Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Pat and Mike Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson February 10, 2022

In late 1951, Katharine Hepburn returned to New York after a long safari in Africa where she recently finished The African Queen, her most successful movie. Author Charles Higham chronicles in his book Kate: The Life of Katharine Hepburn that the actress met with screenwriter Garson Kanin and his wife, fellow scribe and actress Ruth Gordon, about a screenplay centering on a multi-talented female athlete who leaves her fiancé for a sports promoter. Higham says they had "marvelous script conferences." Hepburn boarded a train destined for Los Angeles with the Kanins, whom she entertained while reading from a diary she compiled while making The African Queen. According to Higham, Hepburn prepared for the new picture Pat and Mike by practicing on a tennis court at the Beverly Hills Hotel and on Lakeside golf course. Spencer Tracy was reportedly suffering from depression but Hepburn got him out of his stupor when she told him about the film, which energized him. George Cukor was brought in to direct. Pat and Mike was the seventh collaboration on the big screen for Cukor and Hepburn.

Pat Pemberton (Katharine Hepburn) is a physical-education instructor at the small California university, Pacific Tech, where her fiancé, Collier Weld (William Ching), works as a vice president. Collier is taking Pat in his convertible to a national women's golf tournament. Before competing, Pat is surprised by the sudden appearance of Mike Conovan (Spencer Tracy) and one of his assistants, who sneak in through a window of Pat's motel suite. Mike is a sports promoter who runs his own management firm in New York and is interested in Pat becoming his latest talent acquisition. He offers her a bribe of purposely finishing second but she rebukes him. Pat finishes second anyway but she's out of luck in terms of receiving any money. After he boards the train with his fiancée, Collier turns possessive. This causes Pat to throw her luggage out the window and flee the train. Pat joins Mike and his representatives in New York. Mike also has a talented but uneducated heavyweight prizefighter (Aldo Ray) and a racehorse among his clients. Pat additionally excels at tennis so Mike signs her up for a local tennis tournament. She plays a great set and a half but when Collier appears as a spectator in the middle of the second set, her performance plummets (as often is the case with her fiancé present).

It dawned on me while watching Pat and Mike how much director Barry Levinson and the two screenwriters who penned The Natural (1984) must have been influenced by an important plot element in the Cukor film. Whenever Collier shows up at one one of Pat's tournaments, she either chokes or plays poorly. But when Collier isn't there and Mike is, Pat tends to play great. In The Natural, villainess Memo Paris is a source of bad luck when she's near baseball legend Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford). However, when Roy only notices Iris Gaines (Glenn Close) in the stands, he'll hit a home run instead of striking out.

Pat shows off her calisthenics to Mike.

Pat and Mike was generally well-received by the critical mass, even if the level of enthusiasm wasn't as high as other Tracy and Hepburn pictures. Gilbert Kanour of The Evening Sun (Baltimore, MD) regarded the movie as possessing "the sheen and sometimes the substance of a classy skylark, and the appreciative chuckles and cackles at the premiere indicated a genuine appreciation of its irresponsible fun." In her three-and-a-half out of four-star review, Dorothy Masters of the Daily (NY) News declared: "The comedy is a neat compromise between earthiness and sophistica­tion." R. F. Siemanowski of the Chattanooga (TN) Times Free Press deemed it a "a wonderfully witty, thoroughly amusing and completely delightful comedy that is fit and recommended film enter­tainment for the entire family. Any who like the movies, and even those who stoutly affirm they don’t, are going to enjoy this one." John Bustin, then the editor for the Amusements section of the Austin (TX) American, described it as "a bright little comedy with a sporting flavor and plenty of brisk dialogue....It’s a case of a good cast setting off good material with excellent results for all." Some critics compared it either favorably or unfavorably to the filmmakers' prior effort, Adam's Rib (1949). Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times argued that Pat and Mike "is just about as good as its predecessor in most depart­ments, while in a few it is even a little better." The St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch's Myles Standish was not quite as high on it, but still scored it with good marks: "[W]hile not as downright funny as [Adam's Rib], is con­sistently amusing and intriguing....This may be machine-made comedy, but it has a professional smoothness and polish." By contrast, The Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette's Nadine Subotnik was somewhat disappointed, calling it "an amusing and interesting picture but somehow not as good as this combination of super craftsmen should pro­vide."

In his memoir Kate Remembered, Hepburn's close friend and biographer A. Scott Berg stated that Pat and Mike was the actress' favorite of the nine films she made with Tracy. Hepburn biographer Gary Carey labeled Pat and Mike "the most engaging of the Tracy-Hepburn comedies...it doesn’t fight for its laughs, and Tracy and Hepburn’s teamwork has never been better." In her voluminous 5001 Nights at the Movies, Pauline Kael lauded Hepburn and Tracy for performing together "so expertly that their previous films seem like warmups...Cukor directed—beautifully. It’s as close to perfect as you’d want it to be."

Note: Tennis and golf luminaries Don Budge, Helen Dettweiler, Beverly Hanson, Betty Hicks, Alice Marble, Gussie Moran, Joe Novak, Frank Parker, and Babe Didrikson Zaharias all make cameos in this film. An Iowa newspaper touted the ensemble as "undoubtedly the most star-studded group of athletes ever assembled for a motion picture."

Pat and Mike Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Warner Archive Collection's (WAC) release of Pat and Mike is struck from a 4K scan of the original camera negative. The movie appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The image boasts terrific grayscale and crisp black levels. Grain is evenly dispersed throughout the frame. I could notice a nice smattering of grain on Hepburn's face. Print anomalies have been kept to a bare minimum. Warner encodes the feature at an average video bitrate of 34993 kbps.

Warner has provided thirty-three chapters.

Pat and Mike Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warner has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1879 kbps, 24-bit). The monaural mix is free of any audible hiss, pops, crackles, or tape dropouts. It sounds authentic and appropriately flat. I could make out all spoken words. Golden Age composer David Raksin only wrote about twelve minutes of musical score (or the amount that appears in the film) and it suits the picture very well.

I watched Pat and Mike with the optional English SDH on. They appear in a yellow font. The subs give an accurate transcription of the dialogue. There's a famous line that Kanin and Gordon wrote that ends with "cherce" but it's rendered as "choice." The former is supposedly slang for the latter as "choice" appeared in at least one original review that a critic quoted from the film.

Pat and Mike Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Teaser Trailer (0:57, 480i) - the opening is designed like Pat and Mike's main titles. This is really a cartoon trailer of the film with an accompanying voice-over.

• Original Theatrical Trailer (3:36, 1080p) - MGM's original trailer for Pat and Mike introduced and "hosted" by then-new star Aldo Ray. It hasn't been fully restored as it sports film artifacts.

Pat and Mike Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pat and Mike is a breezy sports comedy/romance that isn't as good as it could have been. The film often lacks tension except for the climax. I prefer the underrated Without Love (1945) over it in some ways. Look for a young Charles Bronson in the third act (he's credited here as Charles Buchinski). If you own the Warner DVD box set, Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn: The Signature Collection, like I do, you'll want to hang on to Adam's Rib and the documentary, The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute By Katharine Hepburn, as neither has been released on BD. The WAC disc delivers an excellent restored transfer and serviceable lossless audio in classic mono. There are no extras. While Pat and Mike isn't a great movie, this is still a MUST OWN for Tracy and Hepburn aficionados.