Adam's Rib

"Adam's Rib," as the title might indicate, has to do with whether or not there is a difference between men and women, and it moves painfully along on this material until the end. There is a difference, though a small one, admits Katherine Hepburn. "Vive la difference," shouts Spencer Tracy as he closes the curtains on the old four poster. Then everybody goes home.

This joke, which was originally made in the French Chamber of Deputies decades ago and which eventually found its way into the anecdote section of the "Readers Digest," is typical of those in the movie. Almost all of the laughs arrive by way of deep left field and are put across with the heavy hand of amateur gag men. This is unfortunate because four of the participants are capable of real humor. Besides the traditional Hepburn-Tracy team, the movie present Judy Holliday of "Born Yesterday" fame and Tom Ewell, who played Ensign Pulver in "Mr. Roberts."

Spencer Tracy playing an assistant District Attorney named Adam Bonner attempts to prosecute a woman (Judy Holliday) who took pot shots at her husband when she found his in the arms of another woman. Miss Hepburn (Bonner's wife) defends the accused woman. The trial becomes an attempt to defend women's rights to protect their families by any means they choose.

The courtroom scenes are enough to make a law student turn green with nausea. At one point Mrs. Bonner, in an attempt to prove that women are equal to men in every respect, brings in a circus woman who does back flips and lifts Mr. Bonner.

After the Bonner family has been thoroughly disrupted by the trial which Mrs. Bonner wins, Mr. Bonner resorts to such dubious measures as pulling a chocolate pistol on his wife, and later bursting into tears.

It is difficult for even the best comedians to wrestle with such tired stuff as this. The authors--Garson Kanin, who wrote "Rat Race" and "Born Yesterday," and his wife Ruth Gordon--lacked their usual light touch on this one.