Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [397]
Settling in, Tracy briefly turned his attentions to Jean Peters—who was being wooed by Howard Hughes—and persuaded her to dine with him. Otherwise, he took his meals at the Douglas ranch or back in Tucson, where he attended Mass and frequently ate alone. Dolores Del Rio, her visa having been held up in Washington “pending investigation of her political affiliations,” was replaced by Katy Jurado, another Mexican actress, nineteen years her junior and in the international spotlight for a flashy supporting role in High Noon. Jurado arrived in Nogales on March 9 and stayed for the remainder of the location schedule, taking on a dour character part in lieu of the smoldering seductresses she frequently played in her native country.
Tracy’s death scene, shot on the last day out, went contrary to the calamitous symphony of thunder and horse’s hooves that Zanuck had once conceived, Matt quietly slipping off the saddle, having died without anyone even knowing it. “He got so pissed off,” remembered Hugh O’Brien, “because, not mentioning any names, a couple of people blew their lines. He said, ‘Take a close-up of me lying here, goddamn it, then shoot around it, because I’m not going to lie here in the hot sun for another two hours!’ ”
Location work wrapped on the thirteenth, and Tracy, fueled by a gigantic thermos of coffee, drove all night to get back to L.A., hitting town just after noon and dining at the ranch in Encino that same evening. The “St. Ives Roy Rogers” seemed fine, Cukor dutifully reported in a letter to Hepburn, adding they’d had some “ecstatic notes” from Zanuck with regard to the rushes. Though Tracy had dropped five pounds during his time in Arizona, he had little hope of keeping it off.
Metro was talking Highland Fling (the aforementioned Digby) as his next picture, and Tracy drove out to Culver City to confer with Larry Weingarten and director Ronald Neame. Neame’s droll comedy The Million Pound Note (Man with a Million in the United States) had garnered considerable attention for its use of Gregory Peck in what otherwise would have been an art house attraction. Tracy met the Englishman for lunch at Romanoff’s, where he gave him a small sampling of his disenchantment with the studio.
“I found him down-to-earth, personable, and honest,” Neame said. “He gave me a warning, though. ‘M-G-M is a tricky studio. It’s a dangerous machine. The executives think nothing of mowing people down. The person who’ll help you deal with them is Kate Hepburn. She’s in London, and I’ll ask her to speak with you.’ Once back home, I met with her at Claridge’s. She is a brutally frank, incredibly articulate, and vehement lady. She spoke against the studio system generally, and M-G-M specifically. Her advice on how to survive amongst their hierarchy was simply, ‘Stay away from them!’ ”
Production on Broken Lance resumed at Fox Hills on March 19, 1954, and Tracy expressed satisfaction at having gotten through the riding scenes with a minimum of fuss. “At first I had been diffident at working with Tracy,” Dmytryk said,
but as the film progressed, I found he was very receptive to changes of inference or emphasis. Once only he resisted a suggestion of mine, and in doing so exhibited what was one of his greatest talents. In studying a scene we were to do in a couple of days, I found one long speech that was rather stiffly written. I had reworked it until I felt it was more playable. “Look, Eddie,” Tracy said, “I’ve already learned the words. Why don’t you let me try them the way they are? If you don’t like it, I’ll look at your rewrite.” I agreed, and later we shot the scene. He hadn’t changed a word in the original speech, but he broke it up and played with it in such a way that it seemed the most natural scene in the world.
Dmytryk likened Tracy’s handling of dialogue to the phrasing of an accomplished