TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 11, 2016 -- Summer Under The Stars - Spencer Tracy

[Staph]

Today's Star of the Month is one of the greatest actors to ever grace the screen, Spencer Tracy. He had two Oscar wins and seven additional nominations, but that doesn't begin to tell the story. Watch him in any of his films today, and you'll see that he doesn't appear to be acting, like so many of the Method actors of the 1950s and beyond (I'm looking at you, Marlon Brando!). Tracy is just there, listening, speaking, reacting, living in the moment. Enjoy!



6:00 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, CC,

This marks the only time Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis would ever appear together in a movie though Davis would state in the Whitney Stine biography, Mother Goddam, "One of my great dreams in later years was that we could find a really great script to do together. Spencer and I were both born on April 5. What a marvelous actor he was."


7:30 AM -- DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941)
A scientist's investigations into the nature of good and evil turn him into a murderous monster.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner
BW-113 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, Best Film Editing -- Harold F. Kress, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Franz Waxman

Spencer Tracy originally wanted a realistic approach, whereby Jekyll would commit violent deeds in a neighborhood where he was unknown after drinking alcohol or taking drugs. He was disappointed that the producers, having bought the screenplay from the 1931 version, insisted on virtually remaking the earlier film.


9:30 AM -- CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS (1937)
A spoiled rich boy is lost at sea and rescued by a fishing boat, where hard work and responsibility help him become a man.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Freddie Bartholomew, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore
BW-117 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Marc Connelly, John Lee Mahin and Dale Van Every, Best Film Editing -- Elmo Veron, and Best Picture

When production finally wrapped in late February 1937, Spencer Tracy was relieved. "Well, I got away with it," he said later. "Want to know why? Because of Freddie, because of that kid's performance, because he sold it 98 per cent. The kid had to believe in Manuel, or Manuel wasn't worth a quarter. The way he would look at me, believe every word I said, made me believe in it myself. I've never said this before, and I'll never say it again. Freddie Bartholomew's acting is so fine and so simple and so true that it's way over people's heads. It'll only be by thinking back two or three years from now that they'll realize how great it was."


11:16 AM -- STRICTLY G.I. (1943)
This patriotic short film features a filmed broadcast of the Command Performance radio program, featuring such Hollywood stars as Betty Hutton and Lana Turner.
BW-13 mins,


11:30 AM -- A GUY NAMED JOE (1943)
A downed World War II pilot becomes the guardian angel for his successor in love and war.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson
BW-120 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- David Boehm and Chandler Sprague

Van Johnson was critically injured in an automobile accident on 31 March 1943 and MGM was set to replace him, reportedly with either John Hodiak or Peter Lawford, but Spencer Tracy insisted that they shoot around him during his convalescence. Johnson didn't return to work until the first week in July of 1943, more than three months later.


1:34 PM -- AERONUTICS (1941)
In this comedic short, a young trainee learning to become a pilot soon realizes he's in over his head.
Dir: Francis Corby
BW-10 mins,


1:45 PM -- BOOM TOWN (1940)
Friends become rivals when they strike-it-rich in oil.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert
BW-119 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harold Rosson, and Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound)

This was the last of three films (after San Francisco (1936) and Test Pilot (1938)) that Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy did together. After this film, Tracy insisted on a clause in his MGM contract that he would receive equal billing with Gable in all future films. While the two remained lifelong friends, they were never again paired together in a movie because MGM wasn't sure how to handle the equal billing.


4:00 PM -- WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942)
Opposites distract when a sophisticated political columnist falls for a sportswriter.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter
BW-114 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner Jr.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn

The first scene shot was the characters' first date, in a bar. Katharine Hepburn was so nervous she spilled her drink, but Spencer Tracy just handed her a handkerchief and kept going. Hepburn proceeded to clean up the spill as they played the scene. When the drink dripped through to the floor, she tried to throw Tracy off by going under the table, but he stayed in character, with the cameras rolling the entire time.


6:00 PM -- DESK SET (1957)
A computer expert tries to prove his electronic brain can replace a television network's research staff.
Dir: Walter Lang
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young
C-104 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Improvised Scene: Sumner (Spencer Tracy) is leaving Bunny's (Katharine Hepburn) apartment, shortly after Mike (Gig Young) leaves and Peg (Joan Blondell) arrives, when Bunny and Sumner are recapping the afternoon's events for Peg. Tracy goes "offstage" and returns with his hat pulled down over his ears, his shirt dangling out of his pants, staggering as though drunk and talking crazy. This moment, including the women's hysterical laughter and Hepburn's literally falling out of her chair, is not in the script.


