Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The other day, I stumbled upon a morning full of Spencer Tracy movies on TCM.  When I saw that he starred in a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I had to check it out.  It may not have been his best film, or best performance, but it sure was fun.

Based off the old screenplay for the 1931 film more than the book by Robert Louis Stevenson, this Dr. Jekyll (Tracy) has a beautiful fiance, Beatrix (Lana Turner).  She is a well to do Victorian era daddy’s-girl and daddy (Donald Crisp) isn’t letting her go easily.  In fact, he doesn’t care for Jekyll, especially his experiments where he hopes to separate the good and evil in people.  As Jekyll continues his experiments, hoping to help a sick, possibly insane, man, he meets a tempting barkeep.  Ingrid Bergman plays Ivy, the saucy barkeep that puts Jekyll on the edge of forbidden desire.

When Jekyll has finished his tonic that can separate the good and evil in men, he decides to test it on himself.  The result is a version of Spencer Tracy with wild hair, bushy eyebrows, bad teeth, a crazy stare and bad manners.  This makes for a few very Wolfman-like transformation sequences.  The looks I found more amusing than scary, but Tracy’s performance as Hyde is wonderfully menacing and creepy.  Watching him slowly scare Bergman across the room is an amazing scene.

The film was nominated for a few Oscars.  They were best film editing, best music and best black and white cinematography.  The images of Jekyll/Hyde running in the London fog are beautiful.

This version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not very scary, but I could not pass up a film with both Tracy and Bergman.  Perhaps this can be a fun film to watch with children and introduce them to these classic stars.  Maybe they will be more frightened by Tracy’s Mr. Hyde than critics were, who mostly laughed.  If you have seen the 1931 film version, let me know how they compare.

“The moment is mine!”

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Coming home to break the big news of an engagement is stressful enough, but in Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, an emerging social issue was tossed in: interracial marriage.  John (Sidney Poitier) and Joey (Katharine Houghton) hope that the fact that she is white and he is black won’t be a big deal.  As they make their way from the airport, we see that it’s John who is more worried about how Joey’s parents will react to their racial differences.  Joey, young, naive and bubbly, thinks her parents will be fine with it.  After all, they have raised her to be this liberal and accepting.

It turns out, that this idea was better accepted in theory than in practice.  Joey’s mother Christina (Katharine Hepburn) is so excited for her daughter, until she actually gets a look at John.  The shot of her face dropping from happiness to shock is priceless.  When Joey’s father, Matt (Spencer Tracy) comes home, it takes him a moment to realize just what the situation is.  This is his daughter and only child, crushing her love won’t be easy, but when John tells Matt, in confidence from Joey, that he will not marry Joey without his approval, the decision carries even more weight.

As if things were not crazy enough, Joey tells John to invite his own parents over for dinner.  They don’t know that Joey is white and her parents weren’t expecting more guests.  For Tillie (Isabell Sanford), the family’s maid, who also happens to be black and doesn’t approve of John and Joey’s relationship, this is just more work and more racial tensions.  It’s obvious from the start that John doesn’t know how to talk to Tillie, but she’s not afraid to share her low opinion of him.

The best chemistry here, perhaps the best in film history, is between Tracy and Hepburn.  As the aging liberal parents coming face to face with their ideals, they are both gob smacked and confused.  While Christina is slowly being swept up in her daughter’s happiness of new-found love, Matt is looking at the cold facts of their society.  The pressure is on him to decide whether or not to approve of their marriage and he knows the huge obstacles the two will face for the rest of their lives.  What brings him to his final decision is remembering how it was to first fall in love with Christina.  A Tracy/Hepburn film never disappoints, and their final performance together, finished just months beforeTracy’s death is one of the most weighty and poignant of their careers.

Today interracial marriages are much more accepted than they were in 1967.  In recent years, the story has been flipped where the man was white and meeting the girl’s black family.  Unfortunately, 2005’s Guess Who just latched itself to tasteless stereotypes, making Ashton Kutcher a white-boy fish out of water.  Unless you’re into mediocrity, skip that and stay with the original classic.  But I wonder it it’s only a matter of time before this film is revamped for a homosexual couple.  It could be a great modern interpretation, or just another shameless remake with offensive gay jokes.  I think time will tell.

