History Film / ThePhiladelphiaStory

* BlamingTheCuckold: In this one, the cheater is the father of the heroine. He doesn't blame his wife, he infamously blames his daughter for being wilful and frigid, and so causing him to look for the attentions of a younger woman. Needless to say, a massive case of ValuesDissonance, since the movie seems to paint both the father's infidelity and the heroine's willfulness as equally wrong.

* FacePalmOfDoom: A particularly pissed off C. K. Dexter does this to Tracy after she breaks one of his golf clubs in front of him. She falls to the ground but she's not hurt.

* InformedFlaw: Quite a few, including Tracy's intolerance, Mike's cynicism, and Dexter's drunkenness. Mostly justified, considering the bulk of the plot takes place during one day, and to be fair to Dexter, by the time the story starts he's firmly on the wagon.

* IncomingHam: Dinah when she first meets Mike and Liz. She enters the room dressed in a party dress, sparkly jewellery, with a massive bow in her hair. She does so with an attempted ballet twirl as well.
* IronicEcho: "The truth is you'll never be a first class human being until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty."

* LittleMissSnarker: Dinah especially in her first scene. Later in the movie she quips that she knows something is about to happen because she's being sent away.
* LoveConfessor: Sort of happens between Liz and Sandy in the play. In the movie, the scene is re-written to have Dexter assume that Liz is in love with Mike without asking explicitly.

* NiceMeanAndInbetween: played with in regard of the three suitors. At first George is nice, Dexter is mean and Mike is inbetween. By the end, George is revealed in his true BitchInSheepsClothing colors, becoming the main mean guy. Mike is the decent nice guy, and Dexter falls in between.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Playwright Philip Barry based the character of Tracy on Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, a Main Line Philadelphia socialite famous for throwing lavish parties at her family's 800 acre farm estate in Radnor.

* {{Revenge}}: Mike (incorrectly) assumes this is Dexter's reason for co-operating with Sidney Kidd.

* AwesomeMcCoolname:
** C.K. Dexter Haven. Made even more awesome by the fact that we [[NoNameGiven don't know what the C.K. stands for.]]
** Well, "''Macaulay'' Connor is no homespun tag". His father taught English history, indeed. But he's Mike to his friends.

* FullNameBasis: In one drunken scene, Mike addresses Dexter exclusively by his full name. [[AwesomeMcCoolname Probably because he really likes saying it.]]

* AlcoholHic: Jimmy Stewart's improvised AlcoholHic almost got Cary Grant {{corpsing}}. Which was what Stewart was trying to do, naturally. Lampshaded by Mike's line "I have the hiccups".

* {{Corpsing}}: During the scene where James Stewart hiccups when drunk, you can see Cary Grant looking down and grinning. Since the hiccup wasn't scripted, Grant was on the verge of breaking out laughing and had to compose himself quickly.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Uncle Willy towards Liz.

* NiceMeanAndInbetween: played with in regard of the three suitors. At first George is nice, Dexter is mean and Mike is inbetween. By the end, George is revealed in his true BitchInSheepsClothing colors, becoming the main mean guy. Mike is the decent nice guy, and Dexter falls inbetween.

Later remade as the 1956 {{musical}} film ''Film/HighSociety'', starring Creator/GraceKelly, Creator/BingCrosby, and Music/FrankSinatra in the Hepburn, Grant, and Stewart roles. Not to be confused with the 1993 Tom Hanks movie ''{{Film/Philadelphia}}'', or the 1984 science fiction film ''Film/ThePhiladelphiaExperiment''.

* WeddingDay: The story ends on the day of Tracy's wedding.

* ComedyOfRemarriage: Dealing with Tracy and Dexter.

* BeautifulDreamer: Dexter watches Tracy sleep in the car and wipers "You look beautiful, Red."

* GoshDangItToHeck: It's from UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode era.

* [[Paparazzi]]: Mike and Liz.