Spencer Tracy

If there were any doubts about the man's passionate warmth, or the seductive magic that he brought to each performance, they probably will be dispelled by tonight's telecast of "The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn" (Channel 12, 9:05 p.m.) Still, I wonder. Would Spencer Tracy, who died in 1967, make it by today's standards? Probably not. And this says less about the late actor's no- nonsense, no-frills approach to acting than about the public's taste. It is unlikely that, say, Brian Dennehy - who is probably the closest living thing that we have to a Spencer Tracy today - ever will be tested the way Tracy was, by a succession of straightforward leading-man roles, sexy comic parts, criminal characters and those of husbands, priests, cowboys and roughnecks.

One of the defining artworks of the Truman Era, Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride (1950) established the prototype of virtually every successful '50s TV sitcom. Take one flustered suburban paterfamilias in a household actually ruled by his unflappable wife, add 2.3 children, one white two-story Colonial, and fold in an easily resolved problem, bake for 24 minutes and there you have the foolproof recipe - or so many thought. What none of his sweet-tooth imitators remember about the unforgettable Minnelli movie was that the original Father of the Bride was a sourdough affair.

Woman of the Year (1942) is the kind of Katharine Hepburn picture where the filmmakers felt that her high-flying character (a patrician political columnist) had to be grounded in order to be sympathetic to the public. Despite the fact that Hepburn's character must be humbled, the film marks the first of her pairings with legendary co-star Spencer Tracy (playing an ordinary-joe sportswriter) who would soon afterwards become her soulmate in private life as well. Their onscreen chemistry is sublime in this enchanting George Stevens film that sours when it decides a woman with a job isn't really a woman.

King Vidor shot Northwest Passage in 1940, and it is a film that is at once cinematically right and politically incorrect by contemporary standards. The celebration of frontier pioneering is a historical film that also provides a history of racial attitudes. Northwest Passage, based on the novel by Kenneth Roberts, is a finely wrought epic adventure with Spencer Tracy as Major Rogers, a martinet who leads a force of 160 armed settlers into Indian country. Their mission in upstate New York before the Revolution is to subdue the Indians and survive in an environment where nature is as hostile as the tribes.

Don't confuse it with the 1976 adaptation of the Stephen King novel starring Sissy Spacek. Carrie (1952) features a brilliant Jennifer Jones and a brooding Laurence Olivier in the riveting adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Jones is Carrie Meeber, the farm girl turned showgirl who has become accustomed to the kindness of handsome strangers. Olivier is Mr. Hurstwood, the businessman turned embezzler who wants her to get accustomed. Carrie will be shown on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Free Library of Philadelphia as part of the library's Laurence Olivier Retrospective.

It's a slow night for network TV, with the exception of the always reliable St. Elsewhere. Locally, Channel 12 perks things up with two engaging documentaries. EVENING HIGHLIGHTS JERUSALEM: WITHIN THESE WALLS (7:55 p.m., Ch. 12) - Philadelphia recently celebrated its 300th birthday, which by North American standards makes it an old city. But it's a mere babe compared with Jerusalem, which is more than 3,000 years old. This National Geographic special examines the momentous past and tumultuous present of a city in which the holiest shrines of three of the world's great religions stand just yards from one another.

Once upon a time, an increasingly popular fairy tale goes, America chose its leaders far more wisely than it does now. Every four years, practical, pragmatic men closeted themselves behind closed doors, lighted cigars so that the room might be filled with smoke, and selected an able candidate for president. There were giants of the earth in those days, the fairy tale continues - Roosevelts and Trumans. Then, a little band of zealous Jacobins wrenched the process away from those good men and delivered it into the hands of the mob, whereupon dark days befell the Republic, and pygmies walked where giants had once stood.

Charles Shyer, co-writer and director of Disney's remake of Father of the Bride, had given Kimberly Williams strict instructions: Don't go out and rent the original. Plucked from the campus of Northwestern University, where she was a sophomore theater major, Williams had been cast in the Elizabeth Taylor role: the college-age daughter who waltzes into her parent's house one day and announces she's engaged. Dad has conniptions, but finally accepts the inevitable - and goes through all sorts of comic trauma as he girds for the dreaded ritual of giving away his only girl.

In the minds of many, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - an epic ensemble farce released in 1963 and starring Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy - is a laff-riot cinema classic. Clearly the people behind Rat Race felt that way: Director Jerry Zucker and gang have so faithfully recaptured the spirit of the old movie that this dashing-for-cash comedy surpasses its model in somnambulistic pacing, kerplunkingly unfunny jokes, and mugging thespians making fools of themselves. This truly torturous spectacle follows six randomly selected people (and their respective tagalongs)

It's been 45 years since Spencer Tracy melted down a sputtering Katharine Hepburn in the movie "Woman of the Year," but only four since the musical starring Lauren Bacall and then Raquel Welch as a saucy, headstrong Barbara Walters-style TV newswoman closed on Broadway. The version presented at the Claridge through Aug. 15 is still relatively fresh; this is not a revival of a show that's been done to death in dinner theaters. "Woman" is shorter than the Broadway show, a little thinner on the cast (minor cast members double up, giving the audience a weird case of deja vu)

