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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Aldo Ray, Jim Backus, William Ching ... see more see more... , Sammy White , George Mathews , Chuck Connors , Loring Smith , Phyllis Povah , Frank Richards , Owen McGiveney , Lou Lubin , Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer , Bill Self , Gussie Moran , Babe Didrikson Zaharias , Don Budge , Alice Marble , Betty Hicks , Beverly Hanson , Helen Dettweiler , Joe Bernard , Paul Brinegar , Charles Buchinsky , Mae Clarke , Fred Coby , Frankie Darro , Kay Deslys , Helen Eby-Rock , Pancho Gonzales , Cameron A. Grant , Tom Harmon , Sam Hearn , Crauford Kent , Louis Mason , Bill McLean , Franklin Parker , Sam Pierce , John Close , Kay English , King Mojave , Charlie Murray Jr. , Bill Lewin , Jerry Schumacher , Hank Weaver , Russ Clark , Tom Gibson , Charles Bronson

Pat (Katharine Hepburn), a college phys-ed instructor, enters into professional competition as a golf and tennis player. Mike (Spencer Tracy), a likeable but unscrupulous sports promoter, first attemp... read more read more...ts to bribe Pat to lose, but later becomes her manager. Pat performs brilliantly until her insufferable fiance Collier West (William Ching) shows up; West always manages to make Pat so nervous that she can't win to save her life. At long last, West walks out, having found Pat in a compromising situation with Mike. Though she'd previously kept her distance from Mike, Pat suddenly realizes that she's fallen in love with him and--after a few crooked gamblers are disposed of--Pat and Mike become partners on a permanent basis. Pat & Mike reunited Tracy and Hepburn with their favorite director, George Cukor, and their favorite scenarists, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. Watch for real-life golf and tennis champs Gussie Moran, Babe Didrickson Zaharias, Don Budge, Alice Marble, Frank Parker, Betty Hicks, Helen Dettweilerand Beverly Hanson as "themselves" -- and also keep an eye out for ex-ballplayer Chuck Connors, making his acting debut as a highway patrolman. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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67% liked it

3,228 ratings

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90% liked it

20 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 35 min.

Directed by: George Cukor

Release Date: June 13, 1952

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DVD Release Date: September 19, 2000

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Flixster Reviews (123)

  • moonrivers
    May 11, 2012
    moonrivers
    The story of of lady sports protege and her shady manager is a sheer cover for this light farce about gender roles, typecasted with Tracy and Hepburn. Despite having moments of mirth the overall feeling I got was that the writers, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, cranked this out o... read morever a weekend. Still the star pairing is magnetic. Look for Charles Bronson, Chuck Conners, and Alfalfa (of the Little Rascals) in bit parts.
  • ajv2688
    November 2, 2010
    ajv2688
    The synopsis on here says "predictable comic mishaps" predictable is right. These stars deserve more than another predictable comedy with a little romance. Yes, they do add sports to the mix, but that doesn't make it any more interesting.
  • bottcorecords1
    February 27, 2009
    bottcorecords1
    Lady golfer Pat gets so stressed out in the presence of her fiance, she blows a golf tournament. Mike is a sports promoter who spots her at the tournament and signs her on to be one of his clients. It turns out golf is one of her "minor" sports, tennis and shooting being her ma... read morejor sports (although shooting really isn't referenced much subsequently). The fiance turns up at a tennis tournament and proves to be her achilles heel once again, with great visual effects used to signify her sudden mental block (it's a little bit of avant garde comedy). There are a few funny moments (Pat coming to Mike's "rescue" and beating up some gangsters for him), but the romance between Pat and Mike seems highly unlikely given the two's disparate backgrounds (she's an erudite college girl and he's a street hustling small-time promoter/bookie/gangster). A light and enjoyable comedy from two screen legends.
  • jjnxn
    May 7, 2007
    jjnxn
    cute but the pair made better films then this.
  • FangsFirst
    December 6, 2008
    FangsFirst
    It was by pure chance that I happened upon this one, merely acquiring it as part of a "buy one get one" type deal to decrease the cost of Robert Redford's Quiz Show, but trusting in Cukor and the reputations of Tracy and Hepburn, especially the two of them together, though... read more Tracy was the only one I had never seen in a role before (that I can recall). It wasn't until later that my brain finally stumbled with a thundering thud over the obvious fact that I have a set of twins for an aunt and uncle on the maternal side, and they happen to be named Patricia and Michael--who go by, well, Pat and Mike. Even more surprising is that Pat (naturally also short for Patricia) in the film is sports-oriented--as is my aunt. Of course my mother put a bit of a damper on my enthused coincidence-ometer by noting that they were born in 1951--a year prior to the release of this film. Oh well.

    Pat (Katharine Hepburn) is a physical education teacher at Pacific Technical College, engaged to Collier Weld (William Ching, who reminds me a bit of a smoother-faced Kevin McCarthy). She specializes in no sport in particular, with talent in most any, though we first see her at golf, where Collier is attempting to gain the financial support of the Bemingers (Loring Smith and Phyllis Povah) in building a new gymnasium.* He maintains that this rides partly on Pat's performance against Mrs. Beminger, which he reminds her of repeatedly. Mrs. Beminger offers advice to Pat as she repeatedly fails at the game, putting or driving--whatever the aspect, she can't seem to get it right. After taking too much of Mrs. Beminger's condescension, she sits her in a chair and drives five balls in a row without pause, perfectly, then leaves in a huff. Charles Barry (Jim Backus) tries to cheer her with nudging her toward professional playing, encouraging her to enter a tournament, which she eventually agrees to. After one day's play, she returns to her room, and there she finds two men have broken in and attempted to hide from her in her bathroom--Mike Conovan (Spencer Tracy) and Barney Grau (Sammy White). Mike offers to make them all plenty of money by setting up future rounds, but Pat is infuriated by this and ejects them. When Collier appears again and ruins her game yet again, she changes her mind and Mike draws up a contract, taking her under his wing. He tries to build Pat up and make her the number one female athlete in the world.

