Tracy & Hepburn: The Signature Collection

Compiling three classic films and one moving documentary, Tracy & Hepburn: The Signature Collection showcases the work of one of Hollywood's most famous romantic comedy teams, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who were paired for the first time in George Stevens' Woman of the Year (1942), an incisive portrait of a two-career marriage (before they were common), featuring an Oscar-winning screenplay by Ring Lardner, Jr. Tracy plays Sam Craig, a laidback sportswriter, who falls for Tess Harding (Oscar-nominated Hepburn), a social and political journalist who lives and breathes her work. With a little juggling, workaholic Tess is able to squeeze in a few moments to marry Sam…but entertains guests on their wedding night. The marriage takes a nosedive as Harding's star continues to rise, and Sam gets pushed to the periphery of her life (in one of the all-time great kiss-and-make-up scenes, Tess--a virtual illiterate in the kitchen--tries to make breakfast for Sam with disastrously funny results). One of the most popular of the Tracy-Hepburn vehicles, George Cukor's Adam's Rib (1949) features the famous Hollywood duo as husband-and-wife lawyers Adam and Amanda Bonner, who oppose each other in court when Doris Attinger (Judy Holliday), an angry wife, shoots her philandering husband Warren (Tom Ewell) in the shoulder. Verbal fireworks in the courtroom quickly transfer over to the home, with daggered looks and terse remarks replacing the formerly happy couple's carefree conversation in this battle of the sexes classic written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. Gordon and Kanin also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Cukor's Pat and Mike (1952), in which Tracy stars as bargain-basement sports promoter Mike Conovan, who takes gym teacher Pat Pemberton (Hepburn) under his somewhat crooked wing as a budding tennis star (look for a cameo from Charles Buchinski, later Bronson, as a tough guy who tries to muscle Mike, only to be physically put in place by the athletic Pat). The running joke is that Pat, who ordinarily shines on the court, always succumbs to anxiety whenever her overwhelming fiancé is in the stands, making for a fun love triangle as Mike finds it in his best financial interests to keep the pair as far apart as possible. Rounding out the set is the 1986 documentary The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn, a double Emmy-winning salute to the actor, featuring numerous film clips combined with reminiscences from Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Poitier, Richard Widmark, Joanne Woodward, and others. Although all four films are essentially extra-less (beyond trailers), they are presented with handsome digital transfers in this bargain-priced boxed set. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (R. Pitman)