solo-practicing defense attorney. They argue over the case. Amanda sympathizes with the woman, particularly noting the double standard that exists for men and women regarding adultery. Adam thinks Doris is guilty of attempted murder. When Adam arrives at work, he learns that he has been assigned to prosecute the case. When Amanda hears this, she seeks out Doris and becomes her defense lawyer.

Amanda bases her case on the belief that women and men are equal, and that Doris had been forced into the situation by her husband's adultery and emotional and physical abuse. Adam thinks Amanda is showing contempt for the law, since there should never be any excuse for such criminal behavior. Tension increasingly builds at home as the two battle each other in court. The situation comes to a head as Adam feels humiliated during the trial when Amanda encourages one of her witnesses, a woman weightlifter, to lift him overhead. Later at home that evening, Adam still angry, gives Amanda an earful; he doesn't want to be married to a liberated "new woman." Having just packed his bags, he storms out of their apartment. When the verdict is returned, Amanda's plea to the jury to "judge this case as you would if the sexes were reversed" proves successful, and Doris is acquitted.

That night, Adam, who has left their upper-floor apartment, looks through its window and sees the silhouettes of his wife Amanda and their neighbor Kip Lurie, a popular singer, songwriter and piano player who has shown a keen interest in Amanda all along, and repeatedly taunted Adam, as the two of them seem to be dancing and drinking together. Adam breaks into the apartment enraged, pointing a gun at the pair. Amanda is horrified and says to Adam, "You've no right to do this – nobody does!" Adam feels he has proven his point about the injustice of Amanda's line of defense. He puts the gun in his mouth, as Amanda and Kip scream in terror. Then Adam bites a large piece off the gun and chews it. It is made of licorice. Amanda is furious with this prank and a three-way fight ensues.

Now in the midst of a divorce, Adam and Amanda reluctantly reunite for a meeting with their tax accountant. Going through their expenses for the year, they talk about their relationship in the past tense. They talk about the farm they own and recall burning the mortgage. Tears begin to roll down Adam's cheeks. Astonished and touched, Amanda gently bundles her sobbing husband out of the office and to the farm. That night, Adam announces that he has been selected as the Republican nominee for County Court Judge. Amanda jokes about running for the post as the Democratic candidate. Adam says it would make him cry and demonstrates how easily he can turn on the tears, remarking that men can use crocodile tears to manipulate people too. Amanda says there really isn't any difference between the sexes as Adam jumps in bed and closes the curtains, exclaiming otherwise.

Cast

[edit]

Production

[edit]
Advertising for the film focused on its 'battle of the sexes' theme.

The screenplay was written specifically as a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle (their sixth film together) by Garson Kanin and actress Ruth Gordon, married script writers who were friends of the couple. Kanin claimed that Judy Holliday initially declined her role because her character is called "fatso" in the script.[6] According to Kanin, the story of Adam's Rib was based on the lives of Gordon's friends Dorothy and William Dwight Whitney, and of actor Raymond Massey.[6] The Whitneys were married lawyers who represented opposing sides in Massey's high-profile divorce from actress Adrienne Allen before pursuing their own divorce in order to marry their clients from the Massey case.[7] Kanin and Gordon saw great potential in the idea of married lawyers as adversaries, and the plot for Adam's Rib was developed. Other titles for the film were Love is Legal and Man and Wife.[6] The MGM front office quickly vetoed the latter as dangerously indiscreet.[8]

Kanin also recalled that Cole Porter refused to write a song for Madelaine, as Hepburn's character was originally named, but proceeded when the character's name was changed to Amanda. The change allowed Porter to quickly revise a tune he had written during his 1940 adventure in the South Pacific and later discarded as mediocre — "So Long, Samoa."[9] In June 1949, Hollywood Reporter wrote that Porter and MGM agreed to donate all profits from the song, rechristened "Farewell, Amanda," to the Runyon Cancer Fund.

