Miles and miles ahead of it's time. The tightest, sharpest script. Fantastic performances all round. An unbelievably modern take on female equality that makes a lot of new films look oafish. Outstanding.
I don't see Tracy or Hepburn as among the best comedy actors, though they did have a run of hits together in the forties and fifties. Hepburn is a little strident, and Tracy a touch menacing for lighter roles, though in this comedy-drama both those traits actually help their characterisations.
Adam's Rib isn't the funniest comedy of the period, and much of the humour is at the expense of its lower class support roles from the point of view of the Manhattan elite. But it is an interesting contemporary battle-of-the-sexes film about women's rights which mostly still stands up well today.
Mother of three Doris Attinger (Judy Holliday) has shot and injured her husband who has having a sexual relationship with another woman. Adam Bonner (Tracy) is the public prosecutor in charge of the case, but his lawyer-wife Amanda defends Attinger, enraged by the hypocrisy of how differently adultery is regarded depending on which gender is doing it. And she won't back down, no matter how furious Adam gets.
The film has an enjoyable mileau of the forties-fifties upper class Manhattan cocktail and dinner party set. They even have a foppish neighbour who keeps dropping round to play their piano and sing a Cole Porter number. But, Cukor lacks the Lubitsch touch, and most of the comedy fails to get off the page. Still, the film works as an entertaining sitcom centred around sexual politics.