SPENCER TRACY - October, 2012 SOTM

[charliechaplinfan]

I've started the Spencer Tracy biography, so far so good, it's very detailed but it doesn't feel bogged down in endless detail but everything I've read so far is relevant and told so far from Louise's perspective.

One question to my buddies. If someone has a walk up in a rented building what exactly is it? I'm imagining lots of precode films with dingy flats at the top of house, am I right?

Count me in as one of Fay Bainter's fans too.

[JackFavell]

I think your description of a walk up is right on.

[moira finnie]

One question to my buddies. If someone has a walk up in a rented building what exactly is it? I'm imagining lots of precode films with dingy flats at the top of house, am I right?

That's not far off the mark. Sometimes these were very nice, but in the '20s-'40s these were often rented furnished apartments that allowed people with a bit of money to live comfortably and with more privacy than a boarding house offered (though landlords/ladies often occupied the ground floor apt. and kept tabs on people, a bit like the concierges who pop up in France at inconvenient moments back in the old days). Since people in the theater were often itinerant workers, there were certain places that catered to them and others that did not, since actors often had bad reputations for their style of living.

I'm glad that you are enjoying the book so far.

[charliechaplinfan]

Thanks, both of you.

I am enjoying the Curtis book, I'm waiting for the kids to go to bed so I can read some more in peace.

[MissGoddess]

I live in a "walk up" (sometimes known as a crawl-up if you're particularly tired that day). Dingy is a perfect description!

[charliechaplinfan]

They can look so romantic in some movies but I bet if you have a lots of groceries all the romance goes out of having one.

[moira finnie]

FYI: The TCM Shop is having a 24 hour sale taking off 30% from all Spencer Tracy DVDs for one day only, if anyone is interested.

[MissGoddess]

They can look so romantic in some movies but I bet if you have a lots of groceries all the romance goes out of having one.

doormen and elevators are MUCH more romantic!

[CineMaven]

Well...I don't loathe the film. It has moments of sad, stimulating drama. Unfortunately, there's also maudlin, relentless misery! Enough already! Get over it. The lead players are quite good. Aren't they always? You won't see me standing in line at a revival of this head-pounding. But I can't quite join the hater's club. It's better than THE AVENGERS!

The only part of the "haters' club" that I belong to is the scene in the kitchen. The rest of "WOMAN OF THE YEAR" ( for me ) is cherce.

I think the ending is funny! It's Spence's reactions, or rather his trying not to show his reactions that is so funny. But the best part of the ending isn't even that scene, it's what comes after...Spence throwing that rotten little "Nermal" down the stairs! And speaking for myself, I don't think I would trust Katharine Hepburn to cook anything.

Oh, he was a twit, wasn't he. For Tess' cooking, I'd say order take out. But you know what, I betcha Kate could cook. She's a Yankee gal. And she looks like she'd try to do her best at whatever she learned to do. I might take some homemade Yankee Bean Soup from her.

The only disappointment I have about the ending is Hepburn's surrender. For one who has been so in control through 9/10 of the movie to be so completely lost seems a bit out of character. I do think Tracy has some fun reactions but I'd like to think there was a better way for them to get where they ended up. At least the other guy ended up in the right place - the bottom of the stairs. Overall I like the movie...

I'm with you there, MM'57. I would have liked just a little bit of a different resolution to make Tess the hybrid Wife/Career-Woman. Maybe something like Tess & Sam walking to the kitchen where Tess says she's going to prepare him a nice breakfast of that and this and this and that with maple syrup on top. And Sam saying "YOU?! Uh...let's go out to eat." They clinch...kiss...kick little Nermo down the stairs on his keister, and fade out to a nice M-G-M ending. Sigh! Why can't we change what happened in 1942, I ask you?

There were a lot of movies at that time about "average" people vs. intellectual or "upper" class and Woman of the Year seemed to be another variation, this time with a gender spin to it. Standing on her own as a character, I found Tess Harding a bit too arrogant. She had no humility and looked down on people who were in fact better than her because they didn't treat people that way. I wish the ending had been more clever, too, not because of whether she could cook or not, but because she was a spoiled pain in the neck to be around and needed to grow up. Her treatment of the child was shoddy at best and showed that she regarded people only to be put to use for her benefit. She's extremely modern in this respect, since today people are full of self-importance like never before. She'd have reveled in this "me generation" and doubtless would have her own talk show.

