The Story Archive

The Philadelphia Story

George Cukor · 1940 CE · Film · Modern / American · Contemporary

A Main Line heiress is two days from a second wedding to a self-made coal executive when her first husband turns up with a reporter and a photographer from a scandal magazine, admitted on blackmail terms her father's affair made possible. Everyone tells her she is a bronze goddess with no patience for human frailty. Hepburn bought the rights herself to end a run of failures and picked the studio, director and co-stars.

Open The Philadelphia Story in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Attributes

Genre
ComedyRomance
Theme
Class & InequalityLoveForgiveness
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
HeroineLoverTrickster
Plot structure
Comic ResolutionSeparation and Reunion
Symbol / motif
The EstateThe FeastThe Garment
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
ComicSatiricalRomantic
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues