Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [332]
Metro paid $150,000 for the picture rights, Tracy involving himself in the development process to an unusual degree. As early as December 1946 he could be spotted in Superior Court alongside director George Sidney, dark glasses in place, observing a divorce action and drinking in the procedural atmosphere of the place. Treatments were commissioned from Sonya Levien and the novelist John O’Hara, who, according to producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr., wanted to “show Sinclair Lewis how the story should really have been written.” O’Hara produced a series of “character portraits” and managed to collaborate with Levien on a draft that was, said Hornblow, “such an unsuccessful screenplay (unsuccessful in terms of the way we all felt about it) that we couldn’t even produce it.” When Tracy returned from New York and the debacle of The Rugged Path, playwright Sidney Kingsley was at work on a script that ultimately “stank” in the collective opinion of Tracy, Hepburn, and Elia Kazan.
Before the completion of Sea of Grass, Donald Ogden Stewart was summoned to the coast, where he and his wife, Ella Winter, established themselves on a corner of Salka Viertel’s Santa Monica property, happily gardening in the Mediterranean climate and dining most Sundays at Kate’s rented place on Beverly Grove Drive. Stewart thought the job “one of the most interesting and difficult” of his Hollywood career, since Cass, as portrayed in the novel, wasn’t a very good part. “He falls in love with Jinny, a lively and mad younger girl from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ and marries her against the opposition of his upper-class neighbors on the exclusive Heights. O.K. so far, but not particularly original. And for the rest of the novel, Cass sits around with what in show business we call ‘egg on his face’ while Jinny takes over.” Stewart considered the problem and came up with a subplot, the kind of social content usually present in a Lewis book but somehow missing in the case of Cass Timberlane. “Cass was a judge, born into and surrounded by the upper class of his home town. Supposing that problem were to enter the picture? Supposing a judge had to fight for his judicial integrity and his self-respect against a danger of which he was only dimly aware—his affection for and belief in his best friends.”
Stewart’s work went a long way toward strengthening the character of Cass, but at the cost of leaving the character of Jinny underdeveloped, a point hit home in December when David Selznick refused the loan of Jennifer Jones for the role. Without Jones, Hornblow was at a loss over whom to cast in the part, having tested “virtually every young actress at the studio.” He told the New York Times he was prepared to delay the picture until the proper woman could be found, and soon Sonya Levien was back at work on the screenplay, charged with punching up the character of Jinny. When Stewart got wind that much of his material had been cut in favor of Levien’s new scenes, he was understandably miffed at being left out of the loop, communicating his upset to Hornblow through his wife, Ella. Filming began on March 29 with Lana Turner—George Sidney’s idea—in the part of Jinny and nobody particularly happy with the script or the way the various drafts had been stitched together like a patchwork quilt.
Production limped along for nearly two weeks, at which point agent Harold Hecht advised Stewart that Tracy was “evidently upset about [the] present script.” Two days later, Hecht informed his client that a letter from Arthur Hornblow was en route to him, asking that he return to California. “Tracy wants [you] to