The Sea of Grass

The Sea of Grass (Elia Kazan, 1943) It's Kazan's third feature as a director, playing in Louis B. Mayer's sandbox (literally—the film is shot in-studio at M-G-M, making use of stock-footage of rolling fields already in the can, with some location back-projection), and the founding member of The Actor's Studio has a cast of anybody but—Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (in their third film together), Melvyn Douglas, Harry Carey Sr. and Edgar Buchanan, all pro movie actors who'd already figured out the best way to project on film, without having to rely on sense-memory for it.

 

Kazan hated this film and discouraged anybody who'd listen from seeing it. But, despite its soap-ish tendencies as a romance, it has an underlying ecological message. Colonel Jim Brewton (Tracy) is a very well-landed cattle baron and resists any efforts by the "guv'mint" towards granting homesteading rights or development on the open range. For him, its a matter of keeping it unspoiled. "God's work," as he calls it. That's his purpose, but he's a might surly, mulish and uncommunicative. Along comes city-girl Lutie (Hepburn) into his life, and he bends slightly, like the trees she insists be planted at the entrance to their estate, as they sway in the harsh prairie winds. He'll bend with a "wait-and-see" attitude, as in "Wait—you'll see." He yields to Lutie on her friends's homesteading near his property. But, a clash is inevitable. "Fences are a curse word in these parts, he informs her.

There are other complications. She's a city girl on the prairie and distances between people are daunting. Then, there's the town lawyer, Chamberlain (Douglas) who has two strikes against him in Brewton's suspicious eyes—he wants the land open to homesteading, and he has his own eyes for Lutie, waiting to pounce whenever there's a crack in the Brewton marriage, which is inevitable.  What his motivations are in both areas are suspect—Brewton Chamberlain are bitter enemies, politically and socially. Chamberlain just might be making the fight personal and can't help himself. With both the open fields and Lutie, he can't leave well enough alone.

The rise in Chamberlain's political career (becoming a judge in the district) dooms Brewton's ecological dreams, and soon the prairie becomes home to sod-busters, dependent on weather for their success, and when the rains stop, the crops fail and the farmers leave, the countryside becoming a barren dust-bowl.  It's a hollow, dry victory for Brewton—he's proven right (which no one will admit) and the land goes to waste.  And, in the meantime, Lutie has left, leaving Brewton and cook Jeff (Buchanan) to raise the kids: loyal but neglected Sara Beth (Phyllis Thaxter), and black sheep son Brock (Robert Walker), who it is more than suggested may be Chambelain's child.

One can see why Kazan, Tracy and Hepburn were attracted to the material. The ecology theme (even if espoused by a bull-headed "protect-what's-mine" cattle rancher) should have been close to the sod of anybody who'd come out of the depression, and the "unbranded scarlet letter" theme must have been attractive to Hepburn who enjoyed tilting at societal windmills. At this point, Tracy and Hepburn knew each other's tricks on-set. And it's interesting to see that their personal back-and-forth's in this film are much the same as they are in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner decades later. She's adoringly passive with a steel spine, and he's remote until his face collapses with emotion. Kazan would come out of this film feeling compromised—and, indeed, this film about the vastness of open land and the prairie feels like it was filmed inside a glass ball—and would explore other ways to make movies, as opposed to being stuck on the sound-stage. He'd start insisting on location work and even filming with a documentarian's eye. His search for authenticity in artifice could not be held behind stage-doors and artificial light.

 

Fury (1936)

Fury (Fritz Lang, 1936) Fritz Lang's first American film (after fleeing Nazi Germany) taking on a compelling story that, like his German work, exposes the cracks of society within a strong story narrative, this time focusing on this country's scourge of lynching and the fragile way that rights can be trampled by mob rule and political cowardice. Although somewhat compromised by a last-minute studio mandate to tack on a more happy ending to the story, it plumbs the depths of the cruelty that humans can do to each other. 

