Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [118]
Normally based in New York, Kent appeared unannounced one day at Movietone City and began making changes. He gave Sol Wurtzel a slate of six pictures to produce and promptly replaced him as superintendent with J. J. Gain, the studio’s newly appointed business manager. Salary cuts, Kent indicated, would go into effect within two weeks, and most people under contract would be asked to share the pain. “We will have to predicate all our plans on current conditions and gear ourselves to operate, if not profitably, at least without a loss for the next two years … Pictures will be produced here ranging from $225,000 to $240,000 in budget. Now and then we will turn out a Cavalcade. That type of picture is necessary for prestige, but the average picture will be cut considerably in cost.”
It took some talking on Lasky’s part to convince Kent that The Power and the Glory had potential as a “prestige” title, especially in light of Sturges’ extraordinary contract demands. Having first fixed the arbitrary and heart-stopping price of $62,475 on the property, he then insisted on a percentage of the gross at a time when participation deals of any kind were highly unusual. After struggling through a down year, Kent was out to improve the overall quality of Fox product. “Decided I was to do ‘Power and the Glory’ for Jesse Lasky,” Tracy wrote in his Daily Reminder on February 1, 1933. “Script by Preston Sturges, author of ‘Strictly Dishonorable’—great script + great part. Sounds like a winner … I hope so.”
The day after his meeting with Lasky and Turnbull, Tracy drove to Santa Barbara for a polo tournament with Big Boy Williams. He hadn’t slept well in months and hoped the combination of riding and relaxation would make a difference. He had White Sox shipped up on the train and was able to take him around the track the next morning. For ten days he followed the same general routine: a ride in the morning, lunch at the hotel, a game in the afternoon. Then dinner with friends and often a movie at one of the theaters along State Street.
Back at the studio, there were meetings with Lasky, Sturges, and Bill Howard. They discussed story, clothes, and the actress who was to play Garner’s wife. Both Irene Dunne and Mary Astor were considered before Lasky, an avowed partisan of industry veterans, settled on Colleen Moore. One of the most popular stars of silent pictures, Moore hadn’t played in a film since 1929. Yet she was, at thirty-two, the ideal age to play both younger and older, and she would bring some added name power to the picture. “They sent me the script,” she remembered. “Mr. Lasky talked to me and Bill Howard talked to me. Well, the minute I read the script, I couldn’t wait to do it.” Delays were inevitable. By February 20, nearly two hundred people had been dropped from the Fox payroll and salary cuts were estimated as saving another $10,000 a week.
The film was set to start on Monday, February 27, but then on Saturday they were told it had been postponed three weeks. In the meantime, Lasky and Sturges were drawn into meetings with Dr. James Wingate of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) over the sexual relationship in the script between Tom Garner, Jr., and his stepmother, Eve. The Power and the Glory was unacceptable under the Production Code, even though, as Sturges pointed out, the relationship technically was not incestuous.