Although set in New York, Adam's Rib was filmed mainly on MGM's stages in Culver City, California.[10] However, location shooting occurred in various parts of New York City, including at the Women's House of Detention where Doris Attinger is imprisoned after shooting her husband, and at Gordon and Kanin's farm in Connecticut.[6]

Hepburn and Kanin encouraged Judy Holliday to play the role of Doris, and Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn considered her performance a screen test for the lead role in the planned film adaptation of Kanin's play Born Yesterday, in which Holliday had starred during its Broadway run. Receiving positive notices for Adam's Rib, Holliday was cast in the Born Yesterday film, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.[6]

Reception

[edit]
Alternate theatrical poster

According to MGM records, the film earned $2,971,000 in the US and Canada and $976,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $826,000.[2][11]

Variety staff reviewing the film on December 31, 1949, praised the "...bright comedy success, belting over a succession of sophisticated laughs...This is the sixth Metro teaming of Tracy and Hepburn, and their approach to marital relations around their own hearth is delightfully saucy. A better realization on type than Holliday's portrayal of a dumb Brooklyn femme doesn't seem possible."[12]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Adam's Rib has a "Fresh" score of 96% based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 8.04/10; the consensus for the film says: "Matched by Garson Kanin's witty, sophisticated screenplay, George Cukor, Spencer Tracy, and Katherine [sic] Hepburn are all in top form in the classic comedy Adam's Rib."[13]

Leonard Maltin gives the film four out of four stars, describing it as "[o]ne of Hollywood's greatest comedies about the battle of the sexes, with peerless Tracy and Hepburn supported by movie newcomers Holliday, Ewell, Hagen, and Wayne."[14]

Awards and honors

[edit]

Ruth Gordon (later of Rosemary's Baby and Harold and Maude fame) and Garson Kanin were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story and Screenplay in 1951.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

AFI has also honored the film's stars, naming Katharine Hepburn the greatest American screen legend among females and Spencer Tracy #9 among males.

TV adaptation

[edit]
Main article: Adam's Rib (TV series)

Adam's Rib was adapted as a television sitcom in 1973 with Ken Howard and Blythe Danner. The series was canceled after 13 episodes.

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Adam's Rib

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia

Adam's Rib is a 1949 American romantic comedy film directed by George Cukor and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, featuring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as a married pair of lawyers who oppose each other in court over a case of attempted murder. The screenplay, written by the husband-and-wife team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, draws from their observations of legal professionals and explores tensions in marital and professional dynamics through the Bonners' conflict: Tracy's Adam prosecutes a woman (Judy Holliday in her film debut) for shooting her unfaithful husband, while Hepburn's Amanda defends her on grounds of justifiable self-defense amid perceived gender inequities. The film marked the fourth onscreen collaboration between Tracy and Hepburn, whose real-life relationship lent authenticity to the portrayal of the bickering yet devoted couple, with Cukor's direction emphasizing witty banter and in sequences depicting their home life unraveling alongside the trial. Released on November 18, 1949, Adam's Rib grossed approximately $3 million in , contributing to its status as a commercial success for , and received critical acclaim for its sharp dialogue and performances, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Original . Though not without debate over its handling of spousal roles—Amanda's advocacy challenges traditional notions of feminine propriety without endorsing outright —the movie endures as a benchmark of the genre, influencing later depictions of legal and romantic rivalries.