 

The heads at M-G-M had good reason to be scared. Spencer Tracy stars as an ordinary Joe—Joe Wilson, in fact—engaged to Katherine Grant (Sylvia Sidney) but too poor to get married. Katherine decides to leave Chicago to take a job in the town of Strand, hoping to save enough money so she can come back and marry Joe. For his part, Joe stays in the Windy City with his two brothers, Tom and Charlie, who are mixed in with organized crime. Joe convinces them to go straight and together they open a gas station, which turns enough of a profit that Joe decides to not wait the full year as intended and takes a car to Strand to bring Katherine home, writing her to tell her the time and place they will meet.

His timing could be better. Stopping to camp out half-way between the two cities, he reads about a kidnapping and thinks nothing of it—tomorrow, he'll be in the town of Strand and starting a new life with Katherine.

 

He has no idea that by the next time tomorrow night, his life will be over.

The next morning, driving up to Strand to meet Katherine, he's pulled over by a cop (Walter Brennan) for his out-of-state plates, suspicious that they might be tied to the kidnappers. When told to empty his pockets, Joe tells him that all he has in his pockets are peanuts that he munches on. "Whole shell?" asks the cop. Yes. That's enough reason to bring him to the sheriff (Edward Ellis), and Joe's questioned about the peanuts—the ransom note had traces of peanut dust on them—and about a $5 bill he's carrying—part of the ransom. Joe protests his innocence and tells the Sheriff to call his brothers, they'll vouch for him. The sheriff, being cautious, puts Joe in a holding cell and tells him he'll do some digging.

Pretty soon—thanks to a little of the arresting cop's bragging and encouragement from what they used to call an "outside agitator" (Bruce Cabot) passing through town—a  crowd starts to gather outside the jail, wanting to talk to the sheriff about the prisoner, demanding to see him. The sheriff posts a guard outside the jail and tells them that there's an investigation and that the prisoner is innocent until proven guilty and protected by the law. The city council is also riled up, but are told the district attorney is looking into the case, but hasn't called back, and they should be patient, despite what the news might bring to the town. He also warns them that unless things come under a little bit more control, he's going to call the National Guard on the crowd.

But, the district attorney is told that the Governor won't send out the Guard—towns don't like troops descending on them and making such a move would be a risky political move. By now, the sheriff and his men have moved back inside the jail because the mob has started throwing bricks and refuse at them. Stymied by the locked and barricaded door, the crowd decides to ram it in and take Joe by force. The police fight them off.

By this time, Katherine has been waiting awhile for Joe at their rendezvous and wondering what's happened to him. She's informed that the Strand police have arrested a "Joe Wilson" for the big kidnapping and he's being held in the town jail. Alarmed, Katherine runs to the town to find what's going on. What she finds is a scene right out of hell...and being filmed for the news reels.

Joe is trapped inside the jail as it's set on fire and can only plead with the crowd as they jeer outside, screaming for his death. As if to seal the deal, one of the mob throws dynamite through a cell window and it explodes. The jail burns to the ground. In the morning, the headlines are also screaming, but the town has fallen silent. When the sheriff's office starts their investigation, the town is substantially quieter, no one is willing to speak, lest they themselves get arrested and the district attorney is having trouble drawing up a case. But, wait...remember that news-reel film? In lieu of selfies, it goes a long way to identifying the perp's.

The district attorney indicts twenty-two people...but for what crime? It's not murder, because no body has been found in all the debris. The newsreel footage shows Joe was in the building, but, due to lack of forensic evidence, it looks like the rioters will get away scot-free. Will there be no justice for poor Joe?

Well, don't feel so bad for "poor Joe." It seems he escaped death, and reveals himself to his brothers staying in town to help authorities. And Joe is mad. Mad that the mob who wanted him to burn to death may not getting everything that's coming to him. He wants the death penalty for all of them, and he's willing to do whatever it takes—in secret—to make sure that they're punished for his death...even though he's still alive. He wants to teach a lesson. But, the lesson is not what he thinks. For Joe has become just as vengeful as the mob that burned down the jail. He has become as bad as they were.

