Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [124]
Where The Power and the Glory advanced Tracy’s mastery of the art of film acting and would serve to cement his reputation as one of the best young actors in Hollywood, Shanghai Madness gave him a rugged sort of sex appeal that came with the frank sensuality of Fay Wray. Where previously he had been a sort of roughneck Lothario, struggling to gin up the chemistry with such nonstarters as Peggy Shannon and Sally Eilers, he now had someone he could connect with as fully as Joan Bennett and Bette Davis, but on a more carnal level, the kind of unspoken appeal that electrifies the screen and registers with audiences. Without saying as much, Shanghai Madness would advance his standing with the Fox hierarchy more than would The Power and the Glory, and not necessarily in the career-advancing way he might have hoped.
As they progressed with the picture, The Power and the Glory was put before a preview audience for the first time on the night of June 18, 1933. Tracy was there, sporting a bruise over one eye and a sprained wrist from having been thrown to the gravel by one of his polo ponies. Billy Wilkerson, who had earlier gone to bat for him over the matter of The American, published a review the next morning in which he called the film “the most daring piece of screen entertainment that has ever been attempted since the camera first began to flick.” After crediting the author, producer, and director, “the big applause of the picture should go and will go to Spencer Tracy. This sterling performer has finally been given an opportunity to show an ability that has been boxed in by gangster roles, thugs, etc. And how the baby does troupe! And the part is no made-to-order affair; it required great ability and Tracy had every requirement. If The Power and the Glory does nothing else, it has introduced (at least to this reviewer) Mr. Tracy as one of the screen’s best performers and, as such, he should be given roles befitting that ability, thereby giving additional contribution to better pictures.”
Wilkerson’s notice made The Power and the Glory the talk of the town, and suddenly everyone wanted to see Lasky’s daring new film. The clamor was so great that Wilkerson took the unprecedented step of running a follow-up the next day, a sort of review of a review, saying the film had actually “frightened us because of our thoughts that the average audience would not go for it.” The challenging structure would nonetheless make it a critics’ darling, the most written-about movie in a long, long time. “Mr. Tracy was heard to remark in the lobby after the preview that he hoped the next time the picture was shown it would be heard. For his deserving information, he is wrong. Every softly modulated word or whisper WAS heard. Great actors cannot help being personal. The same with genius. Mr. Tracy is both in this picture.”
In the midst of all this, Frank Borzage was preparing a breadline romance at Columbia called A Man’s Castle. He wanted Tracy for the lead but had not parted with Fox on particularly good terms. When the formal request for a loan-out came through, the answer back to Columbia was no. Borzage considered Ralph Bellamy, then under contract to the studio, but according to Hearst columnist Louella Parsons, the one thing he wanted “most in all the world” was Tracy for his picture. Plainly speaking, The Power and the Glory had driven up Fox