7:49 PM -- CAVE EXPLORERS (1957)
In this short film, a group of Austrian speleologists explore a newly-discovered cave.
Dir: Heinz Scheiderbauer
BW-8 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: SPENCER TRACY



8:00 PM -- JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (1961)
An aging American judge presides over the trial of Nazi war criminals.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark
BW-179 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Maximilian Schell, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Abby Mann

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Montgomery Clift, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Judy Garland, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Laszlo, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Rudolph Sternad and George Milo, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, and Best Picture

Montgomery Clift had difficulty with his lines, cues, and timing. He told Stanley Kramer he didn't know if he could actually get through the scene. Kramer did his best to reassure him, but it was Spencer Tracy who eventually helped Clift through it. Perhaps drawing on his own years of alcoholism, Tracy spoke to the younger actor with sympathy but with firmness, even relaxing his own dictum about sticking strictly to the script: "Just look into my eyes and do it. You're a great actor and you understand this guy. Stanley doesn't care if you throw aside the precise lines. Just do it into my eyes and you'll be magnificent." Clift spent four days getting through the seven-minute sequence, stumbling through and performing each take differently. At the end of his last take, the set broke out into spontaneous applause. "Monty's condition gave the performance an aura as though it were being shot through muslin, the way the words tumbled out and the disjointed, sudden bursts of lucidity out of a mumble," Kramer said later. "It was classic! It was one of the best moments in the film!" Some film historians and critics have since suggested that Kramer knew exactly what he was doing by casting such broken and erratic performers as Judy Garland and Clift in roles that called for expressions of pain, embarrassment, and terror.


11:15 PM -- BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)
A one-armed veteran uncovers small-town secrets when he tries to visit an Asian-American war hero's family.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis
C-81 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Director -- John Sturges, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Millard Kaufman

Spencer Tracy and Walter Brennan didn't get along at all due to political differences (Tracy being liberal, Brennan being conservative). Brennan criticized Katharine Hepburn's public outspokenness against the McCarthy hearings in Congress. The next day, during blocking of one scene, the two (playing allies in the picture) weren't speaking and relayed their brittle and sniping communications through John Sturges. Brennan later taunted Tracy by walking by holding up three fingers, an indication of his three Academy Awards (for Best Supporting Actor) versus Tracy's two Best Actor Oscars.


12:45 AM -- THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1958)
A Cuban fisherman believes his long dry spell will end when he catches a legendary fish.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Felipe Pazos Jr., Harry Bellaver, Spencer Tracy
C-87 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, and Best Cinematography, Color -- James Wong Howe

Ernest Hemingway himself was initially involved in the production, although the extent of his participation after selling his book was to go marlin-fishing off the coast of Peru to try to find a fish worthy enough for the picture. In the end, the producers used a rubber marlin and stock footage of marlin fishing in which Hemingway didn't participate in. After seeing the film, Ernest Hemingway expressed his disappointment and said that Spencer Tracy looked less the Cuban peasant fisherman and more the rich old actor that he was. Tracy won an Oscar nomination for the role.


2:17 AM -- CITY OF CHILDREN (1949)
This short film looks at a community in Illinois that is the home for orphaned children.
BW-10 mins,

Final episode in the long running Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Passing Parade one-reel series.


2:30 AM -- BOYS TOWN (1938)
True story of Father Flanagan's fight to build a home for orphaned boys.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull
BW-93 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy (Spencer Tracy was not present at the awards ceremony. His wife Louise Treadwell accepted the award on his behalf.), and Best Writing, Original Story -- Eleanore Griffin and Dore Schary

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Norman Taurog, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Meehan and Dore Schary, and Best Picture

When shooting began on the movie Mickey Rooney repeatedly tried to steal scenes by fumbling with a handkerchief, pulling faces and other bits of business. This so annoyed Spencer Tracy that he threatened to have Rooney thrown off the movie unless he behaved.


4:15 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,

MGM executive E.J. Mannix chastised cinematographer James Wong Howe for filming Myrna Loy with mussy hair when she awakens at John Qualen's house, since MGM spent millions glamorizing their star. The scene is in the Turner library print.


5:48 AM -- HARRY RESER AND HIS ESKIMOS (1936)
This frosty, melodious short film stars Harry Reser and his orchestra performing such musical selections as "You Hit the Spot" and "Tap on Toe." Vitaphone Release 1983.
Dir: Roy Mack
BW-9 mins,