 

Revenge stories have always left a bad taste in my eyes. They perpetuate the myth of "an eye for an eye"—which only makes people more blind. And movies—action movies, thrillers, "adventure" movies—are full of these types of themes, giving an impotent public a visceral thrill, supposedly balancing the books—but with a sledge-hammer. What makes Fury different is that it dares to show consequences where the hunter of tigers...actually becomes the tiger. It shows the lynched become the lyncher. And it's not pretty. It's not even satisfying. It is a wrong piled on top of a wrong and Fury knows it's not right. Sure, the mob is vilified. They should be. But, in seeking his revenge, Joe becomes a villain, too. There's no "they got what they deserved" satisfaction to it when the victim becomes a vigilante with murder on his mind. Lang had just come away from a society that lost any sense of justice and lived by the twisted morals of the mob.

 

He found the same symptoms in America. He'd still find them today.

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer, 1960) I'm of a liberal frame of mind, which, if you take it as a true meaning, means that you are open to new ideas—even conservative ones. I know this may sound heretical to some and pollyannaish to others, but that's okay. It's my frame of mind, nobody has to picture it but me, though I may hang.

But, there are some movies with a liberal bent that just chap my hide and this Stanley Kramer film of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's 1955 fictionalized play (adapted by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith) about the Scopes Trial that centered on whether evolution could be taught in schools is one of them.

I say "fictionalized" because it does not feature Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan (who argued on both sides in the 1925 Scopes Trial), but "Henry Drummond" (played in the film by Spencer Tracy) and "Matthew Harrison Brady" (played in the film by Fredric March) as court-opponents. Heck, John T. Scopes is named "Bertram Cates" (and played by, let's face it, the simian-looking Dick York) and "E.K. Hornbeck" (played by Gene Kelly) is a stand-in for H.L. Mencken. 

Do a comparison of the trial's events and the play and you'll find so many deviations and fabrications and omissions (did you know that Bryan offered to play Scopes' fine if convicted?) that you begin to wonder if the game is rigged. It is, and the authors defended that by saying they weren't doing a dramatization of events (no, no, no, no!), but the play as a metaphor for McCarthyism and social "thought control."

But, an audience might be convinced that what they're seeing is how things ...evolved.

First off, the Scopes Trial was a sham. The issue was The Butler Act, not evolution. A court can't decide on the validity of scientific theory, but can question the constitutionality of laws regarding free speech and public schools.
The Butler Act said, in part: "That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." Joseph W. Butler was a Tennessee State Rep and a member of the World Christian Fundamentals Association who'd heard that (no doubt "from a lotta people") that kids were coming home from school telling their parents that the Bible was bunk.

The ACLU wanted a test case. Scopes, a substitute science and math teacher agreed to be the defendant when asked by Dayton business leaders—prominently George Rappleyea—to test the law, believing it would bring a lot of publicity to Dayton. Remember that. Butler's Law had one big thorn in it. Tennessee public school teachers were required to use a textbook, Hunter's "Civil Biology", which had a chapter on evolution. In other words, if a science/biology teacher did their job using that required text, they'd be violating the Butler Act. Rock meet Hard Place. But, Scopes—after some initial reluctance agreed saying "If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial."

Scopes couldn't remember if he'd actually taught evolution, but coached students to say he did in order for an indictment to be made. When the gran jury recommended trial, the prosecutors—who were friends of Scopes'—reached out to Bryan—who had been very vocal in his support of the Butler Act to join their team. Bryan, never the shyest of men, agreed, although credit for the request went to the head of the WCFA. The defense reached out to Darrow, who initially refused so as to keep the whole thing from becoming a circus, but as it was becoming one, anyway, accepted. 

"The trial," (such as it was) was broadcast on radio, with witnesses for evolutionary theory blocked, prejudicial instructions from the judge and a completely unnecessary debate between Bryan and Darrow on the last day because Bryan, believing he'd been one-upped by the defense's arguments regarding the Bible (the jury did not hear them because the judge excused them from that part of the defense's case, pending dismissing that part of the testimony) wanted the last word. The thing was, he was being questioned by Darrow and that last, seventh day of the trial (held outdoors because of the stifling heat) devolved into arguments and was finally gavelled finished by the judge.

Ultimately, the jury found Scopes guilty, he was charged a $100 fine by the judge and the verdict was overturned on appeal by a technicality. That technicality being inherent in the Butler Act, itself: the judge fined Scopes $100 as per the tenets of the Butler Act, but Tennessee judges under the state constitution could not charge fines more than $50, only juries could. And that was the end of the Scopes Trial. The Butler Act was repealed in 1967.

Inherit the Wind would have you believe that the judge only fined Scopes $100 out of political expediency and because he didn't want to give the town any publicity. But, publicity is what the whole trial was about and its purpose for being. And the film also makes its Darrow stand-in so warm-and-fuzzy and tolerant about the Bible that it runs afoul of Darrow's attitude throughout the trial. The movie's theme is "(Gimme That) Old Time Religion," but it should have been "Kumbaya."

Inherit the Wind is a plea for tolerance merely, but to see it as anything more runs afoul of everything about the actual incidents as they took place in 1925, incidents that were staged and manipulated for maximum exposure and cotton candy sales, as real and as truthful as a television reality show. To further compound it by fictionalizing it is to lend it a credence that it never had and a relevancy that it never achieved...for either side.

Where do I stand on the evolution debate—not that that is what Inherit the Wind is about? Well, I'm more scientifically prejudiced towards the evolution side—frankly, I prefer my flu shots to be the current, robustly effective ones than a ten year old variety that will do nothing against a flu-strain that has evolved beyond the ability for that vaccine to kill it.

But, then, I've always liked Stanley Kubrick's "take" on the idea, as expressed in 2001: a Space Odyssey (about to hit its fifty-second anniversary next month), which took the question of "were we created by a god, or, did we evolve, naturally, over time as the fittest survivors?" and came up with the answer "in a Universe of possibilities, why can't it be a little bit of both?"

Northwest Passage: Book 1 - Roger's Rangers

Northwest Passage: Book 1- Roger's Rangers (King Vidor, 1940) The posters warned Northwest Passage was "Not Suitable for Children" which it might be, with its stories of atrocities, men who fight with muskets and axes, and the "good of the many" philosophy. But, it's such a "Boy's Own" adventure...if "for" adults...that one is tempted to dismiss the warning. But, one does so at their peril.

It's 1759, during the French and Indian Wars (look it up) in North America, and young Langdon Towne (Robert Young) has come back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire from Harvard (after being expelled) to ask the hand of his sweetheart, Elizabeth Browne (Ruth Hussey). Bad timing. Beyond that, Dad Browne, a clergyman, thinks Towne's profession, an artist, is a poor prospect for his precious daughter, and Langdon, rebuffed, goes out and does what any young man would do under the circumstances—he goes out to the local pub and insults the local British constabulary...who just so happen to overhear him from the next room. With the help of "Hunk" Marriner (Walter Brennan), friend and fellow flagon-drainer, the two manage to get in a fight with the two red-coats (to avoid being arrested) and are soon on the lam.

On the lam to another bar, that is. If Mr. Browne thought Langdon was lousy husband material before, it's a good thing he isn't around to look down his nose at this. At that rustic pub, they meet Major Robert Rogers (Spencer Tracy) who treats the two fugitives to his favorite drink, "Flip," and tales of his explorations. The stories are very good, but the rum must be better, because the next morning they wake up at Fort Crown Point as recruits for Rogers' latest mission—to take on the Abenakis native tribe and stop the French at the town of St. Francis, the starting point for a lot of attacks on "civilized" settlements. Langdon's secondary mission, and apparent only usefulness, is to map the route for future expeditions...and posterity. 

That is...if he survives. That trek is arduous, even without the man-made hazards along the way (director Vidor filmed in the wilds of Idaho), which are recounted in vivid excruciating detail. 142 men start on the mission, which starts out with the best of intentions and the best of planning, but Nature has a way of upending plans and what Nature doesn't delay, men and happenstance will.

After taking whaling boats up Lake Champlain, Rogers and troop hoofs it to make their way up to St. Francis, fully expecting to be able to meet up with the boats at the end of the expedition and fully expecting for their provisions to last the journey...with hunting being the fall-back. But rifle-fire will give away their position, so they have to make do with rationing what they have and what they haven't lost. Men are lost to attack and to injury, and rather than continue with the troop, slowing them down and leaving them vulnerable, they are merely left...to fend for themselves or die trying...or not trying.

