PAT AND MIKE: Blu-ray (MGM, 1952) Warner Archive

Hollywood's dream merchants were savvy businessmen to be sure. But they were also blessed with intuitive creativity, an essential in the industry then, alas, almost entirely, and regrettably, lacking from the movie-making subculture of dollars and cents now. One of the most enduring ghost flowers from this mythical age was the creation of magnificent ‘screen teams’, the pairing of gifted talents, brought together, whose union became an iconic touchstone of our shared movie-going experience. Audiences looked forward to seeing such familiar faces doing familiar things, but always in new and interesting stories. Over the years there have been many such alliances; Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon, William Powell and Myrna Loy, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, Gable and Lana Turner, and, of course, who can forget Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney? But if you had to pick just one team as the exemplar from this period, I suspect the vote would be unanimously cast in Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s favor. By the time they made their debut as a couple, each had been working steadily - if unevenly - in the industry for more than 10 years. Their respective bodies of work apart made their faces easily identifiable. Both had cache at the box office, although Tracy's was more secure than Hepburn’s by 1942. If, apart, they held their own, then together they were nothing less than dynamite; the quintessence of martial perfection, seen in 9 movies between 1942 and 1967, the year of Tracy's death.

The truth, of course, was far removed from this idyllic on-screen portrait. Tracy, suffering from chronic Catholic guilt was to frequently go on benders to gravely impact his health, and, was already married to Louise with two children, while Hepburn had managed a string of highly publicized affairs – including Howard Hughes - that, like her movie career, seemed to have more downs than ups. Labeled 'box office poison' in 1939, Hepburn managed to claw her way back to stardom after appearing in both the stage and screen versions of The Philadelphia Story (1940). The clout Hepburn acquired from this earned her the right to choose her next screen property, Woman of the Year (1942) and with it, her choice of leading man. Hepburn chose Tracy. It was the beginning of a memorable partnership. From this titanic debut, the couple would make a misfire of George Cukor's Keeper of the Flame (1942), a dark and brooding mystery/thriller with political undertones, based on Donald Ogden Stewart's best-selling novel. Perhaps because of this, Hepburn and Tracy would not appear together again until 1945's Without Love, a charming minor programmer based on a flop of a play that barely opened on Broadway with Hepburn in the lead, followed by Elia Kazan's Sea of Grass (1947), a rather breath-taking melodrama set against the vast expanses of the western frontier; then, Frank Capra's State of the Union (1948), and, for Cukor again, Adam's Rib (1949); their best movie, and, a fascinating battle of the sexes made fashionably funny long before the ‘60s reincarnation of feminism and the sexual revolution had taken hold of the popular rom/com.

Given the huge success of Adam’s Rib, it remains rather perplexing why it took Tracy and Hepburn another 3 years to reunite with Cukor yet again, this time for Pat and Mike (1952) – proof, as though it were required, the Tracy/Hepburn chemistry was as vital as ever. Once again Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin provided a stellar screenplay, this one casting Hepburn as Patricia Pemberton, a superior all-around lady athlete who can withstand any adversary except the condescending stare of her stuffy academic fiancée, Collier Weld (William Ching). To ease her anxieties, Patricia enlists the help of Mike Conovan (Tracy) who is currently involved in training a rather mindless bo-hunk/pugilist, Davie Hucko (Aldo Ray) for the heavyweight championships. Unable to quantify that elusive quality that makes Pat so proficient an athlete, Mike knows too well her downfall. To the purpose of securing Pat's successes for the newspapers and provide himself with a perennial meal ticket, Mike becomes Pat's full-time trainer, keeping Collier at bay. Narrowly rescued by Pat from having his legs broken after a bet goes sour, Mike decides Pat is the only gal for him. 

