Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [388]
A preview at the Fox Theatre in Inglewood played better, with men and women liking it equally and 105 of 160 cards rating it very good or better. It had, Cukor observed, a curious effect on an audience: “At first they think they’re seeing a ‘homey’ sentimental comedy. They dote on Spence, laugh at his jokes. Then they’re taken aback by the strength of his feelings and his occasional bursts of violence. They’re gradually forced to the realization that he isn’t quite the old peach they’d first taken him for. But when the picture is over, the audience feels that they’ve met an extraordinary human being.”
When Tracy docked at New York on March 26, 1953, he didn’t return directly to the studio, as originally anticipated, but instead boarded a plane for Cuba, where he was to meet for the first time with Ernest Hemingway, whose novella The Old Man and the Sea was to be the first outside picture allowed him under his new deal with Metro. Life had published the story in a single installment in its September 1, 1952, issue, an event in American literature that moved more than five million copies in the space of two days. Scribner followed with its hardcover publication, selling out on an initial print run of fifty thousand copies.
Hemingway’s agent, Leland Hayward, was bombarded with calls from Hollywood—Bogart, Tracy, Jimmy Stewart. Alexander Korda phoned from London. Hayward referred them all to Alfred Rice, the author’s lawyer, convinced it could never be filmed without destroying the honesty and simplicity of the original. It wasn’t until Hayward connected the material to the popular stage readings of Don Juan in Hell and John Brown’s Body—in which the actors worked in evening clothes—that he saw the performance of The Old Man and the Sea as a genuine possibility. He called Tracy, who was smarting from the tepid reception of Plymouth Adventure and squabbles over the fate of Fame and Fortune, and put the idea to him. The following day he wrote Hemingway: “Of all Hollywood people, the one that comes the closest to me in quality, in personality and voice, in personal dignity and ability, is Spencer Tracy.”
Tracy thought it “a tremendous idea” and said, “What about the motion picture rights? Why can’t we do this lecture idea, and after that do it as a motion picture?” Hayward detailed the problems he saw in filming the thing, of preserving the integrity of it. Said Tracy, “Let’s make the picture absolutely as simply and honestly as we can—make it actually in Cuba—make it silent—and I will commentate the whole motion picture.” Hayward thought it a wonderful idea and told Tracy that if he wanted to do it, he would come on as producer—assuming they could make a deal with Hemingway.
Just after the first of the year, when Tracy was deep in the shooting of Fame and Fortune, Hayward came west, meeting with Bert Allenberg and, later, with Tracy himself. A fundamental misunderstanding arose: Tracy assumed that he would be playing the Old Man as well as speaking the voice-over. Hayward, on the other hand, assumed they would use another actor, maybe a Cuban, in the part. He wrote Hemingway at Finca Vigia, fearful the prospect of seeing Tracy in the role would “destroy the appeal of the venture” for him. “I can only tell you that he looks great—is as enthusiastic as a human being can be about doing anything—and is one of the biggest and most important stars in the motion picture business. He understands all the hardship he may have to undergo to make it—has no star-like ideas or theories—and in my own mind I feel he would probably be very believable as the Old Man