Synopsis

Plot Summary

Doris Attinger, a New York housewife, suspects her husband Warren of infidelity and follows him to the apartment of his mistress, Beryl Caighn, where she shoots him in the shoulder upon catching them together. Charged with , Doris's case draws the attention of Amanda Bonner, a defense attorney who takes up her cause to highlight perceived double standards in and . Amanda's husband, Adam Bonner, an assistant , is assigned to prosecute, viewing the shooting as a clear-cut regardless of provocation. As the trial unfolds, argues that Doris acted out of desperation after enduring years of Warren's and philandering during their nine-year , which produced three children aged eight, seven, and six. She calls unconventional witnesses, including a female acrobat to demonstrate women's physical capabilities comparable to men's, challenging notions of inherent weakness. counters with strict legal interpretations, emphasizing equal application of the to attempted murder. Tensions spill into their home life, where professional disagreements escalate into personal arguments over justice, fidelity, and equality, straining their . Amanda's defense culminates in a dramatic demonstration underscoring her points on provocation and disparity, swaying the to acquit Doris. Enraged by the verdict, confronts Amanda, leading to a temporary rift, but they ultimately reconcile, affirming their bond despite the ideological clash. Doris reunites with Warren, while reflects on the case's implications for their relationship.

Cast and Characters

Principal Performers

Spencer Tracy starred as Adam Bonner, the assistant district attorney, delivering a performance characterized by understated authority and subtle exasperation that underscored the character's commitment to legal impartiality amid personal discord. His relaxed demeanor effectively conveyed a husband accustomed to his wife's assertiveness, drawing on Tracy's established screen persona of grounded masculinity. Katharine Hepburn portrayed Amanda Bonner, the opposing defense counsel, infusing the role with intellectual fervor and unyielding advocacy that highlighted the attorney's defiance of traditional expectations in both courtroom and home. The casting of Hepburn and Tracy, whose off-screen romantic involvement had commenced during their 1942 collaboration on Woman of the Year and persisted through the production of Adam's Rib, mirrored the film's depiction of a resilient marital partnership tested by conflict. Judy Holliday appeared in her first substantial screen role as Doris Attinger, the accused wife, blending poignant vulnerability with instinctive comedic flair to depict a driven to desperation by . Hepburn and co-writer advocated for Holliday's selection, leveraging her Broadway acclaim to secure the part as a showcase for her talents. Tom Ewell made his film debut as Warren Attinger, the unfaithful husband whose affair ignites the narrative, portraying an ordinary man ensnared by fleeting temptation with a mix of sheepishness and self-justification.

Supporting Roles and Character Analysis

David Wayne's portrayal of Kip Lurie, the Bonners' effeminate neighbor and Broadway songwriter, introduces interpersonal rivalry and jealousy into the narrative by openly courting Amanda's favor and composing a to woo her, thereby exacerbating Adam's insecurities and amplifying marital discord beyond the courtroom. Modeled on composer , Lurie's flamboyant, cynical persona—marked by piano-playing and sly support for Amanda's cause—serves as an of the artistic outsider, contrasting traditional and prompting Adam to confront threats to his domestic . Judy Holliday's Doris Attinger, the beleaguered housewife who shoots her unfaithful husband upon discovering his affair, functions as the inciting incident for the Bonners' professional opposition, embodying the desperate victim of male betrayal whose impulsive act tests legal boundaries on and gender equity. Her depiction as a sympathetic, if naive, figure underscores ensemble contributions to highlighting domestic vulnerabilities, drawing public scrutiny that mirrors broader societal pressures on women in unequal marriages. Tom Ewell's Warren Attinger, Doris's philandering spouse caught in flagrante delicto, represents the archetype of the entitled adulterer whose casual infidelity precipitates violence, providing Adam's prosecution with a foil to Amanda's defense while illustrating divergent male behaviors—Attinger's mundane opportunism versus Lurie's performative flair—that propel the story's exploration of relational double standards. Clarence Kolb as Judge Reiser embodies and institutional decorum, repeatedly intervening to curb Amanda's unorthodox tactics during the trial, such as witness demonstrations, and thereby advancing the plot through of procedural norms that implicitly favor Adam's emphasis on legal over emotional appeals for . This role archetypes entrenched authority figures who prioritize order and tradition, reflecting systemic inclinations toward maintaining established power structures amid disruptive challenges. Ensemble elements like the , including Hope Emerson's physically imposing Olympia La Pere, contribute to narrative resolution by yielding to Amanda's , portraying collective community as susceptible to persuasive archetypes of resilience and thereby underscoring external social pressures that influence familial and legal outcomes in the story.