“I don’t think I’m going to faint, but I’ll sit down anyway.”

Test Pilot (Found!)

Test Pilot is a story where men put their lives at risk for the sake of aviation and women find that irresistible.  Clark Gable plays Jim, the cocky hotshot test pilot who tries to moonlight as a lady’s man.  Spencer Tracy is his right hand mechanic, Gunner, who spends most of his time keeping Jim on track with work and prying him away from the ladies.  When one of Jim’s test flights has mechanical trouble, he makes an emergency landing in a Kansas field and meets Ann, played by Myrna Loy.

A hunky pilot lands right in front of a little farmer’s daughter dreaming of more?  We know where this is going, but the writers decide to stretch this act out a bit.  See, Ann shouldn’t come off as easy and besides, she’s got herself a dopey farmer boyfriend.  She’ll just flirt with Jim for a while, have him take her out on the town to pick up Gunner (he’s got to get out there and fix the plane) and lead him on before the intro to farmer boyfriend.  Gunner sees the chemistry brewing when he arrives and being the sensible one, warns Ann against running off with Jim.  It seems she’s made the sensible choice when Jim starts his flight back to New York, but Jim is a loose cannon and turns around to whisk his sweet farm girl away.  They make a pit stop in Indianapolis to get married.

So now their married and can live happily ever after right?  Uh, no.  See, Jim and Gunner are roommates with no room, no money and Jim has a plane race on Thursday he has to be at or he’s fired.  Nothing like a new bride watching her hubby haggle for an apartment to share with his mechanic and then watching him in a death defying race.  Once Ann sees the dangers in Jim’s job she realizes the mistake she’s made.  Yes, we’re calling it a mistake here.  Who runs off their daddy’s farm to marry a man they’ve known for a day?  Dumb little girls who realize their husband could crash and die at work anytime, that’s who.  Have a nice honeymoon.

Though Jim wins, the race is a traumatising event for both Jim and Ann.  Now Ann realizes she could become a widow at anytime and is just waiting for Jim to die so she can be free.  How romantic.  And Jim goes on a long binge, all the way out to Chicago and loses all his winnings.  So much for providing for the new Mrs.

I realize how cynical I’m being about this film, I was siding with Gunner on everything.  He’s the one who’s got half a brain, yet no one listens to him until they realize what a mess they’ve stepped in.  Jim and Ann are lucky to have a guy like Gunner with them, he’s not going to sugar coat the rash things they’ve done, but he’ll stick by them until the end.

Sure, the plot is a little eye-rolling, but the plane scenes are fun and exciting.  Their edited so well that just a few seconds of plane footage against another few seconds can really put a story together.  The plane race scene is fast paced and the first time Ann can really see the dangers Jim faces.

To any classic film enthusiast, a film starring Clark Gable, Mirna Loy and Spencer Tracy is pure gold, no matter the air-headed plot.  It really is an enjoyable film because of these three great actors.  The fact that this film is hard to find makes it even more valuable.  Just keep checking TCM now and then, it was on last week it has to come back sometime.

“Just listen, I got so many words.”

Father of the Bride

“I would like to say a few words about weddings. I’ve just been through one. Not my own. My daughter’s. Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence…”

Weddings are everything a daughter dreams of and a father dreads.  With  so many bridal shows today only building up the bride, I’m afraid of how many modern brides are forgetting about their fathers.  The average wedding today is about $25, 000, a price that would bring Spencer Tracy’s Mr. Banks a swift heart attack.  Though today’s weddings bend rules more and more, there are still those who keep to the tradition of letting the bride’s father foot the bill.  Father of the Bride shows that there’s more stresses and sacrifices than money for the lovable patriarch.

The whole film keeps to the perspective of Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy) from first hearing about his only daughter’s new boyfriend, through the stressful planning and all the wedding festivities.  Regularly, Stanley’s inner thoughts will enter over a scene, “You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you…”  It’s important to understand what Stanley is going through, how he comprehends this wedding and his motives behind all his actions.  No matter the price or the stress, one thing stays constant: he wants his daughter to be happy.

