The Rom Com Catalog

Tag: 1949

  • ‘Holiday Affair’ (1949) Review

    ‘Holiday Affair’ (1949) Review

    Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) is a young widow working as a comparison shopper in New York City while raising her son, Timmy. During one of her shopping assignments, she meets Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum), a laid-back toy salesman who catches on to her ruse but lets her go instead of reporting her to his boss. This interaction leads to Steve’s firing, but also sparks an attraction between Steve and Connie. Unfortunately, Connie seems torn between Steve and Carl (Wendell Corey), a stable attorney who is eager to marry.

    I enjoyed Holiday Affair! I had never seen it before now, and I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t even realize Janet Leigh played Connie until the end. The embarrassment comes from not recognizing her, only a few days after I had just watched her in Psycho: two very different movies, and two very different roles. But she gave a lovely performance as Connie, bringing sweetness and poise to the role. Her repertoire with her son Timmy (Gordon Gebert) is the heart of the film. They’re a small family struggling after the death of Connie’s husband, but they’ve got each other’s backs. Plus, Gebert as Timmy is ador-a-ble!

    Robert Mitchum plays against type as Steve, a free-spirited, kind-hearted drifter. He brings confidence and easy charm to the part, grounding the film’s sentimentality with his presence. Together, Leigh and Mitchum share a pleasant kind of chemistry, so it’s easy to root for Steve over the stable but bland Carl.

    Holiday Affair plays up the love triangle, but it feels more like a necessary plot device than a serious obstacle for Connie. There’s nothing wrong with Carl, but there’s nothing appealing about him either, beyond the fact that he seems to be financially stable. Yawn! Additionally, the film’s pacing is somewhat sluggish, and at times, it feels as though Holiday Affair struggles with deciding whether it wants to be a melodrama or a screwball comedy. It doesn’t commit to either. A few of the emotional beats also come across as contrived, but the actors are so likable that it’s easy enough to overlook them.

    Ultimately, Holiday Affair is a likable enough romance. Janet Leigh is luminous, and Robert Mitchum is a calming presence, but it’s definitely more stocking stuffer than showpiece. Still… it’s worth unwrapping at least once!

    Watched: 11/03/2025
    Notable Song: Auld Lang Syne

    Rating:
  • ‘Adam’s Rib’ (1949) Review

    ‘Adam’s Rib’ (1949) Review

    When Doris Attinger, a fed-up housewife, shoots her philandering husband Warren, he hires attorney Adam Bonner to represent him in court. Adam’s wife, Amanda, also an attorney, believes that Doris’s actions would have been treated differently had she been a man finding his wife with another man, so she decides to represent Doris against Adam’s wishes. This creates quarrels not only in the courtroom but also in the bedroom!

    One of nine movies in which Katharine Hepburn and real-life paramour Spencer Tracy starred, Adam’s Rib is arguably their most popular film among cinephiles. Having seen and loved Woman of the Year in March, I was eager to watch more of the Hepburn-Tracy collaborations. Adam’s Rib did not disappoint. The two leads are as engaging and entertaining in this film as they were in Woman of the Year.

    Katharine Hepburn is feisty as feminist Amanda, eager to prove in court how double standards work for men and women. There is truly something captivating about Hepburn. She commands the screen so effectively that you rarely see it anymore in modern movies.

    I will admit that I’ve not seen Spencer Tracy in anything else but for this and Woman of the Year, but he plays an exasperated husband in both, and he does it really well. He and Hepburn have an insane amount of chemistry, making this battle of the sexes so much fun to watch.

    I loved Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You, and I believe this was one of her first major roles. She makes the somewhat dimwitted Doris sympathetic and likable, not to mention funny as hell.

    I read that Holliday was reluctant to play Doris but was convinced by Hepburn and screenwriter Garson Kanin to take the role. It’s a good thing she did because her performance as Doris helped her land the role of Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday, which earned Holliday an Academy Award for Best Actress.

    The courtroom scenes held plenty of humor as Amanda took Adam’s client and Doris’s husband to task for their behavior. She brings in plenty of scorned women as witnesses, and it seems like she’s attempting to win this case for all womankind rather than just Doris. Poor Adam doesn’t care much about any of that – he just wants people to understand and obey the law, and shooting someone is against the law, simple as that. But who will the jury respond to the most? It’s a verdict that carries much more weight than just whether Doris’s actions are justified.

    Adam’s Rib has a sophisticated, witty script that brings many laughs. It does get a bit weird there at the end and starts to tip over into being more of a drama than a rom-com, but that’s okay. It ultimately pulls itself back from the edge and rights itself. I liked this movie quite a bit, and I think that’s mainly because of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

    I’m eager to watch more of their collaborations to see how they compare to Adam’s Rib and Woman of the Year. The AFI listed this movie as the #7 romantic comedy of all time. I’m not sure if I agree with that, but it’s definitely up there as one of the best.

    Watched: 05/12/2023
    Notable Song: Farewell Amanda by Cole Porter

    Rating: