Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [301]
A Guy Named Joe was released during the filming of The Seventh Cross, having drawn rave reviews in press previews arranged hastily to get the film onto the market as M-G-M’s Christmas attraction. Van Johnson’s callow performance sounded a sour note to only a few of the New York critics, who overall lauded the film for its deft management of a difficult subject and decried only the Breen-induced ending that caused it, in the words of one reviewer, to “virtually explode” in her face. The trade notice in the Hollywood Reporter diplomatically suggested that the finale would satisfy the majority of audiences, “although there can be debates about who should get the girl.” Bosley Crowther, less forgiving, condemned “a finish that is as foolish as anything we’ve seen—and which thoroughly negates the film’s philosophy, which is against heroic stunts and one-man shows.”
Whatever the picture’s failings, both Tracy and Dunne were praised elaborately, the Reporter noting how Tracy’s abilities “permit him to make more out of a simple ‘gosh’ than many actors achieve from a Shakespearean soliloquy.” Its arrival triggered a powerful rush at the box office, leading to seven strong weeks at the Capitol Theatre at a time when the public’s demand for “demilitarized” fare was growing. With total billings of $5,363,000, A Guy Named Joe surpassed even San Francisco to become Tracy’s highest-grossing film ever. In early January, with a new contract almost ready to sign, Tracy told columnist Harrison Carroll he was refusing all assignments for at least three or four months because he wanted to visit camps and bases instead. “I worked on A Guy Named Joe for eleven straight months,” he said, “and you can’t go on tour with retakes, extra scenes, and work hanging over your head. When I visit camps next time, I want to feel I don’t have to hurry back.”
He backed that statement with a formal letter to Benny Thau, advising the studio, in effect, that at the completion of The Seventh Cross he would be leaving for an indefinite period. A few days later, Eddie Mannix took him aside and agreed that after he finished the picture he would be permitted “a certain number of weeks” to go abroad and entertain the troops and that upon his return he would have a four-week vacation before having to start another film. The new contract, which took effect on February 26, 1944, guaranteed him six weeks’ vacation at the completion of each picture and paid $5,277.52 a week or, given the agreed-upon limitation of five productions in any two-year period, approximately $110,000 a picture—good money for a major star, but by no means top dollar.5 It should be noted, however, that Tracy averaged little more than one picture a year during this period, so his actual compensation worked out to roughly $250,000 a film. It was a moot point anyway, as a presidential anti-inflation order signed in 1942 limited the nation’s heavy earners to an annual income of $25,000 after taxes.
As it turned out, Mannix’s generous assurances of time off were conditional, for he and the rest of management were eager to have Tracy play Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, the story of the famed 1942 raid over Japan that had been turned into a best-selling book by Captain Ted Lawson and the Hearst Syndicate’s Bob Considine. Tracy had repeatedly rejected the role, which had him presiding over briefings and little else. “Anybody could go on and do that,” he complained to Louise. “It’s silly. Why should I do it?”
Producer Sam Zimbalist settled on Paramount’s Brian Donlevy to play Doolittle