Most will remember the 1991 remake staring Steve Martin better than the original.  The remake sticks closely to the original script but adds Martin’s brand of comedy and updates a some details into the 90’s.  While I applaud keeping this lovable story alive for new generations, the idea of a sequel made me cringe, even as a child.

While I still love Martin and appreciate his interpretation, he’s no match for the wonderful Spencer Tracy.  He runs the film as his character is pushed by a runaway wedding.  On the surface, without aid of his internal thoughts, Tracy makes Stanley look like a cranky old man at times, “Orchestra?  No you’ve got the wrong number.”  When he is with his daughter, the hard surface melts away, he tries to make everything perfect for her and he becomes a big sweetheart.  None of these moments are overtly sweet or “awww” inducing, but simply wonderful and  heartwarming.  This perfect balance between cheap, cranky, sweet and lovable earned Tracy an Oscar nomination for best actor.

The nightmare Stanley has the night before the wedding is partially designed by Salador Dali.  After Dali’s hand in Spellbound, he was reluctant to work with another Hollywood film.  The images are less intense than Dali’s usual work.  In it, Stanley arrives late for the wedding, people glare and scowl at him and he sees the silhouettes of the couple and preacher.  As he tries to go down the checkerboard aisle, the floor sinks beneath him, pulls him down ripping his pants and stretching his leg.  He struggles futilely and is awakened when his daughter turns around and screams at the sight of him.  This scene is only about a minute long, but the idea from the images are clear: Stanley is nervous and reluctant to admit that his daughter is grown up.  I wonder how many brides father’s have had similar nightmares.

The original Father of the Bride is absolutely wonderful, charming and perfectly sweet.  If you have a wedding in the near future, you must see this film, don’t settle for Steve Martin.  And all you Bridezillas out there better thank your dads for putting up with all that you do.  Though he doesn’t really need the praise, it’s nice to know that he’s appreciated through this hard transitional period that is a wedding.

“But she’s not a woman. She’s still a child. And she’s leaving us.”

Boys Town

In 1917, Father Edward Flanagan founded and built Boys Town, a nonprofit orphanage for boys between 10 and 16, just outside of Omaha Nebraska.  The orphanage led a new wave of youth care methods by emphasizing the importance of social preparation and letting the boys run the facility’s day-to-day operations.  Today, Boys Town still runs, not only as an orphanage but as a center for troubled youth.

In the film, the idea of a center to help orphaned boys comes to Father Flanagan (Spencer Tracy) after he visits a man on death row.  With eternity only forty-five minutes away, he tells Flanagan that he was a homeless boy who had to learn to be tough to survive and the habits have stuck, now he has to be put down to pay his debt to the state.  But where was the state back when he was a boy with no home, purpose or direction?  With the man’s words still haunting him, Flanagan sees a group of boys fighting in the streets over some bread and break a window.  Rather than let the boys be sent to reform school, he asks for custody of them, planting the seeds of Boys Town with just five boys in a rented house.

We’re shown the humble beginnings and good fortune of Boys Town.  On the center’s first Christmas, Flanagan can only afford to bring the boys corn mush on their Christmas dinner.  Just as the boys’ faces are drooping, their friend Mr. Morris (Henry Hull) arrives with turkey and gifts for the boys.  It seems the community supports Flanagan when he needs it most.

As Boys Town expands to two hundred acres outside Omaha,  the facility becomes increasingly more important to the boys, but also more financially insecure.  Flanagan tries not to let such details interfere with the boys’ lives.  One of my favorite scenes is when the Town’s youngest member, PeeWee (Bobs Watson) comes into Flanagan’s office during an important financial meeting.  Flanagan has told PeeWee that every day he’s a good boy he can have a piece of candy so he puts the meeting on hold to play the Hot-and-Cold game with PeeWee and encourage his good behavior.  Flanagan has his priorities in perfect order.

