1. The Philadelphia Story (1940)

"The time to make up your mind about people is never." 

- Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn)

Movie poster

Fun facts about The Philadelphia Story:

• Katharine Hepburn asked MGM to cast Clark Gable as Dexter and Spencer Tracy as Mike before she met either of them. Both Gable and Tracy were busy with other projects, so James Stewart was cast instead. MGM chief Louis B. Mayer allowed Hepburn a $150,000 salary towards casting the other male role, a sum that Cary Grant agreed to.
• Playwright Philip Barry based the character of Tracy on Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, a Main Line Philadelphia socialite famous for throwing lavish parties at her family's 800 acre farm estate in Radnor. Filmmakers reportedly intended to shoot the film at Ardrossan (the name of the families estate), but decided against it after seeing the size and scale of the main house and the expansiveness of the estate. They reportedly thought that no one would believe that anyone could actually live like that, particularly in America in the 1940s. 
• The film was shot in eight weeks, and required no retakes. During the scene where James Stewart hiccups when drunk, you can see Cary Grant looking down and grinning. Since the hiccup wasn't scripted, Grant was on the verge of breaking out laughing and had to compose himself quickly. James Stewart thought of hiccuping in the drunk scene himself, without telling Cary Grant. When he began hiccuping, Grant turned to Stewart saying, "Excuse me." The scene required only one take. (Nasty Jimmy!)
• Katharine Hepburn starred in the Broadway production of the play on which this film was based and owned the film rights to the material; they were purchased for her by billionaire Howard Hughes, then given to her as a gift. (What a lucky girl!)
• James Stewart had no plans to attend the Oscar ceremony the year he was nominated for this film. Just before the ceremony began, he received a call at home "advising" him to slip into a dinner jacket and attend the ceremony. He did and he received the award for Best Actor. This was in the days before an accounting firm kept the Oscar voting results secret. 
• The original play was written specifically for Katharine Hepburn. Playwright Philip Barry wanted to woo the actress back to the stage after she had received disastrous reviews for the play "The Lake" on Broadway. (Lucky, lucky girl indeed!)
• Cary Grant demanded top billing and $100,000 salary - a huge amount at the time. As it transpired though, he donated his entire earnings to the British War Relief Fund. (Impressive!)
• Katharine Hepburn's swimming pool dive is the real thing. No doubles were used. (Nice!)
• The word "Philadelphia" on the Oscar that James Stewart received in 1941 is misspelled. The Oscar was kept in the window of his father's hardware store located on Philadelphia Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania. 
• The C.K. on C.K. Dexter Havens is unknown.

Story line as understood by a fifteen-year-old girl:

The movie is about a young divorced socialite Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), who I guess after a year of her divorce found herself to be married to a wealthy dude with a surname of George Kittredge (imagine trading your awesome surname for a surname that sounds good for a cat). Since the two were practically celebrities, a magazine owner wanted to cover the wedding and used C.K Dexter Havens (Cary Grant), his old employee and to add twist to the story, Tracy Lord's ex-husband. Dexter smuggled Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) and Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) to the Lord's mansion in Philadelphia and enlisted them as family friends. After believing a lie from Dexter that her father was cheating with a prostitute, she reluctantly accepts the visitors, making up her pretend family in the process, for reputation's sake.

Ooohhh!!! Sensual.

Here's how the story got exciting, Tracy after chatting with Macaulay (I do not want to use Mike because I like Macaulay), she find him quite admirable (in short, she's crushing on him) and as the wedding neared she doubted her feelings for Kittredge as it mixed with her feelings for Dexter and Macaulay. She also doubted herself because of her being high maintenance and stuffs like that.

The night swim of Tracy and Macaulay

After taking a swim with Macaulay, both drunk, and being seen by Kittredge, whose imagination run wild, and Dexter, who punched Macaulay just so Kittredge will not be able to, a man of better shape than him, (a very funny excuse), Kittredge the Jealous demanded explanation the next day, which by the way was the marriage day, to which Tracy bluntly answered she does not want to go through the wedding because of his ill faith towards her. But of course, not wanting to disappoint the guests of the wedding, Macaulay proposed to Tracy but she declined, for Liz's sake (who I guess was Macaulay's unofficial girlfriend), and during that time Dexter suddenly asked her marriage again, and for the second time, she agreed and they all live happily ever after. Except for Kittredge, I think?

Feedback of a fifteen-year-old girl:

Movies before do not take years of production and filming and well, schedule was cramped so they do not have much time, either, but with just eight weeks of filming, The Philadelphia Story was awesome. I actually just finished watching it today, and though I think the ending was quite twisted, because there were times when you bat for Dexter and towards the end you were batting for Macaulay, which for me was unusual because I always have this thing with the first guy who made the girl fall in love (a thing that made me hate Pocahontas II, actually), but in this movie, though she did end up with the first dude, you will not be like 'What the hell?! I want Cary Grant to be who she marries' if the ending was not like the ending.

The tiptoes

There were parts where I am very impressed with, like Hepburn's dive or Grant's punch or Stewart's hiccups and manly rendition of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' or even, Virginia Wiedler's (the younger sister) tiptoes and French accent. The movie was awesome though of course, as you watch it you'll realize how poor was technology back then, but you'll get over it as the acting was impressive, the cast was perfect and the script, though it still bares a little bit of the original play's lengthy dialogues, is well-written.

Awkward!

IMDb gave the movie 8.00, well I am not IMDb and I'm gonna be rating it 9.2/10.

My dear people who read this til here, I really am glad you did and by the time you finish this, I hope you go buy or check out the movie.

References:

• The movie
• IMDb
• Wikipedia
• Google Images