SPENCER TRACY - October, 2012 SOTM

[CineMaven]

Besides Colbert being slated for “State of the Union” I think she was also s’posed to be in “All About Eve” too right? Bette was so magnificent, I can’t imagine the casting director even considering Colbert. I see what you mean about Connery’s darkness and cruelty. They never let him play too many light-hearted parts, true. I think the spectrum is wide enough to include Gable, Connery, Wally Cox and many colours of the rainbow. There’s room for everybody; even Charles Lane and S.Z. Sakall. Hope you find your “Boom Town” dvd. Whew! When something goes missing in your house...it really is lost! It's like the Bermuda Triangle.

By the by...you ought to see Melvyn Douglas in “HUD.”

[JackFavell]

I like Douglas in Theodora Goes Wild, Hud and The Candidate. And Ninotchka. He's not a hunk but there is something to be said for his style. Oh, and I forgot him as best friend/rival in Mr. Blandings. He and Cary are hilarious together in that one, they should have made more comedies together.

[RedRiver]

Melvyn Douglas was more interesting as an older man. He's wonderful in HUD. Comes out of nowhere in BEING THERE. (Dude! Where have you been?) Isn't he the aging statesman in Alan Alda's THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN?

Ed Begley was so passionately evil it was disturbing. As if he really enjoyed being mean. He's a less threatening judge when presiding over Rob Petrie's lawsuit. CHEAP, CHOPPED CHICKEN FEATHERS!

[MissGoddess]

He's a less threatening judge when presiding over Rob Petrie's lawsuit. CHEAP, CHOPPED CHICKEN FEATHERS!

ha haaaa! love "the case of the pillow".

[charliechaplinfan]

When something gets lost it does get lost in our house. It's usually down to the boy but now we have the dog too, who knows were things go to. I wouldn't mind as much if I'd finished the film but I hadn't I was half way through.

I couldn't work out Spencer's character either. Was it sheer bloody mindedness that made him keep Kate's son? It would have been his right in 1880. Couldn't he see she loved him? for so many years he was blinded to it. I quite like the way they put across about Kate's b****** child in 1947, surely these things were outlawed by the code? Yet they handled it nicely. I did get the impression that Spence was perhaps doing the gentlemanly thing by making this movie, it was a great part for Kate but a bit muddled for him, what there was of his emigmatic character he put across well. Kazan had said that Spence was too over weight for the role, as was the horse he rode but he did look comfortable on a horse.

Melvyn Douglas, I haven't seen Hud yet, one I've wanted to watch for a while. When I think of the screwball comedies he's just not as powerful in comparison to Cary, Charles Boyer, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and Fredric March. I'm glad to see him hitting his stride as he got maturer roles.

[Western Guy]

But no one can deny Melvyn was very good in NINOTCHKA.

[JackFavell]

Whenever there's a question about Melvyn Douglas and why he was a star I pull out this very enjoyable article. It made me realize I like him better than I think I do.

http://www.thescreamonline.com/commenta ... suave.html

[charliechaplinfan]

That's a good article on him and Theodora, I need to watch that one again, I felt Theodora grated towards the end.

Ninotchka, I watched Silk Stockings first and the coloured me, I love Silk Stockings, I never thought I'd prefer any other actress to Garbo but Cyd's dancing gets me every time.

I was thinking again about Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy for me is very close to her in screen type, both had to adapt to the mother roles but Myrna was still sexy, think of The Best Years of Our Lives and Mr Blandings, I don't get that feeling with Claudette but that oh la la, was stronger in her than almost any other precode actress.

I carried on with my Spencer Tracy viewing picking out The People Against O'Hara #spoilers ahead# and I had mixed feelings about this one. I love crime films done well, with character actors and supporting actors galore. Spence plays a recovering alcoholic lawyer who is trying to get into civil practice after coming apart on his last case as a criminal lawyer, when called on by an old client he can't resist the case of a young boy who is up on a murder rap, he won't admit where he'd been and his alibi was shot full of holes. It had so much going for it and started strongly, has some beautiful location work but after the trial the story starts to come apart and the ending, the noble alcoholic phoning his daughter from a very dangerous assignment then copping it. It just didn't fit, it felt like someone was trying to tag a message on which wasn't clear. Spence's performance is good a always, I completely believe in his alcoholic lawyer and cared about his drinking like his daughter does and shudder when he tries to buy off a witness, which is the only justification for his death I can think of in this rather strange film from MGM.

[MissGoddess]

I like The People Against O'Hara for Spencer's character and the relationship with his daughter, also some interesting scenes at the docks with the mob element. I also love seeing such a young and green "Marshall Dillon".

[RedRiver]

"O'Hara" sounds interesting. What's the release date on that? There weren't a lot of stories about recovery in The Golden Age. The theme reminds me of Paul Newman in THE VERDICT, a thoughtful, if overloaded, legal drama.