It's a more dangerous version of The Lost Patrol, with the men gradually being picked off, moving forward even when they're convinced they have no chance of success, their return-boats and extra provisions stolen, and finally making it to St. Francis, where they stage an attack so intense and complete that they've become indistinguishable—in methods and ferocity—from the very people they've condemned as savages. There is no parsing for cause or motivation. It's just "kill 'em quick and kill 'em dead" where by flintlock, bayonet or tomahawk, and, just as with the men they've left behind, there's no time for funerals. If there's any message to be sent it's in the mutilated bodies and burning village.

But, that burning village is sure to be noticed from a distance. And with their left-behind provisions already taken and no food to be had except for dried corn in the village, the Rangers attempt to get to the closest fort, Fort Wentworth, and hope that they're met by re-enforcements and food. In the hope that they can find fishing and game, they head to Fort Wentworth by way of Lake Memphremagog, only to find they shouldn't tarry as there are signs that the French are nearby. Staggering behind them is Langdon, shot during the battle at St. Francis ("First thing I've had in my stomach for days...") and unwilling to be left behind.

Leave it at that. The travails of Northwest Passage only get worse—and even plunge deep into the macabre as mutiny, insanity and cannibalism all work against Rogers' increasingly hollow "only a few miles left, men" optimism. "A Boys Own" adventure? Hardly. It is tough, unrelenting in its depiction and description of the hard-scrabble life and "take no prisoners" racial hatred in the early "civilized" days of the country. And despite its eye-popping photography, the expense of the location Technicolor work kept the movie from making a profit and cancelled any attempts to make a "Book 2." Still, an interesting, troubling, starkly surprising film that makes you amazed at what "they" got away with back in the studio days.

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) It was Katharine Hepburn who shepherded this film from its origins as an episode of "Playhouse 90"* to this version as a three hour epic.** The movie is padded with shots of Spencer Tracy touring the city (still in rubble in 1960, twelve years after the judges trials at Nuremberg***), and background of the characters, including a chaste meeting of minds with a Nazi widow (Marlene Dietrich, still oozing mystery at the age of 60). Screenwriter Abby Mann makes the citizenry complicit in his expanded screenplay, despite their protestations of ignorance. And the military at the time of the trial was in the middle of the Berlin Airlift, their attention now turned to "the Bolsheviks" and cozying up to Germany for strategic advantage, casting the worth and even the result of the trial in question for political expediency. The movie is allowed much more cynicism than the Playhouse 90 broadcast, where the words "gas chambers" were subject to censorship by sponsor The American Gas Association.

The movie threatens to swamp itself with star-power but leavened it by Tracy disappearing into his role. Maximilian Schell repeats his television performance (winning an Oscar in the process, as did Mann for his adaptation). Of the newcomers, the best performances are Montgomery Clift in face and body language denoting a characters damaged by the brutality of the Nazi regime. And Judy Garland, who'd always seemed like a raw nerve in her films, acts merely from the neck up—and that's all that's required. Not as controlled are Richard Widmark, whose prosecutor is a bit too demonstrative in private for a courtroom strategist, and Burt Lancaster, given a great speech but, a weakness of the actor, aware of it. Laurence Olivier was intended to play German Ernst Janning, but dropped out. I'm not sure that would have been an improvement, but it would have been interesting.

Kramer struggles with the material; he would later become an expert on courtroom directing. But here, he's more intent on making the drama look interesting with camera moves by circling witnesses and, most egregiously, using a fast zoom to zero in on a dramatic moment. It's used sparingly, but even that's too much for the material. He would learn to trust his actors and inherent drama of the scene to carry it.

But, Judgement at Nuremberg manages to be something that eludes most Kramer films—it's a bit more timeless, especially in regards to the short-sightedness of chipping away at bedrock principles for today's political viability and the future's further erosion. One could be speaking of water boarding as torture in Abby Mann's summation speech.

****

Read it. Read the whole thing. But linger on the words after the picture below.

