40. Katharine Hepburn in 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner' (1967)

 

Plot intro

In San Francisco, young vibrant Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton) returns home with her new boyfriend, Dr John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) to introduce him to her parents Matt and Christina (Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn) and tell them of their plans to marry. But, being the 1960s, Matt and Christina are completely thrown by the fact that John is black. Couple that with the fact that John’s parents are coming to visit for dinner and are equally perturbed by Joanna being white, and you’ve got a cocktail for some soul searching and pontificating on interracial relations during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Doug says...

After the gruelling games of George and Martha the year before, this film dealing with racism in the liberal upper classes feels like a light comedy of manners. But that’s partly because it is. 

Matt (Tracy) and Chris (Hepburn) have fallen into that old trap of being liberal as young people, feeling smug, sitting in their self-appointed liberal thrones and then not addressing the prejudices that they actually have. It’s essentially what’s going on now with the TERFs attacking trans-people: they are often fully fledged feminists from the ‘70s and ‘80s who refuse to see how their own battlegrounds have changed, and end up attacking vulnerable people. 

But - the film seems to say - it doesn’t have to be like this. Chris is won over quite quickly, but Matt hunkers down despite a whole host of people - his daughter, wife and his cheerful priest friend - telling him he shouldn’t, until it seems inevitable that he should say he doesn’t approve, and in doing so, destroy his daughter’s life. (And TERFs: it doesn’t have to be like this, just look at Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda who are in their mid-to-late 80s and still joyfully learning). 

There are flaws. Dr Prentice is far too perfect (although I understand why they made him this way). The words used are dated - although this isn’t a flaw, just jarring when you watch it now. Joanna is entirely without agency (apparently a crucial scene where she has a speech about politics got cut to Houghton’s dismay). But none of this stops the core message still working - which is a call to arms to all those ‘liberals’ who don’t stop and self-examine to understand their own prejudices, which is the first step to diminishing and removing them. 

Hepburn is magnificent. It’s the second year in a row where the Best Actress Award is entirely deserved, she finds lightness and comedy in the film where appropriate, the bathroom scene where her husband shaves is deeply moving (Paul says more on this), and there’s a feeling that Hepburn (who knew her long-time lover Tracy was dying while making this) is taking in every precious moment of making this film. I particularly like the scene where she tells her horrid co-worker to go stuff it: ‘It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you - although I don’t’, but her work throughout this picture is impeccable. 

I do want to shout out to the actress who I think deserved to win Best Supporting Actress (although she was nominated): Beah Richards, who plays Poitier’s mother. It’s a small role, but Richards dazzles in it. Polite and unassuming, she sits modestly dressed in the taxi and then the house but she - and she alone - is the reason that Matt eventually realises he must accept and approve of the marriage. In a stunning speech, she laments that he and her husband have forgotten what it was to be young and in love - and says she and Chris have never forgotten. ‘What happens to men when they grow old?’ It’s a small speech but every hair stood on end with the feeling, regret and sad anger that Richards pours into it. I can only compare it to the telephone call that Octavia Spencer makes in The Shape of Water that nabbed her a nomination too - and it’s evidence again that a true star doesn’t need heaps of screentime to shine. Richards was a well-respected actor, Oscar and Tony nominated who won two Emmys in 1988 and 2000 (the year she died). She was politically involved and a writer and poet whose work included A Black Woman Speaks: poetry pointing out how white women had oppressed women of colour. 

Overall, the film has dated but the core points it makes are still relevant to our society. Critiques of the film pointed out that it’s for white audiences - but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. White audiences are the ones who need to be encouraged to examine their own prejudices, and this film gets that across while still being relatively light, enjoyable and fun.  

Highlight

It’s a tie between Beah Richards stealing every moment she’s on screen and Alexandra Hay as the very funny Gen-Z-like waitress at the ice-cream drive in. 

Lowlight

Some scenes feel dated and on the nose - writer William Rose really didn’t feel the need for nuance or subtlety…

Mark

8/10

Paul says...

GWCtD was one of my first exposures to Katharine Hepburn’s body of work and probably one of the primary reasons why she is my favourite actress from Old Hollywood. It is one of her most grounded and dignified performances (she often played much bigger, larger-than-life characters such as in Bringing Up Baby or The African Queen), and came after a long string flops and sporadic successes. This was her second of four Best Actress wins (currently more than any other acting winner) and the first of two consecutive wins, so I would suggest that the mid-1960s was a transitional time for Hepburn as she moved from spirited ingenue in the '30s through to the stalwart, enduring, experienced titan of Hollywood that she later became. The scene in the bathroom in which she tearfully and shakingly tells her husband that she will not support him if he doesn’t bless his daughter impending nuptials is a prime example of how, by this point, she had completely honed her craft.