In its review of the picture, Time Magazine called Pat and Mike, “One of the season's gayest comedies” – a rather unintentionally picaresque nod, as the behind-the-scenes ‘love affair’ much celebrated between the film’s two costars was as tinged in homosexual diversions of every shape and kind as it was in a mutual devotion that lasted until Tracy’s death. Indeed, both Hepburn and Tracy were not above skulking off to Scotty Bowers’ Richfield Gas Station – where ‘fill ‘er up’ took on a whole new meaning and more than the cars were getting lubed, and, where the strapping Bowers, an ex-marine, played host (pimp) to a glittery salon of Hollywood’s hoi poloi, arranging trysts for the heavy-hitters eager to blow off some much needed steam between their hectic work schedules. Outside of these escapist romps, Tracy and Hepburn cultivated a decidedly ‘gay’ social life with such luminaries as screenwriter, Garson Kanin (who had wed the brilliant, if matronly Ruth Gordon, with whom he cowrote a series of major hits) and director, George Cukor – who made no apologies for his homosexuality, but also maintained an air of enviable discretion.  Pat and Mike also costarred Aldo Ray whose square-jawed appeal as the burly, barrel-chested hunk du jour belies his more casual bisexuality, begun with a visit to Cukor’s boudoir.  Whether Cukor was into nepotism where lovers were concerned, Ray proved he also could act, and was promoted: first, in Cukor’s The Marrying Kind (1952), and then, in Pat and Mike, for which he was voted ‘Best Newcomer’ by Look Magazine. Alas, time has not been kind to Ray – all but forgotten by today’s movie audiences, or only to be remembered for a little seen – and even more disastrously executed porn flick, Sweet Savage made in 1979 – long after the bloom of his box office in ‘legitimate movies’ had worn thin.

Ray’s contributions, to what is essentially another Kate and Spence show, offer welcome respites of light comedy from an actor obviously more astute and ‘with it’ than his alter ego. And Ray, milking the persona of the muscle-bound dumbbell for all its worth, is alternating precise and passion-less, the perfect cohort and dim-witted counterpart necessary to make Tracy’s slickly masculinized amateur gangster click as it should. Interesting too, Conovan’s rigid manipulation of Davie is initially outsourced to his new find, Patricia who reinvents his manhandling edicts for her own, taking the proverbial ‘bull’ by its horns as only Kate ‘the great’ Hepburn could and still remain the epitome of the all-around athlete who is still very much the lady. “Not much meat on her,”: Conovan insists, “…but what's there is 'cherce'.” And indeed, the sparkle of that Tracy/Hepburn affection – debated as asexual for most of their private coupling – is given full breadth to be as naughty as the movies would then allow. Pat and Mike endures because of the Kanin/Gordon tingle and light touch, brilliantly written with a knock-out tart and titillating comedic punch.   

Staged as a carryover of Tracy’s high-handed and decidedly conservative authoritarianism, first expressed in, Adam’s Rib only – and yet again – to be stonewalled by Hepburn’s shameless liberalism run amok, the episodic vignettes, while conventionally written, and even more unadventurously photographed by William H. Daniels, nevertheless weave a well-seasoned formula in rom/com picture-making, ideally suited to platonic love. Moreover, Hepburn bravely illustrates her uncanny athletic skills while Tracy gruffly bristles as the con/promoter who eventually rises to the level of her champion. Although made nearly 70-years ago, Pat and Mike maintains its refreshing cynicism for male/female partnerships, best typified in Mike’s penultimate pitch to his protégée. “I don’t know if you can lick me, or I can lick you, but together, we can lick the world” to which Hepburn’s confident gal Friday pertly concurs, “You bet!”  While the mechanics of a movie like Pat and Mike appear over-simplified on the surface, its ultimate query about the status of a 50/50 understanding between men and women, especially in post-war America, an epoch where woman continue to erode, evolve and surpass the expectations of their partners, never ceases to entertain.

In retrospect, Pat and Mike is the last truly great Tracy/Hepburn comedy, the remainder of their tenure together spent either on tepid regurgitations of the past, as in Walter Lang's Desk Set (1957 at 20th Century-Fox) or more progressive ‘message picture’ fare: Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). The Warner Archive’s (WAC) new 4K scan to Blu-ray of Pat and Mike is, in a word, wonderful. The gray scale is superbly balanced, the image - clean, razor-sharp, minus DNR or age-related damage, and, with film grain amply on display and properly managed for a very film-like presentation. Contrast is excellent. Nothing to complain about here. And why not? – an original camera negative was used, and it shows in every frame. Black levels are deep and solid with zero crush. Textures are exquisite, fine detail popping as it should, even from the most minute background information. The 2.0 mono DTS is terrific, crisp dialogue augmented by David Raksin’s buoyant score. One minor regret – no audio commentary; only, a teaser and theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Pat and Mike is Tracy and Hepburn in very fine form. Were that WAC would give us their best movie – Adam’s Rib – on Blu. For now, this one will suffice as a close second that this dynamic duo has, of course, sincerely knocked out of the park.  WAC has similarly achieved great things with this hi-def release. Very highly recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5

EXTRAS

1