The real conflict of the story comes in when jailed gangster, Joe Marsh (Edward Norris), asks Father Flanagan to take his little brother, Whitey (Mickey Rooney), to Boys Town.  Joe wants Whitey to go straight and not turn out like he already has.  But Whitey doesn’t go willingly and already has a tough-guy gangster mentality.  He makes Flanagan question his “there’s no such thing as a bad boy” motto and it will take the whole community to turn Whitey around.

Spencer Tracy won his second consecutive Oscar for Best Actor in his role as Father Flanagan.  The way he works with children is wonderfully sweet, especially in scenes with little PeeWee.  The way he runs Boys Town, Flanagan has to be more than a priest.  Not only does he  runs the place and take charge of the struggling finances, but we see him as an advisor, father figure, teacher and a referee.  One of my favorite moments was in his initial scene with Rooney.  Whitey tries to run away from Flanagan, but almost surprisingly, Flanagan trips him and says “Why don’t you stop acting like a kid?”  It’s wonderful to see a character who is so caring but isn’t afraid to show that he won’t be taking any bull.

I absolutely loved this film.  Tracy is always a joy to watch and here he is especially wonderful.  I would suggest Boys Town as a family film, there might be a few tears around the middle, but nothing to really console your kids over.  Everyone should know the story of Boys Town and the gracious Father Flanagan.

“I know that a mother can take a whip to the toughest boy in the world, and he forgets it because he knows that she loves him.”

Missing from 1938

Out of the ten nominated films from 1938, three cannot be found at the moment:  Test Pilot, Four Daughters and The Citadel.  I must say, I’m especially upset at not finding Test Pilot, which stars Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy.  These three actors have become new favorites of mine over the course of this project, especially Tracy.  If anyone has any leads on any of the the missing film, I’d consider it a very welcomed late holiday gift.

How the West Was Won

Do kids still play Cowboys and Indians today?  I’m guessing that game was at it’s peak around the early sixties with the abundance of Westerns in theaters throughout the fifties.  From what I remember, the game was basically the Indians making a bunch of noise and throwing pretend arrows or tomahawks at the cowboys who would eventually win by shooting the Indians with their pistols.  It was assumed, unless I decided to argue some history and yell, “Custer’s Last Stand!” that the cowboys were the good guys and would always win.  There are so many more interesting old west situations for kids to think up, maybe after seeing How the West Was Won kids became a little more creative with their games.

The story, narrated by Spencer Tracy, follows the Prescott family through fifty years in the old west.  Around the 1830’s the family sets westward on the Erie Canal and loses the mother and father when their raft gets into rapids.  From there, sisters Eve (Carroll Baker) and Lilly (Debbie Reynolds) split.  Eve marries Linus (James Stewart), a mountain man who has helped the family along the river, and sets up a farm where their parents are buried.  Meanwhile, Lilly continues westward, eventually landing in California to make and lose a fortune during the Gold Rush.  The Civil War brings tough choices to Eve and her boys.  Later, her son Zeb (George Peppard) becomes a Marshal trying to keep peace between the Indians and the men building a railroad right through their hunting grounds.

This film tries to be as big as all of the old west.  There’s pioneers, mountain men, cowboys, Indians, wagon trains, the Civil War, the Gold Rush, train bandits and a buffalo stampede.  Problem is it just feels like Hollywood just trying to make the biggest western ever and teach some history.  I don’t think they taught it too well, but giving John Wayne the role of General William Tecumseh Sherman will keep the kids from getting bored with their learning.

You might notice that the whole film looks like a panoramic postcard that got folded into thirds.  That’s because this is a Cinerama film, which was to be shown specifically at a Cinerama theater.  It was where three 35mm reels simultaneously projected onto a curved screen, like a non-digital IMAX of the 50s and 60s.  I’m sure it was a sight to see back then, but consequently, on all other mediums save for their specific screens there is that annoying “crease” where the separate films meet.  It’s a great idea, I was rather impressed reading about this idea, but the crease does take some getting used to.

I must say that the buffalo stampede is an amazing scene.  You will not believe how many buffalo are running around, I was completely gobsmacked.  And the angles of this captured on film are so daring, I wondered how many of their cameras were just trampled.  If epic westerns or stories of old western history don’t catch your attention, just skip straight to the stampede scene, crank up the stereo and watch it over and over.  It’s by far the best part of the film.

