Academic

Gable?s Insecurity: 60th Anniversary Of Adam?s Rib Brings To Mind That Gone With The Wind Was Born Out Of Clark Gable?s Fear Of ?Women?s Director? Throwing The Movie To Vivien Leigh

By Colin Miller

Over at Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh notes that it is the 60th anniversary of the farcical Adam’s Rib, in which Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy played married lawyers on opposite sides of an attempted murder trial. According to IMDB, the plot of the movie is as follows:

When a woman attempts to kill her uncaring husband, prosecutor Adam Bonner gets the case. Unfortunately for him his wife Amanda (who happens to be a lawyer too) decides to defend the woman in court. Amanda uses everything she can to win the case and Adam gets mad about it. As a result, their perfect marriage is disturbed by everyday quarrels.

Do any FLP readers who have seen the movie recommend it? I haven’t seen it, but I do know that it was directed by the great George Cukor, who also directed classics such as My Fair Lady, A Star is Born, and Born Yesterday (as well as my favorite movie of his, Gaslight). But the most famous movie with which he is associated is the one from which he was fired. And that movie was the biggest movie of all time, Gone with the Wind.

So, why was Cukor fired as director a couple of weeks into production? Well, the rumor goes that Cukor was fired because Clark Gable didn’t want this ?woman’s director? throwing the movie to Vivien Leigh. So, how’d that one work out for you, Clark?

-Colin Miller

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).