SPENCER TRACY - October, 2012 SOTM

[JackFavell]

I hope no one will mind my starting this thread, but I got excited because Spencer Tracy is SOTM this October. Since there are many Fox movies listed on this first day of the tribute that aren't shown too often, I thought I'd mention it. The Spence fest doesn't stop at 6 am, but continues on till Tuesday afternoon, so set up your recorders accordingly. All times listed as ET.


Monday, October 1st, 2012

6:30 PM The Spencer Tracy Legacy (1987)
Katharine Hepburn pays tribute to one of the screen's most natural actors, Spencer Tracy.
Dir: David Heeley Cast: Katharine Hepburn , Elizabeth Taylor , Frank Sinatra
C-87 mins, TV-G, CC,

8:00 PM Me and My Gal (1932)
A New York cop's love of a waitress is threatened by her sister's affair with a gangster.
Dir: Raoul Walsh Cast: Spencer Tracy , Joan Bennett , Marion Burns
BW-80 mins, TV-PG, CC,

9:30 PM A Man's Castle (1933)
An unemployed man turns to crime when he gets his girlfriend pregnant.
Dir: Frank Borzage Cast: Spencer Tracy , Loretta Young , Marjorie Rambeau
BW-69 mins, TV-PG,

11:00 PM The Power and the Glory (1933)
A man rises to run a railroad company at the cost of his family ties.
Dir: William K. Howard Cast: Spencer Tracy , Colleen Moore , Ralph Morgan .
BW-76 mins, TV-PG, CC,

12:30 AM Dante's Inferno (1935)
A carny builds a gambling empire at the expense of his family's well being.
Dir: Harry Lachman Cast: Spencer Tracy , Claire Trevor , Henry B. Walthall
BW-89 mins, TV-PG,

2:00 AM 20,000 Years In Sing Sing (1932)
When his girl commits murder, a hardened criminal takes the rap to protect her honor.
Dir: Michael Curtiz Cast: Spencer Tracy , Bette Davis , Arthur Byron
BW-78 mins, TV-PG, CC,

3:30 AM The Show-Off (1934)
A man's loud-mouthed bumbling almost ruins his new wife's family.
Dir: Charles F. Riesner Cast: Spencer Tracy , Madge Evans , Henry Wadsworth
BW-77 mins, TV-G,

5:00 AM The Murder Man (1935)
A hard-drinking reporter specializes in murder cases, until he becomes a suspect in one himself.
Dir: Tim Whelan Cast: Spencer Tracy , Virginia Bruce , Lionel Atwill
BW-69 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Tuesday October 2nd

6:15 AM Whipsaw (1935)
A G-man woos the sole female member of a criminal gang.
Dir: Sam Wood Cast: Myrna Loy , Spencer Tracy , Harvey Stephens
BW-82 mins, TV-G,

7:45 AM Riffraff (1936)
Young marrieds in the fishing business run afoul of the law.
Dir: J. Walter Ruben Cast: Jean Harlow , Spencer Tracy , Una Merkel
BW-94 mins, TV-G, CC,

9:30 AM Big City (1937)
An honest cab driver fights against corruption.
Dir: Frank Borzage Cast: Luise Rainer , Spencer Tracy , Charley Grapewin
BW-80 mins, TV-PG,

11:00 AM Mannequin (1937)
A small-time crook's wife falls for a shipping magnate.
Dir: Frank Borzage Cast: Joan Crawford , Spencer Tracy , Alan Curtis
BW-95 mins, TV-PG, CC,

12:45 PM They Gave Him A Gun (1937)
With no other prospects, a World War I veteran turns to crime.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II Cast: Spencer Tracy , Gladys George , Franchot Tone
BW-95 mins, TV-PG, CC,

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd love to see Me and My Girl, so many of Tracy's early films are hard to get hold of and from what I've seen of his early work I really like. Have a happy couple of days viewing.