“This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But, the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.”

Captains Courageous

How do you teach a spoiled brat some respect?  Throw him aboard a fishing boat.

That’s what happens to young Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew).  When we first meet the boy, he’s spoiled rotten and believes that his father’s money can get him anything.  He uses it as a threat against boys who won’t let them into their club and even tries to bribe one of his teachers.  Somehow all this has gone over Mr. Cheyne’s head and when he gets word of his son’s behavior it makes him look like a negligent fool.  So the Cheynes set off on a ship to England for the summer, where the father hopes to teach his boy some more respectable behavior.  There doesn’t seem much hope of that until Harvey falls overboard the ship and is rescued by a Massachusetts fisherman in a rowboat, Manuel (Spencer Tracy).

Once Harvey wakes up and realizes he’s on a fishing boat, he starts barking orders to the men, claiming that if they don’t return him to land his father will put all of them in jail.  The fact is that the ship has just started their summer catch won’t go back to port until after they’ve filled the boat with fish, so either Harvey can help them get some fish for the summer or pout for three months.  For a while, he chooses to pout, making everyone miserable and refusing to work.  The captain gets tired of it and since Manuel brought the kid aboard, he will have to make him work.

Manuel becomes Harvey’s mentor, teaching him everything about the ship and how to catch fish.  Once Harvey drops his brat act, they begin to get along well.  It isn’t long into their journey that Manuel has become the strong father figure Harvey has needed all his life.

Manuel is a crazy salt with broken English, a huge heart, who sings and plays an old instrument his father gave him.   He is a lovely kind of eccentric person who’s so passionate and full of life narrow minded little Harvey can’t even comprehend it for a while, so at first he must criticize it.  Through and through Tracy brings such a wonderfully positive attitude to Manuel it’s infectious, even contagious to bratty little Harvey.  It’s with all these simple, honest, loveable characteristics that just radiate out of Tracy that he easily won the Best Actor award.  Since watching this film, Manuel has become one of my favorite positive characters in film.

There’s something intriguing about the way the camera can move.  At times, it’s tilted to suggest the angle of the boat, other’s it seems to cut parts of people’s faces off, yet it never bothered me.  It bobs along with the waves, all I needed was a fan and some salty sea water misting in now and then.

I absolutely loved this film, a new addition to my favorites list since starting this project.  The story is engaging and uplifting while filled with peril and a grand sense of adventure and shows the fruits of a good work ethic.  Best of all, Tracy’s Manuel will be loved by all, he’s such an interesting and lovable character, one we want to live up to.  I would recommend watching Captains Courageous with the kiddies, but have a little speech ready about going to heaven.  Even I nearly cried.

In the end, you know Harvey wrote the most intriguing “What I did over summer vacation” essay in his class.  And for once he didn’t lord it over his mates.  And if they didn’t believe him, I would’ve shown off the scars.

“15 years I’ve been fisherman, first time I catch fish like you.”

San Francisco

Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Jeanette MacDonald star in this film immortalizing one of the greatest cities on the west coast.  The film opens on New Years, 1906, being celebrated in the streets.  It’s joyful chaos with everyone dancing and singing together and streamers falling like snow, but then a fire breaks out (hint of foreshadow history buffs) and we watch children jump from a burning building onto the firemen’s trampoline.  Plenty of action, and we haven’t even found a plot yet!

The story rolls out at The Paradise Café, a club owned by Blackie Norton (Gable), one of the roughest, most Godless men in San Francisco.  Mary Blake (MacDonald) comes in looking for a job as a singer.  Blackie hires her, even though her voice isn’t exactly nightclub material.  One night, two men from the Tivoli Opera House see Mary and offer her a job singing opera.  This seems like Mary’s dream come true, but Blackie reminds the men she’s under a contract with him.  How sad, she’s got too much talent for a gin joint.

Between her numbers at The Paradise, Mary helps out singing at a local church.  There she meets Father Tim (Tracy).  He takes an interest in Mary for many reasons.  One, he worries about a good church girl singing in a bar.  Two, he also sees she’s better suited for opera.  And three, Father Tim and Blackie grew up together and he’s seen all sides of Blackie, including when he turned away from the ideas of church and God and the time he anonymously donated a new organ to the church.  He thinks that Blackie is “ashamed of his good deeds as others are ashamed of their sins.”