    It was sort of interesting to see what was obviously a romantic comedy where the romance really didn't enter into things for 90% of the film. Also of note to me was the fact that Hepburn was 45 at the time of filming, an unusual age for a romantic role for a woman in Hollywood (though perhaps somewhat less rare then) and not even too far off in age from Tracy (who was about 52). Admittedly, they notoriously had an offscreen romance and this was their seventh film together, but it was still a pleasant surprise. This sort of advancement of, well, one woman anyway, continued a bit within the film, with Mike eventually noticing that Pat's skills were ruined only under the endless control and disapproval of Collier, suggesting that in fact the best relationship would be "five oh, five oh" rather than Collier's "75%" control. I wasn't expecting any of that and it was indeed nice to see, even if it was par for the course (argh, sorry!) when dealing with these two, and often with Hepburn in general.

    George Cukor continued to bring out the best in Hepburn in his direction, with nice sharp sparring (often seemingly, probably intentionally, suggestive) between Tracy and Hepburn, and a nice dichotomy between Pat's sporty "tomboy" elite and Mike's gruff "palooka" style mannerisms. Around them can be found Aldo Ray as the punch-drunk Davie Hucko (who has an entertaining broken record conversation first with Barney and later with Pat), and a slew of then-sports stars (of whom I recognized approximately zero, to the surprise of no one). Tracy surprised me, I'd always expected a deeper, gruffer voice out of him, but he has an easygoing manner that was very pleasant and definitely made me want to see more of his work. Cukor, while on the subject of impressions, continued to impress me--I definitely want to see more with him at the helm.

    The surprises of the film came in a few odd casting choices. Not odd as in bad so much as retrospectively surprising. The first was Sylvester "Spec" Cauley, who was played by George Mathews, who I stared at the whole time he appeared, waiting and waiting for my brain to connect that distinct voice and doughy look with some flittering memory. It finally struck me--he was in the New Jersey "PSA" type film, X Marks the Spot of all things, which I naturally knew from Mystery Science Theater 3000 rather than regular viewing. The next I didn't identify until I wandered around the web afterward--a fight between Mike and his "business partners" (hoodlums, of course!) is re-enacted by an excitable busboy at the police station--played by none other than Carl Switzer, who is most known for his role as a child which involved an artificial cowlick and the name "Alfalfa." But most surprising of all is someone I'll often shruggingly pick up a movie to see--the aforementioned "business partners" were Cauley, who I've already identified, and one Charles Buchinski, who made me respond involuntarily with an audible, "Charlie!" You may know Buchinski from after that all-too-common story where someone (be it himself, his agent, a random passerby or his goldfish) said "Buchinski" was not a good name for a star and he became, yes, Charles Bronson. And Pat kicks his ass, adding an extra layer of amusement.

    *Gods, I've typed out both "physical education" and "gymnasium," someone help me!

View All Pat and Mike Reviews

Critic Reviews

August 4, 2008
TIME Magazine

One of the season's gayest comedies. Full Review

Variety Staff
August 4, 2008
Variety Staff, Variety

Tracy is given some choice lines in the script and makes much of them in an easy, throwaway style that lifts the comedy punch. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
August 4, 2008
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

One of the better Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn comedies -- not so much for the screenplay by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, which lacks the bite and sophistication of Adam's Rib, as for the rela... Full Review

Don Druker
August 4, 2008
Don Druker, Chicago Reader

The best of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn cycle. Full Review

Bosley Crowther
March 25, 2006
Bosley Crowther, New York Times

Let's not be too analytic about the likelihood of the yarn or the tightness of the script Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin have written for this romp. Full Review

Charles Taylor
January 1, 2000
Charles Taylor, Salon.com

Pat and Mike saunters through its 96 minutes with a casual, unassuming air. Full Review

Michael E. Grost
August 8, 2008
Michael E. Grost, Classic Film and Television

Original comedy, with a rich look at women's sports - and gender roles. Full Review

Douglas Pratt
August 4, 2008
Douglas Pratt, DVDLaser

The familiarity the two stars communicate goes far beyond the script.

Dennis Schwartz
April 5, 2007
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Slight sports comedy. Full Review

Emanuel Levy
October 7, 2006
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

The film doesn't have much plot but the dialogue is bright, and the roles tailor-made for stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn demonstrates with physical strength what she proved in Adam... Full Review

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Pat and Mike Trivia

  • Name the actress that played in movies such as Holiday, Desk Set, Pat and Mike, and The Philadelphia Story.  Answer »
  • Who was the director of the 1952 film Pat And Mike ?  Answer »
  • This American actress starred in many films, including "Pat and Mike", "Morning Glory", "The Philadelphia Story" and "The Lion in Winter".  Answer »
  • Pat and Mike starred Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  Answer »
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