The Classic Romantic Comedy That Has A Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score

Gaining a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes is either an impressive achievement or a sign that your movie hasn't been all that widely reviewed. The same goes for those films that bear the dreaded 0% rating, of which the great John Travolta currently has a full seven.

This is all by virtue of the way RT works. The website aggregates reviews, deeming each individual appraisal either positive or negative. Even mixed reviews get crammed into this binary, allowing Rotten Tomatoes to produce a percentage score based on how many reviews are "Fresh" and how many are "Rotten." If a film is solid enough to garner a handful of decent reviews, that means it will likely get a 100% rating on the site because A) there aren't many reviews to include in the rating and B) the handful of reviews that do exist are all decent enough to be rated "Fresh" by RT's moderators.

Take a film like James Stewart's "Shenandoah" from 1965, which is one of the best Civil War movies ever made. The movie has just six reviews, making its 100% rating all but guaranteed. Likewise, 1957's "Desk Set," which only has 24 reviews, is one of three "perfect" Katharine Hepburn movies according to Rotten Tomatoes. But there's another Hepburn classic with a "perfect" score that rests on a much more sturdy foundation of 105 reviews: "The Philadelphia Story."

1940's "The Philadelphia Story" is a foundational romantic comedy and a true classic. It united screen legends Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, and Cary Grant, and saw Hepburn play heiress Tracy Lord, who is set to marry the wealthy George Kittredge (John Howard). However, her wedding becomes a fraught affair after her ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant) and tabloid photographer Macaulay "Mike" Connor (Stewart) show up and compete for Lord's affections.

Far from being just a charming little romantic comedy of errors, "The Philadelphia Story" remains one of the best films of its generation. Not only is it full of classic James Stewart movie moments, it was also responsible for repositioning Hepburn as a bonafide movie star. After the actress experienced a string of flops and was named on Harry Brandt's infamous "box office poison" list, she turned to the stage, portraying Tracy Lord in Philip Barry's play version of "The Philadelphia Story." Donald Ogden Stewart then adapted the script for the screen and Hepburn struck a deal with MGM for the rights, maintaining the right to choose her own director and co-stars. The film, ultimately directed by George Cukor, proved a big hit and re-established Hepburn's silver screen star power.

It's easy to see why it was so successful. The film, though not without its problems, is undeniably charming. There's a scene in "The Philadelphia Story" that included some improvisation from Stewart, wherein a tipsy Mike hiccups as he prods Dexter about his lingering feelings for Tracy, prompting Grant to look away in an attempt not to break character. The scene where Mike declares his feelings for Tracy, too, is perpetually endearing, especially when you know that the typically shy Stewart struggled to articulate the author's ornate language and convincingly romance his co-star. It's perhaps not all that surprising, then, that "The Philadelphia Story" has such a well-supported 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

"The Philadelphia Story" was nominated for a dozen Academy Awards, including Outstanding Production (the old category name for Best Picture), and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Stewart, which he won. Donald Ogden Stewart also won for Best Adapted Screenplay, securing the film's standing as a bonafide classic of its age. Meanwhile, having been labeled "box office poison," Hepburn was likely content to be at the center of a box office hit even if she did miss out on winning her Best Actress Oscar. (Don't feel too bad for her, though: She eventually won four Oscars for Best Actress, the most any woman has ever won.)

Considering its combination of box office power, awards love, and audience approval, "The Philadelphia Story" is one of those rare "perfect" movies that can actually claim to be deserving of its score on Rotten Tomatoes. Rather than finessing the TomatoMeter with a dearth of reviews, the film actually impressed every one of the more than 100 critics that saw it. Reviewers heaped praise upon Hepburn in particular, with the New York Daily News proclaiming at the time that the actress gave "the finest performance of her career." The Associated Press, meanwhile, hailed Hepburn's turn as "the year's most brilliant comeback." But it wasn't just the newly invigorated star that impressed critics. As The Boston Globe wrote, "Taken altogether, 'Philadelphia Story' is cinema entertainment of the blue ribbon, gold medal, knockout-in-one-round class."

Unlike, say the one "perfect" Sean Connery film (which currently has just 16 reviews), "The Philadelphia Story," and its 105 positive reviews truly is as close to being actually "perfect" as this system can get.