THIS WEEK, in honor of the upcoming Academy Awards telecast, I mounted my own personal Oscars Film Festival. With the help of Netflix, Jiffy Pop and the only non-flat TV screen left in captivity, I spent hours admiring the type of performances that lead people to say, "We like you, we really like you!" Ironically, I managed to pick films that provided eerie parallels with current events. It got to the point that I realized that Hollywood is just better- quality reality programming (better scripts, cleaner women, smarter men)

In the end, Katharine Hepburn's love affair with Spencer Tracy was the most valuable thing about her life. In Sotheby's auction of about 900 items owned by the late actress, which ended Friday, a 3-inch bronze bust Hepburn sculpted of Tracy fetched $316,000, making it the most coveted piece of her estate. The bust, valued by the New York auction house at $3,000 to $5,000, can been seen on Tracy's desk in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), his last movie. A signed, watercolor-and- ink drawing by Hepburn of herself and Tracy fetched $66,000.

In the minds of many, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - an epic ensemble farce released in 1963 and starring Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy - is a laff-riot cinema classic. Clearly the people behind Rat Race felt that way: Director Jerry Zucker and gang have so faithfully recaptured the spirit of the old movie that this dashing-for-cash comedy surpasses its model in somnambulistic pacing, kerplunkingly unfunny jokes, and mugging thespians making fools of themselves. This truly torturous spectacle follows six randomly selected people (and their respective tagalongs)

King Vidor shot Northwest Passage in 1940, and it is a film that is at once cinematically right and politically incorrect by contemporary standards. The celebration of frontier pioneering is a historical film that also provides a history of racial attitudes. Northwest Passage, based on the novel by Kenneth Roberts, is a finely wrought epic adventure with Spencer Tracy as Major Rogers, a martinet who leads a force of 160 armed settlers into Indian country. Their mission in upstate New York before the Revolution is to subdue the Indians and survive in an environment where nature is as hostile as the tribes.

Legendary rock-star-maker Phil Spector will receive the Philadelphia Music Alliance's Philadelphia Award at the group's seventh annual Hall of Fame gala on April 28 at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza. Spector's connection to the city: In the early '60s he started Phillies Records at 1619 N. Broad St., where he recorded the likes of the Ronettes, the Crystals, Ike and Tina Turner and the Righteous Brothers. Others being honored at the gala include Sol Schoenbach, Mannie Sacks, Russell Faith and Mayor Rendell, who will get a humanitarian award.

Recently, at the peak of what had become my second career - that endless search for a dress to wear to my son's wedding - a salesperson gave me a piece of unsolicited advice. "The mother of the groom," she said, "should wear beige, keep her mouth shut and her pocketbook open. " This was not going to be easy. Already, I was having trouble on all three counts. The beige and the mouth were difficult enough for a colorful and noisy individual. And the open pocketbook? Impossible. Weddings, even those in which one is relegated to a minor role, were not made for times of recession.

One of the defining artworks of the Truman Era, Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride (1950) established the prototype of virtually every successful '50s TV sitcom. Take one flustered suburban paterfamilias in a household actually ruled by his unflappable wife, add 2.3 children, one white two-story Colonial, and fold in an easily resolved problem, bake for 24 minutes and there you have the foolproof recipe - or so many thought. What none of his sweet-tooth imitators remember about the unforgettable Minnelli movie was that the original Father of the Bride was a sourdough affair.

Charles Shyer, co-writer and director of Disney's remake of Father of the Bride, had given Kimberly Williams strict instructions: Don't go out and rent the original. Plucked from the campus of Northwestern University, where she was a sophomore theater major, Williams had been cast in the Elizabeth Taylor role: the college-age daughter who waltzes into her parent's house one day and announces she's engaged. Dad has conniptions, but finally accepts the inevitable - and goes through all sorts of comic trauma as he girds for the dreaded ritual of giving away his only girl.

Woman of the Year (1942) is the kind of Katharine Hepburn picture where the filmmakers felt that her high-flying character (a patrician political columnist) had to be grounded in order to be sympathetic to the public. Despite the fact that Hepburn's character must be humbled, the film marks the first of her pairings with legendary co-star Spencer Tracy (playing an ordinary-joe sportswriter) who would soon afterwards become her soulmate in private life as well. Their onscreen chemistry is sublime in this enchanting George Stevens film that sours when it decides a woman with a job isn't really a woman.

Standing on the sand by the water's edge, Anthony Quinn seemed almost as imposing as Zorba, the great Greek lover of life he created 26 years ago. He was on this quiet island under the blazing heat of the Caribbean sun to work on another fisherman's story: The Old Man and the Sea. Quinn spent nearly every day for more than a month in a worn-out boat, re-creating Santiago, Ernest Hemingway's stubborn Cuban fisherman who battles merciless sharks...