Production History

Development and

The screenplay for Adam's Rib was penned by the husband-and-wife duo Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin as an original story, drawing from their collaborative style honed in prior projects like A Double Life (1947). They conceived the central premise from the 1939 divorce of actors and , who retained a pair of married attorneys—William Dwight Whitney for Massey and Dorothy Whitney Elmhirst for Allen—as opposing counsel in the high-profile New York case. This unusual arrangement, where the lawyers' professional rivalry mirrored the clients' marital strife, and post-divorce remarriages ensued (Massey to Dorothy Whitney, Allen to William Whitney), provided the kernel for depicting a lawyer couple clashing over a spousal assault trial, with Gordon and Kanin adapting the divorce context into a shooting incident to heighten dramatic tension and gender inequities. Initially titled Man and Wife, the script was written on speculation without studio commission, reflecting Kanin and Gordon's practice of crafting complete treatments before pitching to Hollywood. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the property in the late 1940s, retitling it Adam's Rib to evoke biblical undertones of male-female dynamics while producing the film under Lawrence Weingarten. The writers tailored the roles of Adam and Amanda Bonner specifically for Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, leveraging the stars' established chemistry to anchor the narrative's blend of screwball banter and courtroom realism. Kanin and Gordon prioritized dialogue-driven conflict, infusing the script with rapid-fire exchanges that underscored legal and domestic double standards without overt preachiness, a technique informed by their observations of real adversarial proceedings and marital tensions among couples. The 118-page shooting script emphasized structural —alternating home and scenes—to mirror the Bonners' intertwined personal and lives, culminating in a resolution that balanced concession with individual agency. This approach earned the screenplay an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 1950, though it lost to .

Filming and Technical Aspects

Principal photography for Adam's Rib commenced on May 31, 1949, under the direction of at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's studios in . The production relied heavily on MGM's sound stages for interior scenes, including domestic apartments and courtroom sequences, which allowed for controlled lighting and sound capture to underscore the film's intimate conflicts. George J. Folsey utilized black-and-white 35mm film to achieve sharp contrasts and fluid camera movements, facilitating close-ups that highlighted the performers' expressive banter without relying on elaborate exteriors. Location shooting was limited to select exteriors, such as Bayard Street in and Drive, to establish the urban setting while minimizing logistical disruptions. This approach prioritized studio efficiency, with sets designed to replicate New York interiors for sustained focus on character interactions. Editor George Boemler managed the pacing of the screwball-style sequences, ensuring seamless transitions in the rapid-fire dialogue that defined the marital exchanges. Technical execution emphasized auditory realism, with minimal background music during dialogue-heavy scenes to preserve the illusion of spontaneous conversation; overlapping speech was incorporated via sound mixing on MGM stages, a technique that amplified the film's verbal without visual interruptions. These elements contributed to the production's streamlined schedule, wrapping principal filming by late summer and enabling a release later that year.