I'd love to know how you guys ever find the time to go to work or clean the house

[JackFavell]

Some of us don't ever get to the housework.....

[CineMaven]

I'm retired. And I still don't do housework...........

[MissGoddess]

the first two days programming are the most exciting because of the rarities. spence was quite often in his "lug" phase, which he could do like no other. you'd think he was born right in the middle of hell's kitchen or something, he's so brash and full of himself, but then out pops that childlike "Now what did I do?". he's never out to hurt anyone, he's just plowing ahead without brakes. it takes a special personality for me to swallow that "type", so many turn me off with it (Lee Tracy comes to mind). but Tracy makes them real people with a soft center that's always accessible.

I'm most looking forward to The Show-Off and Dante's Inferno, both of which I haven't seen in forever. I highly recommend Me and My Gal, which I posted about a year ago at TCM when I found it on youtube before it deputed at an Italian film fest and has gotten lots of "buzz". It's very typical of Walsh, free wheeling, full of vigor and humor and heart. Tracy and Joan are great, and I love J. Farrell MacDonald, as always.

Dante's Inferno is one of the most unusual films Tracy ever made. Quite fascinating, proving that right from the start when he was at Fox, he was given the assignments actors hope for.

[Rita Hayworth]

I am looking forward to Dante Inferno too ...

[RedRiver]

It could be argued Tracy was Hollywood's greatest actor. I won't say that flat-out. Some others were just as good. But none were better. It's become cliche to say "he brought the character to life." But that's just what happened. The depth, the quirks, the timing. And the reacting. A Tracy character didn't say things because they were in the script. He said them because there was a reason to say them. He looked us right in the eye and we became part of the story.

As sensitive as he is in JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER and BOYS TOWN; as blunt and hard-nosed as his roles in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, THE LAST HURRAH and THE ACTRESS, there's one performance that stands out, even for this talent. His volcanic attorney in INHERIT THE WIND is Spencer Tracy on steroids! It's a role that showcases this amazing actor, and one that leaves the viewer exhausted. It's one of the great screen performances.

[sandykaypax]

I'm thrilled that Tracy is SOTM in October. I am really looking forward to seeing more of his early films. I have the dvr set to record For Me and My Gal and A Man's Castle while I am at rehearsal tonight. Glad to see the recommendation of For Me and My Gal from April. I know that I will skip The Show-Off, as I've seen that one already. Anyone else have any recommendations for tonight's and tomorrow's films?

Sandy K

[MissGoddess]

Sandy, along with Dante's Inferno, I also am partial to They Gave Him a Gun playing Tuesday morning.

[movieman1957]

Tracy is one of my favorites. I always thought all the wisdom of the world had been carefully stored in him. Red, I like him in "Inherit The Wind." I could get by just watching the court room scenes but he is terrific. I always thought March had the more thankless role. His "Brady" doesn't come across as being in the same intellectual league but he handles it well too.

I love "Bad Day." I'm looking forward to seeing some of his earlier films as most of them I haven't seen in more than 20 years. There's a lot to see though.

[MissGoddess]

I always thought all the wisdom of the world had been carefully stored in him.
chris you always have a way of putting everything in one sentence...that takes me 22 of them and still doesn't say it all like you just did.

of course, part of his charm for me is when he's myopic or obtuse; he does that so well and he can be mean about it or adorable!

[MissGoddess]

Re: Me and My Gal....i can't believe i didn't know that the sister's boyfriend was being played by Raoul's brother, George!

(I'm so glad Robert is hosting this SOTM).

[moira finnie]

I forgot how much I enjoyed the movie Me and My Gal.

Tracy brought something delightful out in Joan Bennett whenever they appeared together. I'm sure it didn't hurt that the director clearly loved all his characters either. The breaking of the fourth wall by J. Farrell MacDonald at the two weddings in the movie was an unexpected delight. Really an amusing and truly naturalistic pre-code. The little conversation about social economics between the down-and-outer and Tracy the cop was subversive and told you all you needed to know about the setting of the characters' lives without milking it all for pathos.

