With the
Hollywood legend’s classic romcom The Philadelphia Story turning 80 next month, here is our critic’s rundown of her finest performances
Katharine Hepburn is exactly the kind of star who should be in a Frank Capra picture. This presidential
election drama was a great talking point in its day – not least because it daringly made mention of real-life contenders of the time such as Thomas Dewey and Robert Taft. Hepburn plays Mary Matthews, the estranged wife of an industrial tycoon (Spencer Tracy) who is running for office on the
Republican ticket, a campaign secretly bankrolled by his wealthy mistress (Angela Lansbury). Mary agrees to return to his side because of his manifest idealism, but wobbles as he appears to get slowly sucked in to the cynical political world.