Direction and Collaborative Dynamics

directed Adam's Rib (1949), leveraging his established proficiency in , as demonstrated in films like The Philadelphia Story (1940), to guide the ensemble's interplay of humor and conflict. His prior collaborations with , spanning over a dozen projects including early successes like Little Women (1933), and with the Tracy-Hepburn duo in two previous features, informed a directing style attuned to their strengths in verbal sparring and emotional nuance. Cukor's approach emphasized actor preparation, favoring extensive rehearsals to refine comedic timing, a method he applied consistently across productions to ensure natural delivery amid layered dialogues. The off-screen relationship between leads and Hepburn, an enduring though extramarital partnership that had lasted eight years by filming, paralleled the film's depiction of marital discord, lending authenticity to their portrayals under Cukor's facilitation. Cukor, a close friend of the couple, noted the mutual benefits of their dynamic, which he channeled into on-set interactions that mirrored scripted tensions without overt disruption. This interpersonal chemistry influenced the tone, allowing Cukor to elicit performances that blended genuine friction with professional rapport. Cukor's collaboration with screenwriters and , a married couple whose own partnership echoed the stars', marked the start of a fruitful creative , with the director integrating their script's witty structure through targeted ensemble work. Rehearsals focused on synchronizing the cast's delivery of rapid-fire exchanges, balancing levity with underlying relational strains to maintain the film's dual comedic and dramatic registers. This process underscored Cukor's role as an actors' director, prioritizing collective refinement over unilateral impositions to shape the production's cohesive energy.

Themes and Analysis

Gender Roles and Double Standards

In Adam's Rib, the Attinger case exemplifies the film's portrayal of societal leniency toward male contrasted with severe repercussions for women. Doris Attinger shoots her husband Warren after discovering him with his mistress Beryl Caighn, an act stemming from repeated betrayals that the depicts as routinely overlooked when committed by men. This is underscored when Amanda Bonner, defending Doris, argues that a man in the same position would face sympathy rather than prosecution, highlighting how cultural norms excused philandering husbands while branding unfaithful or retaliatory wives as threats. Amanda's defense explicitly invokes biological and social disparities to justify Doris's actions, positing that women's physical vulnerability and domestic burdens—such as child-rearing and economic dependence—necessitate greater leeway in response to spousal betrayal. She contends that "for years, women have been ridiculed, pampered, chucked under the chin," yet denied equal agency, framing the shooting as a desperate assertion against inherent inequities rather than mere criminality. This argument draws on first-hand narrative evidence from Doris's about Warren's neglect and affairs, positioning differences as causally linked to divergent legal tolerances. The trial scenes mirror empirical realities of 1940s American , where fault-based divorce laws treated adultery asymmetrically, often barring adulterous women from while permitting men greater post-divorce privileges. disputes in the film reflect prevailing gender biases, with prosecutor Adam Bonner seeking to exclude women to maintain an all-male panel presumed less sympathetic to female defendants, a practice enabled by state laws that underrepresented women on juries despite their nominal eligibility since the 19th Amendment. Such compositions contributed to harsher outcomes for women in domestic-related trials, as depicted when Amanda challenges the exclusion as undermining impartiality. In Adam's Rib, the professional opposition between Adam and Amanda Bonner manifests as a profound strain on their marriage, with domestic disputes directly paralleling the courtroom proceedings of the Attinger attempted murder trial. Adam, as assistant prosecuting Doris Attinger for shooting her philandering husband, urges Amanda to decline the defense, citing the inherent risks to their personal harmony from such adversarial positioning; Amanda proceeds regardless, leading to nightly arguments where they rehearse legal strategies against each other in their . This setup underscores the ethical tightrope of spousal involvement in conflicting cases, as Adam grapples with divided loyalties—professionally bound to secure a while privately resenting Amanda's zealous , which he perceives as prioritizing over their shared life. The film's depiction highlights real-world parallels in , where rules in some jurisdictions, such as Minnesota's, question the propriety of close relatives appearing on opposing sides, though no formal disqualification occurs in the story. The escalation peaks in courtroom theatrics that blur professional boundaries and amplify marital discord, notably Amanda's improvised physical demonstration to refute the prosecution's narrative of premeditation. Enlisting performer Kip , Amanda stages a wherein he attempts to overpower her, illustrating the alleged physical disparity that purportedly prevented Doris from executing the shot as described by witnesses; this not only undermines Adam's case but transforms the trial into a , prompting Adam's objections and further eroding their home equilibrium as public scrutiny invades private trust. Such antics reflect Amanda's willingness to bend evidentiary norms for client vindication, raising unspoken dilemmas about suborning —Lurie's involvement borders on orchestrated —while Adam's frustration manifests in threats to expose these tactics, intensifying the personal fallout as their arguments spill beyond legal merits into accusations of . The narrative resolves these conflicts through the jury's of Doris on October 15, 1949 (as dramatized), followed by the Bonners' rapid , where surprises at home with a reenactment that reaffirms their over professional rivalry. This denouement prioritizes relational restoration, with 's gesture—proposing they "remarry" symbolically—signaling that marital bonds supersede courtroom victories, allowing them to channel their combative dynamic into mutual affection rather than dissolution. The film's optimistic closure, drawn from real inspirations like the 1935 Massey divorce case, portrays legal adversities as surmountable for committed spouses, though it glosses over lingering ethical ambiguities in .