This was also her ninth and final collaboration with long-time friend, colleague and rumoured lover, Spencer Tracy, who was also a titan of Old Hollywood, an immensely versatile performer, a winner of two consecutive Best Actor Oscars in the '30s and a nine-time nominee. This was his final role, as he died just 17 days after filming finished. Hepburn, apparently, could never bring herself to watch the film.

Great acting aside, it was also refreshing to see that, although the film has aged in terms of some of the terminology used to describe people of colour and its slightly patronising, didactic tone, it hasn’t fallen into the same traps as other films on racism written by white people (cross reference one of the worst Best Picture wins, Crash). Dr John Prentice is deliberately a Mary-Sue character- he is immensely perfect. Intelligent, hard-working, wealthy, noble, funny, gorgeous, the list goes on. I’m not surprised that Joanna intends to marry him asap before someone else ensnares him. It would have been so tempting for white writers of lesser quality to give John a criminal past, a dysfunctional family background, a hot temper when confronted by a police officer, all those sorts of things writers just love to give black characters (again, looking at you, Crash!). Joanna, also, is a Mary Sue. Clever, sharp, kind, and pragmatic, she approaches their parents’ racist misgivings towards her marriage to John with almost deluded naivety, repeatedly pointing out that there won’t be a problem because, of course, why would there be? 

It feels impossible for both of them to be so perfect, but it’s actually very important to the story because it exposes just how ludicrous and groundless their parents’ objections are. Why shouldn’t such happy, stable people find love? Their parents have both taught them that, just like the teachings of Dr King and Malcolm X, all races are equal and deserving of rights and integration, so why should their parents object? These questions push Joanna’s parents immediately into a corner and it’s delightful watching them squirm. They have been able to lecture on racial equality from their art-filled ivory tower up in the hills of San Francisco with their glorious view of the bridge, but when faced with real integration in their own life, they are uncomfortable. In fact, Matt’s first act is to ring up a contact to check up on John’s past- would he have done this if John was white? But they cannot express their misgivings because it will expose them as racist hypocrites to their adoring daughter- they have absolutely no good reason to object other than John’s race. The younger generation are written as so perfect and inclusive that the film emphasises that the onus is entirely on the older generation, no matter how liberal they think they are, to change their attitudes. 

This is further emphasised by the Draytons’ older black maid, Tillie. You’d expect her to be delighted by an interracial marriage, representing the changes brewing at the time. In actual fact, she’s furious that she has to now cook and clean for one of her own race, claiming that John has ideas above his station. But she’s perfectly fine with her young, glamorous black colleague Dorothy flirting with the white delivery boy. The film works hard to expose the underlying hypocrisy of racism amongst the older generation of various races and classes.

A great deal of the film also hangs on the fact that John secretly informs Joanna’s parents that he will not marry her if either of them object. While Christina changes her mind very quickly and embraces John, Matt is the one who takes longer and therefore gets the big speech at the end. This process is mirrored through John’s parents, where his mother Mary (the outstanding Beah Richards) rapidly adjusts and points out to Spencer Tracy, in one of the most moving speeches ever delivered, that he has grown old and forgotten what love feels like. Meanwhile, John’s father is angrier and more hesitant to accept, much like Matt. I had memories of Matt’s final big speech being the most outdated aspect of the film, with Matt having the nerve to lecture everyone, including the black characters, on racial integration. Actually, my memories were pretty false and he does not do this. Instead, he rightfully points out that even if he had objected to the marriage, this would never have stopped John and especially Joanna because love conquers all, and therefore gives his blessing fully realising that it is arbitrary. 

There are similarities with our previous film, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in that GWCtD has a small selection of characters interacting in a limited space for a small period of time. But GWCtD is sweeter, gentler, and soppier. I mentioned that it has a patronising, didactic tone which can sometimes be off-putting (“Racism is X, Y and Z and this is bad”) but this does help for modern audiences to fully understand the reasons behind characters’ objections to John and Joanna’s relationship which, to our eyes, would seem incredulous. It’s not the most subtle or nuanced work, but it’s wonderfully acted, heart-warming and still has a strong point to make.

Highlight

Katharine Hepburn getting rid of her sour, gossipy colleague, Hilary (urgh, fuckin Hilary) who has come to their house on some lame excuse to gawp. Hilary quickly shows her true colours by asking Christina how she is going to prevent John and Joanna’s relationship from happening. Christina, unashamedly, sacks her and sends her packing with absolutely magnificent savagery. “Don’t say anything, Hilary, just go”.

