If you've seen the hilarious clip of Spencer Tracy massaging Katharine Hepburn and suddenly giving her a hard spank on her bum, you've seen part of Adam's Rib. In the rest of that scene, Kate cries until Spence is sorry for hurting her feelings—and her derriere. He's willing to make amends but the only thing that makes her happy is when she immediately quits her crying and kicks him in the shin. If you laugh at that scene, you'll love the rest of the movie.Besides Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, because that film's totally different than the usual films they made together, Adam's Rib is my favorite of the Tracy-Hepburn movies. It's a hilarious battle of the sexes, with the offscreen duo playing an on screen married couple who are both lawyers and in constant competition with each other. When they take opposing sides in a trial, the courtroom erupts with tension!While Katharine Hepburn was famous for being an early feminist icon, in real life, she took everything Spencer Tracy dished out, even when it wasn't pretty. So, if you like seeing her give as good as she gets from Spence, you'll love the ninety-minute sparring match. The screenplay is funny and smart, as true to life today as it was in 1949. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin's script will make you think about the roles in a marriage and what society will accept from a man versus a woman. When Spence claims men can use tears to get what they want just as effectively as women, or when Kate continually fights for gender equality at home and at work, you'll find yourself torn between the arguing pair—which shows it's well-written, since the script never blatantly takes sides! Watch the hilarious preview to see if you'll like it, and then rent the perfectly titled Adam's Rib for a fun afternoon with your sweetie-pie. It'll make for some very interesting conversations!

Loving couple Adam (Spence Tracy) and Amanda (Katharine Hepburn) are both lawyers. When a woman (Judy Holiday) is charged for attempting to murder husband (Tom Ewell) who she caught in the arms of another woman (Jean Hagen) Adam gets the case. But as Amanda sees it as an important case for equal rights for women she takes on the job as defender and soon husband and wife face each other in court. But can they keep the battle in court and out of the marriage?The sixth film starring real life couple Tracy (Guess Who's Coming to Diner, 1967) and Hepburn (The African Queen, 1951) Adam's Rib was written specifically as a vehicle for the two and there is no doubt that the two of them seems at ease with each other or that watching the chemistry between them is one of the best things about the movie. That is not so bad when considering how good the movie is! The court room scenes are dramatic and tense and the home front scenes are tender and sweet, giving you the best of two worlds in one movie. But from the party the couple have, where their neighbour Kip stands out from the group like a sore thumb and clearly rubs Adam the wrong way, things slowly start changing for the worse as the fights in court starts sneaking into the house. The movie quickly moves from being a pleasant watch to becoming a tense story as you watch Adam and Amanda struggle to keep their marriage together. Adam is a man with integrity and a healthy opinion of what is right and wrong. Tracy has no trouble giving his character the strength needed just as he excels in showing his softer sides brought forward by his beloved wife. Meanwhile Amanda is his equal in both intelligence and strength, the latter seemingly surprising her husband a bit. Hepburn shifts brilliantly between Amanda's powerful presence in court to the regretful wife realizing her outbursts has created trouble in paradise. As the situation becomes more heated it becomes clear that this is as much about the battle between the sexes as it is about a power couple facing each other professionally and it doesn't help much that Kip keeps buzzing around Amanda like honey to a bee. He is played wonderfully by a game Wayne (How to Marry a Millionaire, 1953) hitting a fine line between annoying and plain out creepy while Holliday (Born Yesterday, 1950) is deliciously dumb as the woman charged with murder. When it comes to movies about couples as well as movies about the battle of sexes, this is about as good as it gets.Moviegeek.eu

I admit, I am only 59 minutes in, but I can't watch another second of this. Both Hepburn and Tracy's characters are too annoyingly stupid.(Possible spoilers??, this explains only the set up and the beginning of the film)The film centers around a case that is way too clear: A woman buys a gun, follows her husband until she finds him cheating on her, and then shoots all 6 bullets in their direction, hitting the husband in the chest and wounding him. The film decides to choose this case as a backdrop for a discussion on sexism, and while that was clearly a problem in the 50s, it is of no importance to this case. The lawyers spend their time bickering over whether or not the man was having an affair, but neither seem to realize that adultery is no grounds for murder, nor is it even a crime in America. Any good writer would have realized that the details of this case weren't ambiguous enough for a discussion on sexism, and would have changed certain details, but alas, they did not and we spend our time watching Hepburn make a mountain out of a molehill and Tracy make Mount Everest out of Hepburn's mountain.I give this film a 4 because there is some good dialogue in between the badly-done plot and it is a decently tight script. I read the rest of the story on wikipedia and it doesn't seem to get much better. I don't suggest watching this unless getting back at men is such a fantasy of yours that you are willing to forgive the unbelievable aspects of this story.

often billed as a funny battle of the sexes, it really isn't; it's no contest; tracy comes off as asoft-spoken guy who treats his wife pretty well; hepburn on the other hand is frequently strident and rude; he seems devoted to her while she constantly flirts with the neighbor; he treats her respectfully, she revels in humiliating him at home and at work in court; sure, some of the disconnected skits are funny, mainly helped by judy holiday, not hepburn; and his moment of ethical and legal revenge is instantly dismissed by her; overall needed more give and take like other tracy-hepburn movies, and less of the relentless, one-sided pounding where tracy in the end has to pull a girlish trick to win back the woman who treats him as an incompetent fool