Critique of Egalitarian Ideals

The film's portrayal of identical legal standards for spousal misconduct exemplifies a superficial that disregards innate biological asymmetries, particularly in physical capabilities relevant to interpersonal conflict. Men possess, on average, 50-100% greater upper-body strength than women, a disparity rooted in that influences outcomes in violent encounters. This reality undermines arguments for undifferentiated treatment in cases akin to the film's central trial, where self-defense claims hinge on perceived threats amplified by such differences. Empirical reviews of indicate that while self-reported perpetration rates are comparable across sexes, women sustain disproportionately severe injuries due to men's superior force, rendering blanket equality in causally naive and potentially unjust. Proponents of radical sameness in marital dynamics, as implicitly challenged in the narrative, overlook how enforced interchangeability disrupts relational harmony, favoring instead complementary roles that align with evolved sex differences in and provisioning. Sociological analyses reveal that adherence to traditional displays—men as and providers, women emphasizing relational nurturing—correlates with higher marital and sexual , countering egalitarian models that prioritize fluidity over functional specialization. The film's denouement, reconciling conflict through mutual dependence rather than equivalence, implicitly debunks such ideals by demonstrating their tendency to erode spousal bonds, a echoed in broader where egalitarian prescriptions yield relational . In the 1949 postwar milieu, when U.S. rates hovered at historic lows around 10-11 per 1,000 married women amid cultural emphasis on familial reconstruction, the film's egalitarian rhetoric foreshadowed subsequent erosions of stability. Rates doubled to 23 per 1,000 by 1990, temporally linked to second-wave feminist advocacy for and role convergence, which empowered unilateral exits—nearly 70% initiated by women—while correlating with elevated and single-parent households. Mainstream academic narratives often attribute these shifts to empowerment without causal scrutiny of disrupted complementarity, yet longitudinal evidence privileges traditional structures for societal cohesion, highlighting the film's inadvertent caution against ideologically driven uniformity.

Reception and Awards

Initial Critical and Commercial Response

Adam's Rib premiered in the United States on November 18, 1949, under distribution. Contemporary critics lauded the film's sharp dialogue, the palpable chemistry between leads and , and its blend of courtroom drama with marital . of described it as "meaty and juicy and comically nourishing," praising its entertaining exploration of spousal rivalry despite acknowledging it lacked deeper substance. Variety hailed it as "a bright " that delivered "a succession of sophisticated laughs" through the screenplay by and . Some reviewers noted mixed sentiments regarding the film's light treatment of conflicts and , viewing the central arguments as amusing but ultimately unresolved in favor of over ideological resolution. Overall, the consensus emphasized its wit and star power as strengths, positioning it as a crowd-pleasing entry in the screwball genre without delving into heavier social critique. Commercially, the film proved successful, generating $2.75 million in domestic rentals during its initial release, contributing to MGM's profitable slate amid audience demand for comedies. This underscored the enduring draw of Tracy and Hepburn's on-screen partnership, helping sustain theater attendance in 1949-1950.

