WOMAN OF THE YEAR

"Woman of the Year" was the first teaming of Tracy and Hepburn and it's one of the greatest of all romantic comedies, but why wouldn't it be with two of the greatest performers ever to grace a movie screen as the leads, a great director of mainstream entertainments, George Stevens, at the helm, (at least before he became the director of lugubrious epics), and best of all a classic, cracking script from Ring Lardner Jr and Michael Kanin, (it won them the Oscar).

It is, of course, a love story of opposites attracting. Hepburn is the multicultural, multilingual columnist and Tracy, the sports writer on the same paper whose initial rivalry turns to something more than mere affection when they finally meet. Theirs are two of the greatest comedy performances in all of cinema and even at this early stage in their working and personal relationship the chemistry between them is electric even if, as legend has it, Katie is reputed to have commented that she was a little too tall for Mr Tracy to which producer Joe Mankiewicz is supposed to have said, 'Don't worry, he'll soon cut you down to size'. A first-rate supporting case includes Fay Bainter, William Bendix and that fine and underrated actor, Dan Tobin. Wonderful.