Lowlight

The writers make some mention of Dr John’s past, in which his first wife and son died in some kind of accident, the details of which are sketchy. I think this was thrown in to give John even more sympathy but it feels arbitrary and unexplored. Unless they were going to fully dissect John’s character as a result of this horrible tragedy, they probably should have deleted that and let John’s perfect personality speak for itself.

Mark

8/10

39. Elizabeth Taylor in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' (1966)

    

Plot intro

A married couple in their late 40s/early 50s, George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) arrive home at 2am from a party hosted by Martha’s father. They have invited a young couple, Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis), who they met at the party, to join them in some after-party drinks. Unfortunately, George and Martha’s marriage is far from happy and they have been drinking heavily, leading to a long night or alcohol-fuelled abuse, awkwardness and cold hard truth-telling…

Paul says...

We saw the recent stage version of this starring Imelda Staunton, Conleth Hill, Luke Treadaway and Imogen Poots, so I went into WAOVW? with no delusions about the fact that it is a gruelling, heartbreaking, seemingly endless tale of two couples who really should not be married and a cautionary tale for anyone who wants the Stepford-Wives, white-picket-fence lifestyle. It is intrinsically tied to the 1960s’ reassessment of what young people should do with their lives, the importance of marriage, and the burden of tradition.

George and Martha are, in my opinion, the epitome of dysfunction, who might as well get marriage advice from Basil and Sybil Fawlty. As the story progresses, we are exposed to the darkest depths of their psyche and their past. They evidently married young (as many people would have done in the ‘40s), with George getting a job working under Martha’s unseen but despotic and having all the hopes and dreams consistent with patriarchal, white, Christian marriage (job, wealth, house, children, grandchildren etc). But things have gone awry. George’s career is floundering and he appears indifferent to virtually everything. Martha is suffocating in a very mediocre lifestyle and wants fun and excitement. They are both absolute repugnant to each other. And they keep mentioning a son who is conspicuously absent…

Nick and Honey, meanwhile, are the young couple George and Martha once were. Aspirational, gorgeous, affable. But the cracks are already appearing. They evidently have love for each other, but Nick is under pressure to establish himself and Honey makes a few fractious comments about their life and Nick’s career - then proceeds to get horribly drunk and have a breakdown. What quickly becomes apparent is that Nick and Honey are seeing their future in George and Martha, while the latter are seeing their past in the former, and neither couple like it. For the rest of the night, they drunkenly, relentlessly, and unashamedly tear into each other like wild animals.

Elizabeth Taylor’s performance is considered one of the most seminal in cinema, certainly one of the most deserving winners of the Best Actress Oscar, and a far cry from her usual glamorous fare. She gained 30 pounds (just over 2 stone or about 13 kg) in order to play a character nearly 20 years older than she actually was (she was only 33). The energy she puts into a lonely, unfulfilled housewife with a patronising, apathetic husband is rarely matched. When she mocks him, it’s vicious; when she rants at him, it’s heart-breaking; and when all is revealed at the end and she finally faces up to the reality of her life, it’s exceptionally powerful. Both she and her husband, Burton, put a lot of work into minimal working hours. They ensured that they were contracted to work only 10am to 6pm but also spent hours in hair and make-up, plus had long boozy lunches, so filming could sometimes only last a couple of hours of the day.

It helps that she is accompanied by three other excellent performances, all of which were also nominated, with Sandy Dennis’ hilariously overstated performance as a young woman drinking and revealing a little too much winning Best Supporting Actress. It’s also brilliantly scripted by playwright Edward Albee and adapted by Ernest Lehman, who doesn’t do much to the original play other than chop it down a bit. The characters speak in ways that are both profound but also nonsensical, reflecting how they have so much to express (and very much need therapy in all its forms) but their inability to do so due to the insane amounts of alcohol they miraculously manage to consume throughout the night without needing their stomachs pumped.

This film requires a deep breath before watching. If you’ve been in an environment with domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, or generally a very confrontational household, then you may wish to approach with some caution because it doesn’t hold back. The virility and viciousness with which the four characters launch into each other gets going from the first minute and never really stops. There are times when I wondered why any one of them are still there at all, although I think they’re meant to be so drunk that they can’t make any decent decisions. But it’s a brilliant piece of work, a dissection of conventional marriage, a satirical attack on a patriarchal society obsessed with Christian coupling and nuclear families, and still quite timely.

Highlight

Elizabeth Taylor IS the Moment. But Sandy Dennis gets a lot of laughs from her drunken staggering and screaming, and manages to insert some levity into a very intense two hours.

