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The Worst Film Ever

Strong and Moving!

A Masterpiece!

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Certainly an intriguing concept-a Runyonesque story about a shady sports promoter who finds a female athlete and decides he can make her a big sports star and a moneymaker for himself, except that she only plays well when her domineering fiancée is not around. She turns out to be rebellious if either her fiancée or her promoter push her around too much. And there is good chemistry and interaction between the leads.Yet the movie has its faults too, namely being too long for what it is, with sports sequences that go one for longer than they need to, and the rather pointless inclusion of the boxer the promoter also has under his wing. Also, though the movie is presumably a comedy, it has few laughs in it. The movie tries, but it never quite satisfies in the end.

"Pat and Mike" is one of nine movies that Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made together. Most were comedies. This film showcases some of Hepburn's athletic abilities. Apparently, she was moderately good in a few sports. She learned to play tennis for this film and became quite good at it. There aren't a lot of laughs in this film. The screenplay is okay, but it has few witty lines. The humor mostly is in the relationships between characters and the characters themselves. Tracy is good as Mike Conovan, and Hepburn is good as Pat Pemberton. William Ching actually gives one of the best performances, as Pat's fiancé, Collier Weld. Aldo Ray is good for some laughs as Davie Hucko. This film doesn't rank up there with the better comedies of Hepburn and Tracy, but it's decent light entertainment. One of the things I like best about "Pat and Mike" is the scenes it has with Babe Didrikson Zaharias. The script has Pat in a major women's golf tournament, playing against Babe. Babe was a real living multi-talented female athlete. She was named athlete of the year six times from 1932 to 1954. She was a 1949 founding member of the Ladies PGA. She won numerous golfing tournaments, including 10 major LPGA championships. She won two gold medals in track and field in the 1932 Summer Olympics and she also played basketball. Babe died in 1956 from colon cancer She was just 46 years old. This isn't a film to run out and buy, but it's a good movie to watch on a rainy afternoon.

This was Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn's last MGM movie made together, and equally as good as their two finest ("Woman of the Year" and "Adam's Rib"). The film focuses on Hepburn, a world-class athlete who has a problem in golf and tennis matches any time her fiancée (William Ching) is around. Spencer Tracy plays a New York sports agent who notices her talent and takes her on as a client. He finds she is just as determined as he is, and they make an incredible pair as she gets ready for a world class tennis event. But when Ching shows up, all of a sudden, the net is too high, her racket too small, and one ball coming at her looks like a dozen. That's when Tracy steps in to try and keep her fiancée away from her, as well as deal with the mobsters who put up the money for her in the first place.There is no doubt that Tracy and Hepburn together had as much chemistry as any super couple on the movie screen in the golden days of Hollywood. Add on the writing team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin (looking for another hit for them after "Adam's Rib"), and you have the tools towards one of the smartest comedies of the 1950's. Aldo Ray is hysterical as a dumb boxing client of Tracy's, and is surrounded by a perfect supporting cast. Phyllis Povah, the baby machine of 1939's "The Women", plays the chatty lady who annoys Hepburn during a golf game, while Charles Buchinski seems a bit familiar as one of the mobsters whom Hepburn beats up (by picking him up by the pant legs). Oh, wait a minute....It's future action superstar Charles Bronson, long before stardom, but extremely amusing in a rare comedy role. Fortunately, while this was their last MGM film together, they had two more to go-"Desk Set" over at Fox (a delightfully funny spoof about the future of corporate research) and Columbia's controversial "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".

In this disappointing follow-up to the excellent "Adam's Rib," Hepburn plays a multi-sport athlete who is managed and promoted by Tracy. There are two funny scenes: one involving a tennis match and another where Hepburn slugs a couple of goons to protect Tracy. The other ninety percent of this supposed comedy is devoid of laughs and there is little plot. Cukor can't overcome the witless script by Gordon and Kanin. In fact he makes matters worse by inserting extended sport sequences, particularly golf, that are neither funny nor exciting. The film provides early roles for Bronson, Backus, and Connors, as well as the opportunity to see various famed tennis and golf stars.