Classic Comedy: The Philadelphia Story & Humor versus Tragedy

The Philadelphia Story, a movie that won two Oscars and was nominated for four more, has been regarded as an adult comedy classic. The film has such infamous stars as Katharine Hepburn (“Tracy Lord”), James Stewart (“Macauley Connor”), and Cary Grant (“C.K. Dexter Haven”) as its leads and makes use of their dramatic talent to serve a comedy that would not necessarily be classified as such among the comedies of today. Rather, The Philadelphia Story is a “comedy of manners” as a play would be classified.

Comedies of manners focus themselves on the upper class, the very wealthy and well-off of society. The comedy comes into play as Morreal discusses in Comic Relief as the audience feels superior to the characters. From the very first scene the audience is meant to feel certain superiority without guilt as Cary Grant pushes Katharine Hepburn to the ground, clearly behaving abhorrently for the time. Then the audience is introduced to the further cast of characters and despite the given information that they are upper class, from the visuals of the mansion and references to different parlors, Mrs. Lord, mother of Tracy and Dinah, spells omelette and “o-m-m-e-l-e-t” providing a chuckle out of a more literate audience that the 1940s had produced. There is no laugh track that modern sitcoms might have used, no direction to what is funny, and much like a classic play, the audience must decide what is humorous.

The comedy isn’t always as clear, with dramatic and meaningful criticisms for Tracy Lord, the quintessential image of a beautiful, rich American woman of the upper class. These critical monologues/dialogues come from four of the most important men in her life, all sounding alike in their vocabulary yet inflection changing “goddess” from complement to scathing criticism.

The audience is not told whether to laugh at these dramatically ironic diatribes, but is only given musical cues of soft, sweet melodies and her reaction being driven to drink. Perhaps the only reason this could be called a comedy in the end, as it follows a similar path to a tragedy (a figure on high is brought low by tragic events) is that much as has been observed by readers of Shakespeare, oft paraphrased as the only difference between a comedy and a tragedy is a comedy ends in marriage aka Tracy and Dext, or in death, yet to be seen in sequels.

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