Lowlight

When the two women are off-screen, the film loses its pace a little bit. In particular, there’s a scene between George and Nick on the lawn outside the house that goes on longer than it needs to and could have been chopped down very easily.

Mark

9/10

Doug says...

Spoilers abound in my review…

Buckle your seatbelts, you’re in for a bumpy night. That’s a Bette Davis quote, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens with another Davis quote (‘What a dump!’) and quickly spirals through two hours of rage, disappointment, spite and - for the hopeful among us - a sign of hope at the end. 

I may be biased but Albee’s play is one of the absolute greatest 20th century theatrical pieces. Even now, 61 years later, the story of Martha and George - a bitterly disappointed, angry couple who have created game-playing as a way to stay involved in the world - strikes home. Cast against the seemingly-perfect Nick and Honey (who as Paul says, quickly crumble to reveal their own set of overpowering ambition (Nick) and stubborn resistance to become the archetypal wife and mother (Honey)), Martha and George seem constantly to be entirely at war with each other, tied together and loathing each other. 

But Albee doesn’t just present that - in fact I think that wouldn’t be half as powerful as what we get. There are touches throughout where Martha shows a willingness to soften, to want to physically be close to George (although he always rejects this) and the devastating ending actually suggests that perhaps the game-playing could end and they could find a new way of existing together. 

Children throughout are an important part of it. Nick and Honey seem perfect but give them a few drinks (remember this is an afterparty which only gets going at 1am) and Nick is perfectly prepared to try and bed Martha for his career (she’s the college dean’s daughter) while Honey (perhaps the most drunk of them all) reveals the pregnancy she used to get Nick to marry her didn’t miscarry but was aborted - and Nick doesn’t know. 

Meanwhile George and Martha’s son, hinted at throughout, details dropped like petals, becomes the crux of the play. He doesn’t exist. He’s a game they’ve played in private and Martha has - for the first time - mentioned him to Honey and made him real. It crescendoes until the savage, and deeply upsetting moment, where George kills him. You get the feeling that George has done this to try and end the games for good - even in the closing moments, Martha says ‘Maybe we could…’ and there’s a sense that she’s trying to revive a game - he didn’t die, there was a lost twin, something else that might save it. George simply says ‘no’, and Martha admits her frailty and loss and fear to him as the play closes. 

It’s a bloody masterpiece. 

I haven’t even mentioned the acting, but it is exceptional from all four corners. Richard Burton nails the ever-watching, secretly-desperate George who is exhausted from going toe-to-toe with Martha. It’s a difficult role but he makes it notable and affecting. George Segal finds savagery in Nick - this young handsome teacher who actually is quite nasty and has been forced into a loveless marriage already. Sandy Dennis (the other Oscar winner for this film) perhaps shines a little brighter, because Honey isn’t an easy role. She’s child-like but also determined, pathetic but also somehow the least scarred. She spends a lot of the second half off-screen, vomiting in the bathroom, and yet her presence is felt throughout. 

And then there’s Taylor. We last saw her in BUtterfield 88 which frankly was a piece of trash compared to this. This is her Marion Cottillard in La Vie En Rose moment, where she gets to truly transform. It’s as if a cigar-wielding producer sat down and went ‘alright Ms Taylor, show us what you can do’. And boy does she. 

She’s unrecognisable, deliberately changing her appearance for it and ageing about fifteen years in the process. She never lets go of Martha’s tiny streak of desire for George, using it to propel all the action, the screaming-matches make sense when you see how badly she wants him to want her. At the drunken height of the film (about 4am in the morning), she whispers to Nick how much George understands her and how he is the only one who can play her games as fast as she can change them (shot beautifully through a gauze screen door I might add). This woman knows how vile she can be, feels forced into it, still loves her husband despite baiting and attacking him and uses games in order to navigate the world that clearly terrifies her. If she were alive now, I think she’d be diagnosed with extreme anxiety. 

It’s a masterful, layered performance - the like of which we don’t get every year. Taylor understands and inhabits this woman entirely, meaning while we may shy away from her, we never entirely dislike her. And as she sits, crushed by her fictional son’s death, the dawn breaks and we do hope that she and George can find a happier, more real way to be together. 

Oh, and a word for director Mike Nichols. This was his first film, and the man knows what he’s doing. Sublime work - including the opening credits as Martha and George stumble home from the party through an ominous set of suburban houses. 

Highlight

Taylor leaves me in awe the whole film, but particularly the last third where Martha, in her drunkest state, opens up the shell of her inner-most feelings. 

Lowlight

None. Nada. 

Mark

10/10