Here, once again, the movies does this "let's-cut-this-'woman'-down-to-size" philosophy that that era espoused. Look at Hildy's last screen moments ( Rosalind Russell ) traipsing behind Walter ( Cary Grant...well, I guess I'd traipse too. ) Hopefully you got a chance to see "THE LAW IN HER HANDS" where Margaret Lindsay was also put in the position to choose. The movies had this kind of a way of "keeping women in their place" a bit, don't you think? Not celebrate being out there. No doubt...no doubt, Tess was a bit too, too. A bit of that superior attitude. I hear ya. ( Yucky! with that poor little boy.) She definitely did have lessons to learn ( a la Tracie Lord. ) It all was couched in her character learning humility...and her "place." At least her "place" in Spence's world, that is, if she wanted to fit into his world. Before the movie started, I think Tess was probably pretty well-respected at the paper and in the world. But when she wanted to do "AND" and not "EITHER / OR" is where she gets into "Cinema/Society Code" trouble.

I liked her friend, Fay Bainter, SO much more. She was a gracious lady, someone you could really imagine being worthy of being called "woman of the year". "This time, I want to be the prize."

...And don't get me started on Fay Bainter, she's a great, gracious favorite of mine, an extremely under-appreciated actress. I adore her.

...Count me in as one of Fay Bainter's fans too.

The beautiful...Fay Bainter.

Can you fit one more fan in the Bainter fan club? Aaaah Fay Bainter. She was one of the quiet great ones, wasn't she? Her touch was as light as a feather. Even at the end, in "THE CHILDREN'S HOUR" she still had "it." I enjoyed her in "CRY, HAVOC." I like the actor who played her husband in "Woman Of The Year," Minor Watson. He's no Sammykins, but a girl can't have EVERYTHING.

...doormen and elevators are MUCH more romantic!

I've got both where I live. But you've got to see my doorman.

[JackFavell]

I'm with you there, MM'57. I would have liked just a little bit of a different resolution to make Tess the hybrid Wife/Career-Woman. Maybe something like Tess & Sam walking to the kitchen where Tess says she's going to prepare him a nice breakfast of that and this and this and that with maple syrup on top. And Sam saying "YOU?! Uh...let's go out to eat." They clinch...kiss...kick little Nermo down the stairs on his keister, and fade out to a nice M-G-M ending. Sigh! Why can't we change what happened in 1942, I ask you?

I absolutely LOVE your ending, Maven! You are definitely in the right profession, - moviemaking.

[CineMaven]

Awwwww man...

[moira finnie]

If only you had been working at MGM back in 1941, CineMaven. We might love the ending of Woman of the Year instead of cringing whenever we see it. It's perfect.

[RedRiver]

I've never understood Hollywood's need to put women in their place. Of course, the system was run by men. But so what? Were they acting out their own fantasies? Catering to the dreams of the males in the audience? My objection is not socio-political. I'm not a bleeding heart. But this awkwardly inserted concept usually doesn't do the story any good. It's gratuitous.

HIS GIRL FRIDAY is splendid comedy. Hildy does want to get married. It more or less works that she is, once again, willing to follow her man. But The Misbehavin' Maven is right. What if this strong, determined reporter had set her own terms, and editor Cary realized he had met his match? That might have made for a stronger ending.

John Wayne is John Wayne. If outlaws and soldiers can't stand up to him, Maureen O'Hara's not going to get very far. Duke pretty much always gets his way, and gets a little rough doing it. He puts everybody in their place. Why not women? Cary, Spence and many of their counterparts would believably be more sensitive. If they weren't, they'd learn there were other fish in the cinematic sea!

[Bronxgirl48]

Tracy had one of those acting tricks Tag Gallagher alludes to that I've always noticed -- hesitations and stammers, the repetition of certain words that gave the illusion he was speaking naturally and not just following the script. (Jimmy Stewart did this too, lol, but then it became almost a self-parody later on) Spencer utilizes this bit of business in almost every movie I've seen him in.

[charliechaplinfan]

Do you think Woman of the Year was playing up to Kate Hepburn's image? She was known to be incredibly indepedent, a business woman going to New York and reinventing herself on stage with a role that was written for her emphasising what she wanted the public to believe about her but softening her old image too, Woman of the Year takes the old box office poison Hepburn down a peg or two and the plain speaking, no nonsense Tracy is the man who does it. Her sophisticated image is in the end overcome by Tracy's rugged manliness. I'm sure a film critic would put it far more eloquently but that's my impression.

I agree about the elevator April, they look even more romantic in old movies, especially those with the wrought iron railings around them.