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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1930s) The Philadelphia Story
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1930s Highlights
Theater
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
The Philadelphia Story
</hdr>
<body>
<p>(April 10, 1932)
</p>
<p> The Philadelphia Story is a kind of pious froth about an
attractive Main-Line Philadelphia society girl with a high and
historic sense of her own importance. After a first marriage
that crashed because she behaved like a Moon-Goddess instead of
a wife, she is about to make a second marriage (with the wrong
man) in the same holier-than-thou manner. On the eve of the
wedding, various well-wishers file by to tell her what an
impossible little prig she is. But it remains for an
agin-the-rich magazine writer from Destiny (sister publication
of the picture-magazine Spy and of "brief, bluff, belligerent"
Dime) to queer the marriage, convert the girl and be converted
in turn. In the course of a little drunken midnight swimming in
the nude, he teaches her that lots of nice people are human, she
teaches him that lots of rich people are nice.
</p>
<p> Thought the theatre has promulgated more staggering truths in
its time, Playwright Barry's little fireside mottoes are neatly
and trimly framed. Smart, gossipy, wisecracking, full of family
jokes about fashionable Philadelphia and other Biddle-dee-dee,
the nearest The Philadelphia Story comes to tragedy is the
paralytic stroke suffered by the plot at the end of the second
act. Though not up to Barry's best trifling, the play provides
an entertaining evening, thanks to gay, lively dialogue and
Actress Hepburn's amazing aptness for her role.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>