“He reveals a quality that at first seems out of sync with the shy, stammering personality favored by nightclub imitators. He is debonair. He has the same humor and lightness of touch that Fred Astaire expresses only through dance. Stewart is debonair when dousing Miss Dietrich and Una Merkel with a bucketful of water (‘Destry Rides Again’) or confined to a wheelchair with one leg in a plaster cast (‘Rear Window’). He is debonair even when wrestling with terrible guilt and a sense of loss in ‘Vertigo.’ Also like Astaire when he dances, Stewart is best seen on the screen in full figure, with all of the lean 6-foot-3 1/2-inch man captured in a single frame. He acts with his whole body. The slight stoop and the way his wrinkled jacket hangs from his shoulders are as integral to his performance in ‘Harvey’ as any of playwright Mary Chase’s lines.”
—Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 1997
Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask. Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That’s what you’d see. There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that’s what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we’d better get those boys’ camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it’s not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again!
James Stewart and Ginger Rogers with their Oscars for The Philadelphia Story and Kitty Foyle, 1941.