Judge Haywood: The trial conducted before this Tribunal began over eight months ago. The record of evidence is more than ten thousand pages long, and final arguments of counsel have been concluded.

Simple murders and atrocities do not constitute the gravamen of the charges in this indictment. Rather, the charge is that of conscious participation in a nationwide, government organized system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations. The Tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.

Herr Rolfe, in his very skillful defense, has asserted that there are others who must share the ultimate responsibility for what happened here in Germany. There is truth in this. The real complaining party at the bar in this courtroom is civilization. But the Tribunal does say that the men in the dock are responsible for their actions, men who sat in black robes in judgment on other men, men who took part in the enactment of laws and decrees, the purpose of which was the extermination of humans beings, men who in executive positions actively participated in the enforcement of these laws -- illegal even under German law. The principle of criminal law in every civilized society has this in common: Any person who sways another to commit murder, any person who furnishes the lethal weapon for the purpose of the crime, any person who is an accessory to the crime -- is guilty.

Herr Rolfe further asserts that the defendant, Janning, was an extraordinary jurist and acted in what he thought was the best interest of this country. There is truth in this also. Janning, to be sure, is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and the death of millions by the Government of which he was a part. Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial: If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe. But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary -- even able and extraordinary -- men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat at through trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen.

There are those in our own country too who today speak of the "protection of country" -- of "survival." A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient -- to look the other way.

Well, the answer to that is "survival as what?" A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult!

Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.

* if you want to see it, it is here. 

 

** Probably to give her love and paramour Spencer Tracy another plumb acting role. His health (owing to his tendency to drink to excess) was always improved when he was working.

*** Although shots of Richard Widmark driving through the city are obvious process shots.

**** William Shatner's sitting in front of Tracy. Tracy was Shatner's hero and when he saw Tracy do the speech in one take, he blurted "I didn't know film actors could DO that!" Tracy shunned him for the rest of the shoot.

Bad Day at Black Rock

Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges, 1955) WWII vet John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) steps off the train at Black Rock—the first time the train has stopped in four years. He's looking for a man named Komoko, and he is treated with an inexplicable hostility that he can't fathom and no one will explain. Macreedy, stoically—though increasingly crankily—sets out to find the man he's looking for, and has his life threatened several times by the town toughs (Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and the town "boss" Robert Ryan). And though Macreedy may only have one hand, he's quite capable of using it to defend himself, and discover the town's secret that would force the tiny town's residents to kill.

It's hard to believe that Bad Day at Black Rock was considered "subversive" by its studio M-G-M when it was being made but, ten years after the end of World War II, it was considered a hot potato, especially while its production was going on in the waning days of the McCarthy hearings. One couldn't mistake the metaphor of a town cowed by a single man who bends rules to his favor, and harasses outsiders who ask questions.

Right off the bat, one is struck by an over-earnestness that feels false. The wide-screen titles* of a train careening through the Southwest desert is backed by a semi-hysterical Andre Previn score, full of sound and fury and signifying...a train. It feels overdone and pointlessly busy.

"No, I don't understand. But, while I'm pondering it...
why don't you get a room ready for me..."

Previn will keep popping up, goosing the action like a teen-ager playing his radio too loud at a funeral,** and everything is done with such brutish heavy-handedness and self-importance that one could mistake this for a Stanley Kramer production.

Tracy is reliably lived-in as the maimed vet who comes to town, but he's a shade long-in-the-tooth for the role. Robert Ryan starts subtle and ends up chewing the cactus in much the same way that Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine do their dirty work.*** Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger and Anne Francis (the only female in town) round out the cast as sycophants and victims, weak in one way or another.

Spencer Tracy shows Ernest Borgnine what's what.

Ultimately it all comes down to a secret and the conspiracy to keep it that way beyond all reason; obviously, all these guys must have been part of the Bad Rock City Council. There are bursts of action including Tracy taking on Borgnine ("I'm part mule, part alligator") with one mutilated hand in his pocket,  accomplishing some fancy karate and judo moves, something not often seen in '50's films. But one acknowledges that though the film's heart is in the right place, too much of it has spilled out onto its sleeve.

