"Everyone had enormous fun on the movie. The days and nights were sweltering that summer of 1940, but nobody cared. Cary got along very well with Kate Hepburn. She enjoyed him pushing her through a doorway in one scene (so she fell over backward) so much that she had him do it to her over and over again. There was a scene in which she had to throw Cary out the door of a house, bag and baggage, and she did it so vigorously he fell over and was bruised. As he stood up, looking rueful, Kate said, "That'll serve you right, Cary, for trying to be your own stuntman."
—Cameraman Joseph Ruttenberg, recalling The Philadelphia Story (1940).[13]
Broadway playwright Philip Barry wrote the play specifically for Hepburn, who financially supported the play and declined a salary in return for a percentage of the profits.[14] Her costars were Joseph Cotten as Dexter Haven, Van Heflin as Mike Connor and Shirley Booth as Liz Imbrie.[4] The play also originally featured a character named Sandy that was eliminated from the screenplay.
The original play, starring Hepburn, ran for 417 performances.[4] It earned more than $1 million at the box office sales and later toured, performing another 250 times and returning more than $750,000 in sales.
Hepburn had hoped to create a film vehicle for herself that would erase the label of "box office poison" that she had acquired after a number of commercial failures (such as Bringing Up Baby). Howard Hughes purchased the film rights for the play and gave them for her. Hepburn then sold the rights to MGM's Louis B. Mayer for $250,000 and the power of final approval of the film's producer, director, screenwriter and cast.[10][14]
Hepburn as Tracy Lord and Stewart as Mike ConnorHepburn selected director George Cukor, with whom she had worked for A Bill of Divorcement (1932) and Little Women (1933), and Barry's friend Donald Ogden Stewart, a writer experienced with adapting plays to the screen.[14] Stewart, who won an Oscar for the script, said that "getting an Oscar for The Philadelphia Story was the easiest Oscar you could imagine. All you had to do was get out of the way." He wrote the script while listening to a tape recording of a live performance of the play to ensure that he preserved the lines that received the most laughter.[15]
Hepburn wanted Clark Gable to play Dexter Haven and Spencer Tracy to play Mike Connor, but both had other commitments.[11] The pairing of Cukor and Gable might have been problematic in any case, as they had clashed during the filming of the recent Gone with the Wind, with Cukor replaced by Gable's friend Victor Fleming.[16] Grant agreed to play the part only if he were afforded top billing and that his salary would be $137,000, which he donated to the British War Relief Society.[17]
According to the documentary MGM: When the Lion Roars, after Mayer purchased the film rights, he was skeptical about Hepburn's box-office appeal and took the unusual precaution of engaging two top male stars (Grant and Stewart) to support Hepburn.
The film was in production from July 5 to August 14, 1940,[18] five days under schedule,[10] at MGM's studios in Culver City.[19]