So that’s the set up.  What ensues is a tug of war for Mary’s heart and talent between Blackie and one of the opera managers.  Later, at a fundraiser dinner after Blackie’s Paradise is shut down and all his performers in jail, Mary volunteers to represent his establishment and sings San Francisco.  Just when it looks like Blackie does have a loyal friend willing to help him, he rejects the charity and like an act of God, the great earthquake of 1906 hits.

I hope I haven’t given away too much of the story, but I wanted to be able to talk about the earthquake.  There should have been a special effects award back in ’36, cause San Francisco would have won easily with the earthquake scene.  Buildings crumble, walls fall on actors, the ground even splits, it’s really more than I expected.

The earthquake is really a 180 turn in the film, suddenly all that stuff about pride doesn’t matter anymore when people are stuck under rubble and there’s no water to put out the growing fire.  As Blackie sees more and more people desperately running through the streets praying out loud, the gears in his head start to turn.  Perhaps his old friend Tim is right, maybe there’s more to believe than what one can see and touch.

This is a very enjoyable film for the 1930’s.  The story isn’t too out of date, there isn’t too much singing, the range of characters are believable and the fantastic classic actors are always a treat.  If your kids wrinkle their noses in confusion when talk about Clark Gable or Spencer Tracy, watch San Francisco.  It could also be a little history lesson about the great earthquake of 1906.

“Well, we certainly don’t do things halfway in San Francisco.”

***1936 is a year I’m split on.  The Great Zeigfeld is great, but if you want a more compelling story, less singing and that amazing earthquake scene you’ll have to pick San Francisco.***

Libeled Lady

Here is the story of a newspaper trying to get out of libel suits and creating a love…rectangle?  Warren Haggerty (Spencer Tracy) is an important newspaper man and has called his wedding off once again because of a printed emergency.  His paper just ran a story about Connie Allenburry (Myrna Loy) that claims she’s a marriage breaker, now she’s filed a five million dollar claim against the paper.  His fiancé, Gladys (Jean Harlow), is furious that he’s put the newspaper before her once again.  Warren and his old writer friend, Bill Chandler (William Powell), form a plot where Bill will marry Gladys (just temporarily) so that he can be seduced by Connie and Gladys will catch them.  Surely, Connie will drop her claim after really being caught?  But it’s not that simple and unexpected sparks begin to fly.

This film is a case of good ol’ classic comedy.  It’s never as outrageous or slap stick as Abbot and Costello or The Three Stooges.  Libeled Lady is the sort of ‘30’s comedy for an intelligent audience.  The most physical comedy we find is when Bill is fishing, and the dip is refreshing.

There’s also a good deal of romance, well, it’s a kind of screwball romance.  Characters pretend to be together and talk ridiculous mush while others must pretend to have no relationship.  When the real and unexpected relationships start to kindle, the audience may be conflicted.  Some oppose, knowing the whole scheme will be lost and others cry ‘yes!’ because Myrna Loy and William Powell are such a dreamy couple.

And that’s where we learn some fun facts about early cinema.  This is only the fifth of fourteen films where Myrna Loy and William Powell are paired up as a romantic couple.  We’ll see this again in The Great Zeigfeld later in the week.  At the time when this film was made, Jean Harlow and William Powell were a real couple and pushed for Harlow to play Connie, but MGM knew that audiences wanted Loy and Powell together (like an old-timey fantasy Bradgelina).

I think I’ve said before how I despise most screwball romantic comedies, but this I enjoyed.  It’s not too romantic, doesn’t try to be too funny and just doesn’t get anywhere near all those things that makes me hate today’s romantic comedies.  If you enjoy older film, classic comedy with a touch of romance then Libeled Lady is a perfect fit.  If you enjoy today’s romantic comedies, I encourage you to branch out and sample their previous generations.  It could be a refreshing break from Jennifer Aniston’s cleavage.

“She may be his wife, but she’s engaged to me!”