* Can someone explain to me, for the love of Mike, why this small-scale film about a veritable ghost-town of few actors was filmed in the widest of Cinema-scopes?

** In five years that "goosing" of slow material would pay off like gang-busters with Elmer Bernstein's energetic score for The Magnificent Seven.

***Ironically, Tracy would be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar that year and lose to...Ernest Borgnine, playing the title role of Marty.

The Last Hurrah (1958)

The Last Hurrah (John Ford, 1958) It seems unlikely that two of the most prominent Irishmen in Hollywood—John Ford and Spencer Tracy—would make only two movie together.* Whatever the reasons (and Hollywood legend claims that this one nearly didn't happen, either**), the two drinking buddies seemed to spark great work from each other.

Frank Skeffington, former governor and current mayor of "an unnamed New England town," has decided to run for Mayor for an unprecedented fifth term. Ably supported by his mostly Irish Mafia (although other borough leaders are alluded to, the only one who has any speaking lines is Ricardo Cortez*** playing a Jewish bureau chief), and shunned and reviled by a WASP chamber of commerce (portrayed by veteran actors Basil Rathbone and John Carradine as cantankerous dried-up husks), Skeffington finagles and blarneys his way through getting his way (resorting to blackmail every once in awhile). But Skeffington isn't so full of hubris that he thinks he can go on forever. This campaign, he's decided, is his "last hurrah," and he wants his nephew, newsie Adam Caulfield (Jeffrey Hunter) to get a taste of the "old-style politics" of the glad-hand and the smoked filled room before radio and television do away with the personal touch—a prescient idea if ever there was one!

Pointedly, veteran Jane Darwell has more zeal than youngster Jeffrey Hunter

The film ingeniously shows the passing of an era with its scenes of vibrant oldsters and shallow youth and of the personal touch versus the cathode ray tube (Ford has a grand time lampooning staged political broadcasts that are only slightly clumsier than the spit-polished productions of today, a neat summing up of '50's TV usage in politics—everything from Kennedy's carefully cherry-picked history to Nixon's "Checkers" speech). For Ford, approaching his twilight years, emboldened by the fearlessness of age and determined to speak truth, it seemed like a good bet to take on politics and the changing landscape that media played in that change. The Last Hurrah, directed and produced by Ford, seemed a bit of a return to the old Ford films starring Will Rogers and the film is stacked, overstuffed actually, with character actors of Hollywood's past parading before the camera—specifically Ford's Hollywood past. Pat O'Brien, Donald Crisp, James Gleason, Jane Darwell, Anna Lee, Carradine, Wallace Ford, Frank McHugh—all veterans of past Ford films—cast adrift by the failing studio system that kept them employed, in an era of the independent production company. It is not insignificant that a good deal of the film takes place at a boisterous wake.

"The Parade's Gone By" — Skeffington's walk home

Much is made of the long shot of Skeffington's walk home through the park after his election defeat, while in the background a loud celebratory parade for the opposition marches down the street in the other direction, it's klieg lights brashly blasting the camera on occasion. No one could miss that message. But more significant—and more indicative of the kind of deep visual poetry that Ford brought to the screen—is the carefully composed last shot of Skeffington's leaderless contingent, shadows of men, marching up the stairs to pay their respects, but, just as surely, following their leader heavenward. 

* Those being Up the River (1930), which also featured Humphrey Bogart—I can't imagine Ford and Bogart getting along— and The Last Hurrah 28 years later. The two men were under contracts with competing studios until independents in the '50's made their second collaboration possible.

** Orson Welles claimed that John Ford talked to him about playing Skeffington (Welles and Ford were an intense mutual admiration society—their first fires across each others' bows is a story that will wait for another time), but while Welles was out of the country, his agent turned the offer down.

*** Ricardo Cortez played the original Sam Spade in 1931's version of The Maltese Falcon. In fact, The Last Hurrah could be seen as a lot of last hurrah's for many veterans of Hollywood movies. This cast is so top-heavy with so many scene-stealing character actors you'd think you were watching a Frank Capra movie!

The boisterous wake scene for an unloved fellow—all the burroughs are heard from.

Ford might be talking about Hollywood's efficient (but artist-reviled) studio system.