TCM Star of the Month: Spencer Tracy
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TCM will show over 50 Tracy movies on Monday evenings this month, beginning tonight, October 1st. The titles shown will span three and a half decades, from 1932 to Tracy's final film in 1967.
Tonight kicks off with a dozen films from the early years of Tracy's career. The two films which particularly interest me are ME AND MY GAL (1932), a TCM premiere costarring Joan Bennett, and MAN'S CASTLE (1933), costarring Loretta Young, with whom he had a brief offscreen romance.
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TEST PILOT (1938) and BOOM TOWN (1940), two films he made with Clark Gable, are also enjoyable. Other titles that evening range from the biopic EDISON THE MAN (1940) to DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941) to an interesting version of Steinbeck's TORTILLA FLAT (1942), costarring John Garfield and Hedy Lamarr.
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SAN FRANCISCO was another film I saw at UCLA this year, and I thought Tracy was wonderful as the priest who serves as friend and counsel to Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald. It's one of my favorite Tracy performances.
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The second half of the schedule on the 15th is devoted to adventure films, including NORTHWEST PASSAGE (1940), PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE (1952), and HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962), which Tracy narrated. (Some lucky folks will be seeing the latter film in Cinerama in Hollywood later this week!)
Six of the films Tracy made with Katharine Hepburn will be shown on October 22nd. My favorites are WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942) and ADAM'S RIB (1949), though I've also got a soft spot for PAT AND MIKE (1952) which was on TV a lot when I was growing up. WOMAN OF THE YEAR does have its annoying moments, but I have fond memories of a screening I attended as a teen at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where I laughed along with the audience till I cried while watching Tracy's increasingly hysterical reactions to Hepburn's attempts to cook breakfast.
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The final evening, on October 29th, presents four films Tracy made with Stanley Kramer, including another Hepburn film, GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967), which was also his last film. The only Tracy-Hepburn films not being shown this month are Capra's STATE OF THE UNION (1948) and the Fox film DESK SET (1957).
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The 29th concludes with a random assortment of dramas from the late '40s and '50s, including CASS TIMBERLANE (1947) and John Ford's THE LAST HURRAH (1958).
For more information on TCM's October schedule, please visit my post TCM in October: Highlights or consult the complete online schedule.
3 Comments:
The best for last--, appropriately John Ford's moving political drama THE LAST HURRAH with as great a performance as Spencer Tracy ever gave.
Years ago my young daughter wandered through the living room while I was watching "Adam's Rib" (my favourite talkie!), paused and said "Who's that? Oh, yeah. That's that greatest actor guy." Good parenting or brainwashing? You be the judge.
Blake, that's a Ford film I need to see! Thanks for the recommendations.
Caftan Woman, I love that. The bit with Tracy and the gun in ADAM'S RIB is another favorite childhood movie memory. :)
Best wishes,
Laura
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