Adam's Rib is a 1949 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor from a screenplay written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.

Amanda bases her case on the belief that women and men are equal, and that Doris had been forced into the situation by her husband's adultery and emotional and physical abuse.

The situation comes to a head as Adam feels humiliated during the trial when Amanda encourages one of her witnesses, a woman weightlifter, to lift him overhead.

When the verdict is returned, Amanda's plea to the jury to "judge this case as you would if the sexes were reversed" proves successful, and Doris is acquitted.

The screenplay was written specifically as a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle (their sixth film together) by Garson Kanin and actress Ruth Gordon, married script writers who were friends of the couple.

[6] According to Kanin, the story of Adam's Rib was based on the lives of Gordon's friends Dorothy and William Dwight Whitney, and of actor Raymond Massey.

The change allowed Porter to quickly revise a tune he had written during his 1940 adventure in the South Pacific and later discarded as mediocre — "So Long, Samoa.

"[9] In June 1949, Hollywood Reporter wrote that Porter and MGM agreed to donate all profits from the song, rechristened "Farewell, Amanda," to the Runyon Cancer Fund.

[6] Hepburn and Kanin encouraged Judy Holliday to play the role of Doris, and Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn considered her performance a screen test for the lead role in the planned film adaptation of Kanin's play Born Yesterday, in which Holliday had starred during its Broadway run.

Receiving positive notices for Adam's Rib, Holliday was cast in the Born Yesterday film, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

"[12] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Adam's Rib has a "Fresh" score of 96% based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 8.04/10; the consensus for the film says: "Matched by Garson Kanin's witty, sophisticated screenplay, George Cukor, Spencer Tracy, and Katherine [sic] Hepburn are all in top form in the classic comedy Adam's Rib.

"[13] Leonard Maltin gives the film four out of four stars, describing it as "[o]ne of Hollywood's greatest comedies about the battle of the sexes, with peerless Tracy and Hepburn supported by movie newcomers Holliday, Ewell, Hagen, and Wayne.

"[14] Ruth Gordon (later of Rosemary's Baby and Harold and Maude fame) and Garson Kanin were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story and Screenplay in 1951.