SPENCER TRACY - October, 2012 SOTM

[MissGoddess]

Too much of a drunk for Hemingway? That's drinking!

lots of people live without mirrors, maybe "papa" was one of them.

[charliechaplinfan]

I finished his biography last night, it's a tirbute to the man that a 1000 page book isn't at all dull, as well as to his biographer. When all was said and done I felt equally sorry for Kate and Louise when Spence passed away, a time when animosities could have boiled over both women behaved with so much dignity.

Curtis also devoted time to biographies of Kate, leaving the most words to the Mann book that I read, I do agree with his assessment, I thought the body of the work was well researched, there was an agenda underneath that I'd find it hard to think anyone would believe in.

[RedRiver]

lots of people live without mirrors

I know somebody who denies his drinking even if you don't ask. "I don't drink that much. A little wine in the evening." Um...OK. I didn't say anything!

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Allison, glad you were able to read the biography! An apparent agenda was not obvious to me, either, and I think that's always a biography that works for me.

[charliechaplinfan]

I hope you didn't misunderstand me Christy, I didn't see any agenda in Curtis's book about Spence apart from getting the truth across, it was Mann's biography of Kate which had the agenda. After reading both books I still think Katharine Hepburn is the tops and Spence, I wish he'd discovered how to enjoy what life gave him and not feel guilty about John's deafness, a nice but troubled man.

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Oh, no. Allison, I meant an apparent agenda with the Tracy biography. And I also felt equally sad for Louise and Kate.
I enjoyed how thoroughly each step of his career was researched and how his personal life was affected by his career and vice versa.

Kingrat, I also agree about the strength of Spence and Marlene in Judgment at Nuremberg. I also feel Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland have strong, evocative performances. Richard Widmark has his old standby role of the irascible agitator, and that is a role we've come to expect from him, but I see a much more nuanced edge to his contributions in that film.

I still want to see The People Against O'Hara. Missed it again.

[CineMaven]

HOW did they ever think of casting Tracy in "IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD"? I've never seen it...and yesterday watched just the last jaw dropping twenty-minutes of it. O.M.G.!

[Rita Hayworth]

HOW did they ever think of casting Tracy in "IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD"? I've never seen it...and yesterday watched just the last jaw dropping twenty-minutes of it. O.M.G.!

I have the DVD of that Movie Thersea ... and it's one of my favorite movies of all time ... and I watch it at least once a year and never get tired of it.

Stanley Kramer's Masterpiece of a comic caper involving $350,000.00 in cash!

[MissGoddess]

It's been a long, long, long, long time since I saw It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but I remember it giving me some huge laughs at the time. I think it was Jimmy Durante literally "kicking the bucket" that had me rolling. Milton Berle and Ethel Mermen are hilarious together.

[CineMaven]

Ahhhh, the Merm. ( I make many references to her in "Meg Ramsey" believe it or not. ) What a good sense of humor she had to be the brunt of jokes. I only saw a little of it the other day Miss G., and I was shocked as to how many comics there were in it...so Tracy's appearance seemed wild and weird. And that ending with the car/cab chase...up the staircase in that bldg. and the guys on the firetruck ladder kept going on and on and building and building.

I've got to try & catch it sometime.

[RedRiver]

The performances in "Nuremberg" are outstanding. Especially Tracy, as always. But Clift and Dietrich are fine as well. And I like old Burt The Squirt! He was a more versatile actor than one might suspect from his dashing hero roles.

[charliechaplinfan]

Judgement at Nuremberg is a heck of a film, there's not a dud note in the whole movie and every performance is spot on.

Kingrat, I felt that the Mann biography was well researched but he didn't convince me on Kate's love life, I wasn't convinced that she had affairs with some of the people he said she had affairs with, I didn't feel that he had evidence for anything above a friendship. I wasn't convinced about Spence's wavering sexuality either, Curtis makes him out to be very much a ladies man either. The rest I thought was very well written, I just felt Mann wanted to present Kate as bisexual for his own reasons rather than the absolute truth. I don't regret reading it, I would advise the reader to find their own way with it.

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Cinemaven, I think because every comic who could run, crawl, or bicycle to the set seemed to make an appearance in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Tracy HAD to be enlisted to give it all some sort of credibility.

Possible Maven spoiler: But the "Merm" falling on her kister after all the grief she gave EVERYBODY she encountered was the funniest. I think we all wanted to see her go Kaboom. It was the only way to wind up the whole "shebang!"

Allison, I also feel that Mann's agenda about Kate didn't quite equate with sincerity of motive. The sources on some of his assertions wavered too much for my archival guidelines.

[RedRiver]

I have wavering sexuality. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I don't!