[MissGoddess]

The People Against O'Hara was released in 1951. I thought Director John Sturges did a good job with it.

[charliechaplinfan]

It puzzled me, it was one of Dore Schary's films but it doesn't have all the elements that qualify it as a noir film, it is an interesting legal drama and Spence's character is quite complex and well played, the end just didn't match up to the preceeding 5 6ths, it felt like they didn't quite know how to tie it up and I didn't see any nobility in the ending. Perhaps it's because we see alcoholism and alcoholics differently, now we know it's a disease, in those days it was seen as a weakness and I suppose from that point of view it makes more sense.

[moira finnie]

Perhaps it's because we see alcoholism and alcoholics differently, now we know it's a disease, in those days it was seen as a weakness and I suppose from that point of view it makes more sense.

I don't think that alcoholism was seen simply as a weakness of character in the early '50s. By then there were more programs available to help people. Alcoholics Anonymous in particular was widely known then and word of it was spreading throughout the western world rapidly after WWII. Movies were particularly good at educating audiences about the issue and some possible solutions to alcoholism. In the same time period when The People Against O'Hara was made other movies addressing the ability of characters to overcome alcoholism included Come Fill the Cup (1951), Night Into Morning (1951), Something to Live For (1952), and Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), to name a few.

Maybe part of the problem with The People Against O'Hara was the closeness of the material to Tracy's own life and the actor's pained, low energy performance. His character's sense of guilt for all that has gone wrong in his life overwhelms his spirit, which is visually reinforced by the choice by John Sturges & cinematographer John Alton to photograph this story in beautifully composed scenes of almost impenetrable darkness (see the scene when Tracy is sitting alone in the living room). There is also almost no humor (not even any welcome sarcasm) to leaven and color the story. I don't think that Tracy's Curtayne saw his own death as noble, but as a release from pain (and an awful awareness of his failings) and payment for his dishonorable actions. This may not be material guaranteed to go over as sure-fire entertainment, unless the story is more character-driven than shaped by plot. This movie actually seemed to have had more (and boring) plot than was needed for a character piece.

Tracy and his character of James P. Curtayne share a bleak, Manicheistic viewpoint of the world and their own failures that is almost impossible to translate into a dynamic movie (though I sure would like to know what NY lawyer Eleazar Lipsky's novel was like, esp. since Lipsky also wrote Kiss of Death). The film lacks a certain energy, though I like it as a kind of brooding flick to watch on a rainy day. Interestingly, this movie, which seems to belong to John Sturges' long apprenticeship, lacks the narrative drive and splendid action sequences that characterize Sturges best later work, including Bad Day at Black Rock, again with Tracy. Most of the cast in PAO'H is excellent (Jay C. Flippen is outstanding as the sailor). I do think that the casting of Curtayne's daughter was unfortunate. Diana Lynn was a terrific addition in comedies such as The Major and the Minor and especially The Miracle of Morgan Creek--which I think she stole from all the other actors. With her expressive face, and gift for commentary with just a glance, she is an unsung delight in such films, but does she have the personal gravitas for this grim material? I don't think so. On top of this, her underwritten part asked her to be a martyr to her father's illness, a disappointment to her fiance Richard Anderson, and also to convey the tension inherent in being a typical, perfectly groomed MGM well-mannered, marriageable cupcake young lady (LB Mayer may have been gone, but actresses in an MGM film still had that certain manufactured look in this period, even in wannabe film noirs). If only an Ann Francis, Gloria de Haven, or even a Janet Leigh had been cast in this part. Vulnerable and with an edge of toughness, they met the MGM criteria for good grooming and could still cast the shadow of a real person, complete with neuroses and the suggestion of an inner life.

[Bronxgirl48]

!!


Begley Sr. was on the Dick Van Dyke Show? That was one I don't remember! I never associate Ed with comedy, lol.

[charliechaplinfan]

Yes, Diana Lynn didn't come across in this one. It's hard to judge this one because I feel it wants to say something, I certainly saw Curtayne in a sympathetic light, perhaps it's the Tracy's characters usually are noble and that cheque book scene, I honestly thought he must be setting him up to reveal him as a dodgy witness in the trial. He did have the nobility and portrayed the torment of an alcoholic as only an alcoholic could but the ending, solving the case could have been a new dawn at least I think it would have worked better if it had. It's a good looking film and doesn't have any lightness, perhaps that was Diana's part in it.

Next came the turn of Pat and Mike, what I did like was Kate's athletic prowess although some of the scenes where over long for the non sports lover. I like Spence's somewhat Damon Runyonesque type character, Mike and adored Aldo Ray's character the boxer but the whole thing was a bit let down to me coming after Woman of the Year, Sea Of Grass, State of the Union and Adam's Rib which all felt much more well rounded films and characters. I liked Pat, especially when she knocked those two guys out, one being Charles Bronson, the best part in the whole film, Mike I wasn't as keen on and of all Spence's characters he's the one I belive in the least.