If you haven't seen Dante's Inferno (1935), be prepared for some minor shocks (blackface is one unsettling moment) and an oddball, pulpy story with a pointed reference to the Morro Castle disaster that had occurred just before this film was made. I really like the work of the director Harry Lachman, who did many B movies (The Man Who Lived Twice is very good), but also directed Laurel and Hardy, Shirley Temple and made several Charlie Chaplin movies. Lachman was also an accomplished artist who studied in Paris during and after WWI. His paintings still come up for auction today, but I believe that his artistic flair had its greatest expression in this movie with an amusement park attraction inspired by Gustave Doré's unforgettable illustrations for The Divine Comedy printed in the 19th century.

[charliechaplinfan]

It took me a while to fully appreciate him and I think it's because for a long time I'd only seen him in his comedies with Katharine Hepburn and a couple of MGM comedies, then I saw Man's Castle, Judgement at Nuremberg, Fury, Inherit The Wind and then saw him as the harrassed father in Father of the Bride. He could handle comedy so deftly and drama just as well. So many actors who worked with him, especially younger actors looked up to him as the actor's actor. I'd watch a film just because he was in it and there's lots out there to chose from.

[JackFavell]

I've been totally wrong about Tracy for some time. I thought, based on my opinions of years and years ago, when I first saw Tracy's precodes and Fox films, that Tracy was a bit broad in these films. Up through Fury and Riffraff, I was convinced that Tracy the mug had not yet quite figured out screen acting, that the man who let the camera come to him had not yet been born.

Watching last night, I realized that I was mistaken, I had made some suppositions that were based as usual on incomplete or outdated knowledge of the man's work. This is what I love about the SOTM series.... it proves my silly assumptions wrong almost every time.

Watching Man's Castle last night was an eye opener. I've seen part of it before, never the whole thing. I didn't care for the beginning, and never was able to stick around for the rest of the film. Well, I'm here to say, I was wrong to decide about this movie before having seen the whole thing through. It was marvelous.

Even more impressive to me, not because it was a better film, was The Power and the Glory. My feelings about Tracy's performance were intensified because the movie itself was flawed. It was good, but not great. Tracy's performance, and that of Colleen Moore, well they couldn't have been any better if the film had been made after Tracy had built up the image we now have of him, as the worlds greatest screen actor. In fact, I thought with just a few tiny reservations, Tracy's characterization of the older tycoon ranks with his best work and is eerily prescient of the man and actor he was to become. It doesn't hurt that his minimal makeup made him look exactly as he looked later on, in the Father of the Bride series for instance. He really was his older self, and it amazed me to see him as he was in Sea of Grass, or Bad Day at Black Rock, only 20 years earlier. There was the hard Tracy, the bitter Tracy and the sweet Tracy, but in a time that I had discounted as a learning curve for the actor.

I had read about the scene where he knelt down and prayed when his son was born, and how Colleen Moore had been unable to keep herself from weeping as he performed the simple scene that could have been maudlin and sentimental. How they had to film with her head turned away, and how she had to control the tears and keep her body from shaking with the emotion he stirred up in her as he performed. Well, it hit me like a ton of bricks anyway, even though I KNEW it was coming. Tracy slipped into the scene so casually and without note that I didn't even realize it was happening until he had reduced me to tears already. Simplicity, that's the key, and it would be the key all through his career. No theatrics, no fuss. Just a guy, speaking as if there was no camera watching, and nobody else there.

I know they are going to show Burt Reynold's interstitial this month, and it ALWAYS makes me cry (yes, I cry at everything... My Man Godfrey, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek are two examples of my bursting into tears at the ridiculous drop of a hat). I never thought Burt could do it, but the way he says, "I knew I walked in the presence of greatness. I knew then I might never be near another actor like him again. And I never have." - well, it also reduces me to tears. Because you and I know he's right. There will never be another Spencer Tracy.