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represents a fairly accurate dynamic—for one aspect of their relationship, anyway. The banter and the flirtation seem very genuine. I don’t know that Spencer ever slapped her on the rump or pointed a licorice pistol at her as he does in the film, but the essence of the Bonner relationship seems right on. Yet Kate, especially in the early years of their relationship, was never confident that she was good enough or beautiful enough to keep Spencer’s interest. Who knows why she felt that way, but she often agonized over that. Amanda is more confident than Kate of her spouse. I doubt that Kanin or Gordon ever suspected the depth of Kate’s insecurity, or maybe they simply chose not to address it. One could say that the Bonners represent Tracy and Hepburn at their best with each other. They certainly seem to be comfortable playing those roles, and I doubt that they would seem so comfortable if it weren’t natural to them. Perhaps one could say that the Bonners were a couple they would have liked the world to think they were.

Sharing an intimate moment in Adam’s Rib. (SUSIE TRACY)

As Hepburn told Kenneth Tynan in 1952: “Spence and I have an agreement when we’re working. If we fluff a line, we won’t stop. In Adam’s Rib, there was a scene with us dressing to go out, and I had to put on a hat and say, ‘How do I look?’ and he was supposed to say something good and flattering. What happened was, he stepped back and said: ‘You look like Grandma Moses!’ I stamped my foot and sort of yelped—but they printed it.”

The youthful supporting cast brought out the paternal instincts of the veteran filmmakers—Cukor, the Kanins, Tracy and Hepburn. “In the course of the shooting of Adam’s Rib,” Kanin wrote, “Kate and Spencer involved everyone necessary in our master plan: the costume designer, Orry-Kelly; the hairdressers; the make-up people; the cameraman Joe Ruttenberg; the supporting players; everyone and everything was aimed toward Judy’s making a hit.” When it came time for Holliday’s big scene, Amanda’s jailhouse interview of the would-be murderess, Hepburn asked that Cukor set it up so that it showcased Judy, she in profile, framing the left edge of the shot, Eve March, her secretary, to the right, the whole thing played in one continuous five-minute take. “She was wonderful with Judy Holliday,” said Tom Ewell. “She worked like a dog to throw the emphasis on her with extra lines and closeups. No other star ever did that.”

The cast’s crisp ensemble playing gave the film a tart, noirish edge suited more to the stark independent productions of the time and not the ultra-glossy tradition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. One day on the set, Tracy gave Cukor a mock scolding: “Damn it, George, why did you hire all these young actors from New York? They’re acting us old timers right off the picture!” The casting, though, was as much Hepburn’s doing as Cukor’s, as she could take credit not only for Holliday’s presence in the picture, but also Tom Ewell’s, Eve March’s, and Marvin Kaplan’s. “Hepburn called me personally in New York,” Ewell recalled, “and said, ‘Look, if you do this film, I’ll do everything I can to be your press agent.’ She kept her promise.” Kaplan’s soft-edged Brooklyn drone caught Hepburn’s attention at a performance of L.A.’s Circle Players, and she referred him to George Cukor for an interview. (“Katharine Hepburn’s your agent,” Cukor told him.) Freshly graduated from USC, Kaplan made his film debut as the court reporter in the picture.

David Wayne, on leave from Broadway’s Mister Roberts, thought Tracy “the greatest motion picture actor that ever was” and observed his work on the set “in a kind of wonderment.” Tracy’s technique, Wayne decided, was indiscernible: “I tried to measure why he was so right in the part each day. I never knew him to not know every word of the script. I never knew him to not be exactly right in every word and move the director suggested, but in addition to that he brought a mental aggrandizement to the scene that had not been hinted at by the authors.”

George Cukor directing Adam’s Rib. Note the dubious