Adam's Rib is a 1949 film written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor. It stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn and features Judy Holliday in her first substantial film role. The music was composed by Miklós Rózsa, except for the song "Farewell, Amanda", which was written by Cole Porter.
The film was well-received upon its release and is considered a classic romantic comedy.
Prosecutor Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) is assigned the case against a woman (Judy Holliday) who tried to scare her adulterous husband (Tom Ewell) by shooting him repeatedly. Bonner's wife, Amanda (Katharine Hepburn), also a lawyer, decides to defend the woman in court. As the two use every technique they know to win the case, the courtroom tension carries over into the couple's household.
The defendant, Doris Attinger, when narrating to Amanda Bonner her version of the events on the day she shot her husband, describes recognizable symptoms of a dissociative episode. These include a divorcement from the reality of her actions and even psychogenic amnesia concerning her actual wounding of her husband. Given that, one might have expected Amanda to ask the jury for a verdict of not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity, because the defendant had been seized by an irresistible impulse.
Instead, Amanda asks for a simple verdict of not guilty, because all the defendant did was to "try to defend her home", and a man acting similarly might be acquitted. In short, she asks for jury nullification, and wins the case.
