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By Root 3898 0

W. Post, the cereal king of Battle Creek. Sturges had briefly been married to Post’s granddaughter, Eleanor Hutton, and he heard the story of the Postum Cereal Company (later General Foods) in snippets. Post was a restless man who built a sales career in “agricultural implements” into one of the great fortunes of the Gilded Age—a rancher, inventor, and art collector who shot and killed himself at the age of fifty-nine. The life of a self-made man naturally interested Sturges, who was himself an inventor and a businessman, but the screen was full of such stories. It was the death of such a man by his own hand that intrigued Sturges, and his nonlinear telling of the life of Tom Garner, his fictional rail tycoon—which mirrored the way Sturges himself had heard the Post story—would begin with Garner’s funeral and move back and forth in time as it depicted his rise from track walker to president. It was a compelling notion with an audacious structure, and Turnbull offered to arrange a conference with Lasky, who had recently joined Fox as an independent producer.

Tracy first heard of The Power and the Glory when news of Sturges’ percentage deal made the rounds, but it wasn’t until he was called back from Cuba that there was serious talk of his doing the picture. Originally, he had been set to appear opposite Clara Bow in Marie Galante, but when Bow resisted the assignment—as she did practically all assignments—both Tracy and director William K. Howard were suggested to Lasky. Face in the Sky had just been released, and though audiences stayed away in droves, Lasky saw much to like in Tracy’s genial performance. It was, in fact, hard to picture another actor on the Fox lot handling a character who aged from twenty to sixty over the course of a film. (“You know, Spencer, I don’t think you’ll need so very much makeup to play a man of fifty-five,” Bill Howard said as he gave Tracy’s face a hard look.)

Having declined to produce a treatment, Sturges finished the entire script by mid-January. It took form as a recollection, a give-and-take, between the central character’s oldest friend, Henry, and Henry’s wife, who clearly hates the man. Henry, it seems, knows the real story behind the death of Tom Garner’s first wife, as well as the reason Garner’s second marriage ended in tragedy. He and Tom meet as children, then Garner is seen years later bullying his board of directors into purchasing another line—a deal he has, in fact, already consummated. Here Tom is established as a tough and resourceful businessman, clearly where he is through hard work and raw, undeniable talent. From there Sturges pulled the story back in time to the meeting between Tom and his first wife, Sally. He then jumped forward to contrast that scene with Tom’s encounter with Eve, the daughter of the president of his new rail subsidiary. Having prodded Tom to success, Sally now regrets it. Tom, a cold shadow of his former self, tells her that he loves the younger Eve. In a daze, Sally leaves his office and steps in front of a streetcar.

Throughout, the vignettes are joined by Henry’s sympathetic narration. Tom is an antiunionist whose confrontation with his striking employees is one of the highlights of the picture. But his life goes sour as he becomes old and sedentary. As C. W. Post’s health failed, so does Tom Garner’s second marriage. His young wife shows her contempt for the old man she has married by falling into bed with his grown son. The Power and the Glory was the American success story gone sour; wealth and happiness as the prelude to disaster. It was a tragedy of theatrical quality, thoroughly cinematic in its rhythms and ambitions, and behind it was the echo of great literature. “The manuscript crackled with its originality of conception and craftsmanship,” Lasky said. “I was astounded. It was the most perfect script I’d ever seen.”

The president of Fox—the company’s third in as many years—was Sidney R. Kent, a slick salesman from the ranks of distribution who had been vice president and general manager of Paramount-Publix before having his contract