Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [245]
The formal contract for a second Boys Town film was signed in February 1940 and called for a cash payment of $100,000. John Considine promised “completely a new story” that would follow the lives of some of the boys as they “step out of Father Flanagan’s Boys Town into the world, and will portray the continued interest of Father Flanagan in the life of his wards even after they leave Boys Town.” Considine, who was accompanied to Omaha by screenwriter Jim McGuinness, promised the new picture would be made on “quite an elaborate scale” and that “a great deal of the filming” would take place in Nebraska. In the middle of a building campaign, Father Flanagan heralded the signing of the new deal: “The large debt of our Home will be reduced by the amount to be paid us, and we will be given another opportunity to present to the world the humanitarian and character-building work that is being done in Boys Town.”
Tracy said nothing when presented the script, provisionally titled Boys Town Sequel, and Louise, who thought the original “stuffy,” saw no point in trying to talk him out of it. The film went into production in Culver City on November 4, 1940, and Considine’s assurances to the contrary, there would be no location work for either of its two stars. As it progressed, it was as if the movie was made under a complete publicity blackout. There were no on-set visits, no interviews given, no advance ballyhoo approaching the scale of the first production. Louise was gone much of the time, Johnny having returned, at age sixteen, to the Wright Oral School in New York City, and Tracy seemed more focused on preparations for his next picture than on the work at hand.
Tracy’s first conference on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde took place on November 8, 1940, when he met with Eddie Mannix, producer Victor Saville, and Vic Fleming, who was set to direct the picture. Saville’s original idea had been to star Robert Donat, who was to have made the film at the former Alexander Korda studios at Denham. Donat was said to be “enthusiastic” and, moving forward, M-G-M acquired the rights to Robert Louis Stevenson’s original story from Paramount, where previous versions had been made in 1920 and 1931. The war intervened, and Saville settled in California while Donat chose to remain in England.
In New York, Howard Dietz was incredulous; Metro didn’t make horror pictures, and certainly not with their top stars. Jekyll and Hyde was different, in that it had always been an important stage vehicle—notably for Richard Mansfield—and the two Paramount versions had featured John Barrymore and Fredric March, respectively. When Donat’s participation became impractical in the spring of 1940, Saville naturally thought of Tracy as the studio’s only credible candidate for the title role. Tracy resisted the part at first, unsure of how he’d handle it, and relented only after Fleming got involved and proposed to do something new and daring with the idea.
Frank McHugh could remember a night at one of the regular Boys’ Club dinners when Tracy said he was considering the picture and asked the others if they thought he should do it. Lynne Overman spoke up and advised against it.
“Why?” asked Tracy.
“You would not be good in it,” he said quietly.
Tracy, a bit of indignation now creeping into his voice, asked, “Why would I not be ‘good in it’?”
“Nobody,” said Overman, “ever is.”
John Lee Mahin, Fleming’s frequent collaborator, had been on the project since April, working under Saville’s direct supervision and sticking