Academy Awards and Recognitions

Adam's Rib was nominated for the for Best Original Screenplay at the on March 23, 1950, recognizing the work of writers and ; the film did not win, with the award instead going to All About Eve in a year noted for strong screenplay entries in drama and comedy genres. The nomination highlighted the script's witty exploration of marital and legal tensions, though it competed against multiple critically favored films. Judy Holliday received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Doris Attinger, marking an early industry acknowledgment of her comedic timing and character depth. This performance garnered sufficient acclaim to secure her a contract with and the lead role in the 1950 film Born Yesterday, propelling her career forward. The screenplay also earned a nomination from the Writers Guild of America for Best Written American Comedy in 1950, but again lost to All About Eve; no other major guild or academy wins were recorded for the production.

Legacy and Influence

Cultural and Social Impact

Adam's Rib advanced depictions of female attorneys in Hollywood cinema by presenting Katharine Hepburn's character, Amanda Bonner, as a formidable trial lawyer capable of challenging male-dominated legal norms while maintaining professional parity with her husband. This portrayal, set against the backdrop of 1949's gender dynamics, established a template for subsequent comedic legal dramas featuring assertive women in law, influencing the archetype of the career-oriented wife balancing ambition and domesticity. Unlike later stylized interpretations, the film's realism drew from contemporary cases of spousal conflict, grounding its exploration of legal equity in observable marital and courtroom tensions. The movie reinforced the durability of structures amid debates over gender complementarity, depicting marital strife—exemplified by the Bonners' opposing roles in a high-profile case—as resolvable through rather than separation or institutional overhaul. By concluding with , it countered emerging narratives of irreconcilable spousal conflict, emphasizing mutual dependence and shared values as stabilizers of heterosexual . This resolution aligned with post-World War II cultural emphases on familial restoration, portraying egalitarian ideals within as enhancements to, rather than threats against, traditional bonds. In public discourse, Adam's Rib highlighted disparities in legal responses to spousal aggression, such as the informal leniency toward men in infidelity-related violence versus scrutiny of women, prompting reflections on evidentiary double standards without advocating systemic upheaval. However, its release coincided with stagnant enrollment in U.S. schools, where most institutions reported two or fewer women students per class through the , indicating perceptual influence outweighed immediate vocational shifts. Scholarly analyses credit the film with elevating visibility for women in legal media representations, fostering long-term cultural familiarity with advocacy despite persistent professional barriers.

Adaptations

The primary adaptation of Adam's Rib is the 1973 ABC sitcom of the same name, which aired 13 episodes from to December 28. Produced by MGM Television, the series starred as Amanda Bonner, a junior partner at a and advocate for , and as her husband Adam Bonner, an assistant . The adaptation preserved the original film's central premise of a married legal couple clashing professionally and personally over cases involving dynamics, such as a attempting to shoot her unfaithful husband, but reframed elements to align with 1970s cultural shifts, including heightened emphasis on feminist ideals and workplace equality for women. Despite drawing from the 1949 screenplay by and , the series incorporated modern sensibilities, portraying Amanda as a more explicit crusader for equity in a post-second-wave era. The received modest attention but failed to sustain viewership, leading to its cancellation after one season without renewal. No remakes have been produced, and while the story's premise has occasionally influenced legal-themed media, direct stage or radio adaptations remain obscure and without substantial documentation or impact.

Modern Reassessments and Controversies

In reassessments from the onward, scholars have praised Adam's Rib for its proto-feminist portrayal of Bonner's courtroom challenge to marital double standards, where a woman's shooting of her unfaithful husband is defended as equivalent to lesser male infractions, yet critiqued the film's resolution as a capitulation to patriarchal , with yielding professional to preserve . This ending, where Adam leverages a mock threat—mirroring the defendant's act—to elicit Amanda's submission without legal repercussions, underscores unresolved tensions in egalitarian claims, prioritizing spousal unity over individual agency. The film's humorous treatment of reciprocal gun-pointing between spouses has sparked in contemporary reviews for trivializing , particularly the asymmetry where male-initiated threats elicit female deference without equivalent accountability, contrasting modern sensitivities to intimate partner aggression amid heightened awareness post-2010s movements. Such scenes, intended to satirize norms, are now faulted for normalizing volatility in marital conflict, though defenders note the context emphasized mutual provocation over unidirectional harm. From perspectives emphasizing empirical sex differences, right-leaning analyses interpret the narrative as exposing the impracticalities of enforced sameness, with Adam's stoic prosecutorial rigor clashing against Amanda's intuitive advocacy, aligning with observed patterns of male risk-aversion in legal roles and female relational orientations that complicate absolute equality. These views, less prevalent in academia due to prevailing ideological tilts toward uniformity, highlight the film's enduring appeal in traditionalist circles for affirming marriage's stabilizing role against hyper-individualistic pursuits, as evidenced by its sustained viewership in conservative media retrospectives.

References

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  27. https://theblondeatthefilm.com/2014/10/08/adams-rib-1949-2/
  28. https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2023/05/20/adams-rib-1949/
  29. https://moviediva.com/reviewpages/mdadamsrib/
  30. https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/esc/article/download/9900/8000
  31. https://edinburgh.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693566.001.0001/upso-9780748693566-chapter-008
  32. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041090/plotsummary/
  33. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechadamsribhepburn.html
  34. https://clip.cafe/adams-rib-1949/for-years-women-have-been-ridiculed-pampered/?srsltid=AfmBOoqL1pubuZunMXUtDYBS8hSXDhOVC3EGIl4RoKVMsctqQ5NkOo32
  35. https://gonewiththetwins.com/adams-rib-1949/
  36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43670800
  37. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR0NIF6PbCo
  38. https://eji.org/report/race-and-the-jury/why-representative-juries-are-necessary/sidebar/gender-based-jury-exclusion/
  39. https://lawlit.net/film04/films/adams-rib.html
  40. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=clevstlrev
  41. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232655099.pdf
  42. https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1301&context=lawreview
  43. https://moviepooper.com/movie/adams-rib/
  44. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2968709/
  45. https://domesticviolenceresearch.org/domestic-violence-facts-and-statistics-at-a-glance/
  46. https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/savvy/journals/ASR/Feb13ASRFeature.pdf
  47. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/593087
  48. https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c7282/c7282.pdf
  49. https://anthroholic.com/is-feminism-destroying-family-structure
  50. https://www.nytimes.com/1949/12/26/archives/adams-rib-tight-little-island-amazing-mr-beecham-among-movie.html
  51. https://www.metacritic.com/movie/adams-rib/critic-reviews/
  52. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041090/awards/
  53. https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2382&context=faculty_scholarship
  54. http://www.oritkamir.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/goodfinal.doc
  55. https://scholarship.depauw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1115&context=studentresearch
  56. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/29/1922695/-Movie-Review-Adam-s-Rib-1949
  57. https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/15/1/48/7246687
  58. https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2013/06/adams-rib-as-historical-document/
  59. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069553/
  60. https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/10241-adam-s-rib
  61. https://www.academia.edu/4375260/X_Raying_Adams_Rib_Multiple_Readings_of_a_Feminist_Law_Film
  62. https://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/adams-ribatellingmuddle/
  63. https://medium.com/framerated/adams-rib-feminism-and-fury-in-a-classic-battle-of-the-sexes-3e8288a6a547
  64. https://adamnfinecup.com/2019/10/25/the-rear-view-mirror-adams-rib-1949/
  65. https://www.facebook.com/groups/tcmfansite/posts/1885738838534387/
  66. https://www.silverpetticoatreview.com/vintage-film-review-adams-rib-1949-an-entertaining-battle-of-the-sexes/
  67. https://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2024/11/18/adams-rib-75-the-best-tracyhepburn-vehicle.html
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