Man's Castle (1933)

Frank Borzage's "Man's Castle" is, like a few of his other films, the story of two misfits (in this case, Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young) whose love brings a hitherto unknown depth to their lives. Yes, this sounds incredibly pretentious, but the films are usually better than they sound. And "Man's Castle" really has a lot of fans out there, some who consider it one of the director's best film, if not the best. Borzage is a director that can as easily engage me as well as leave completely cold. In the first category are the Margaret Sullavan MGMs, "Mannequin", "Desire" and the first 70 minutes of "7th Heaven"; in the second, the rest of "7th Heaven", "The Spanish Main" and "Strange Cargo" (which I really, really, really hated, but that's another story). "Man's Castle" lies somewhere in the middle. With so much praise going around, I really wanted to like it. Alas, its gender politics and misplaced over-romantism really got on my nerves.

Borzage had a tendency to idealise the world in his films, his characters inhabiting something slightly nobler than the world that surrounds them. In "7th Heaven" he pulls it off, creating a self-contained world, where two almost magical beings live (Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, both possessing an ethereal quality, also shared by Margaret Sullavan in the MGM films) and a medium (silent film) that help it all work. "Man's Castle" on the other hand, belongs to the hard world of the Depression: poverty, shanty towns, unemployment, hunger, alcoholism, crime, are all here. Not a place where for ethereal characters, clearly not helped by the casting of Spencer Tracy, one of the most earth-bound actors ever. But it was Loretta Young's character "look at me, I'm making a home now" that lost me entirely. She spends most of the film washing, cooking or taking care of the house for a man that is hardly ever there and when he is, is not exactly the most engaging of partners, wishing clearly he was somewhere else. This idea that all a woman wants is a man that might leave her at any moment and a stove is something that sent several shivers down my spine - when she said she'd give up her baby if that would make him happy, I cringed.

There are some positives as well - the opening sequences are quite good (perhaps Young is too clean and composed for someone with nowhere to live, but I put that down to 1930s Hollywood) and got my attention. Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young do a wonderful job of what is, in my opinion, a very flawed script, Tracy in particular. The supporting cast, lead by Glenda Farrell and Walter Connolly are excellent, although Arthur Hohl overdoes the sliminess from time to time. Finally, as a Pre-code title, there's plenty of sexual innuendo as expected (mostly cortesy of Ms Farrell, while trying to seduce Tracy) and an out-of-wedlock baby.

Test Pilot (1938)

Clark Gable. Myrna Loy. Spencer Tracy. And below the credits, Lionel Barrymore. Could this be one of the main MGM productions for 1938?! (yeah, I know, sarcasm doesn't translate very well into writing). Pity is that on occasion they went for the cheap solution and had back-projection instead of outdoor scenes. Which makes even less sense when considering that the shots before and after were outdoor ones. Little things like that bug me a lot - I mean, either do everything in a studio, or do it outside. Mix and match is not really the best option.

However, this is not the only problem in this story of a dare-devil pilot and the ones around him that love him. Clark Gable was not a great actor. He was very much a "personality" as they used to say. And in the previous year, in another film with Myrna Loy, his attempt to be serious bombed at the box-office (the film is called "Parnell" and I have yet to see it). So MGM did what MGM did so well and reverted back to type, and in 1938 two Gable films, with Gable parts opened. One was "Too Hot to Handle" and the other "Test Pilot". Both have Myrna Loy as the love interest. Neither excited me particularly. Gable's screen persona was the cad who reformed. On occasion he excelled ("Gone with the wind") but more often than not he was too unpleasant. And this belongs to the latter, to the point where I can't understand why anyone would stick around him.

Myrna Loy doesn't fare much better here. Except in her scenes with Tracy I failed to empathise with her - and you should, as she is supposed to be one of the emotional cores of the film. She looks pretty, oh so pretty, but inconsequential for most of the time. Perhaps is Gable, but with exception of "Manhattan Melodrama", all five pairings out of seven I have seen with the two of them left me cold. The exception is probably because of William Powell, with whom Loy had indeed great chemistry.

Then there's Spencer Tracy, who is the best thing in the whole film. His performance is subtle, discreet and more interestingly to a modern audience, somewhat of an oddity. You see, the film is built in such way that Tracy's character is in love with Gable's. The devotion, the looks, the tears (!). I never imagined Tracy playing gay, but he does it, and in a believable way. And by the way, this is past "male friendship" - just look at his last few lines in the film, his devotion, his jealousy of Myrna Loy, his scene in the fairground, his looks at Gable, and most of all, the way certain scenes are framed, with Tracy next to Loy when she's opening her heart to Gable. He's doing the same, except silently. Pity that Gable's character is so undeserving of the love the other two shower on him. I am wondering if this was Victor Fleming's intention. If it was, then my hat is off to him.

It is hard to tell if the script is at fault, or if it just fell flat in shooting and post-production. It doesn't seem to be any better or any worst than many others of the period. However, classic Hollywood was very similar at times to the modern one. It was a factory of films that believed that if you added all ingredients together you would make a great film. Then, as now, they forgot that a good film is more than the sum of its parts and its stars. And that's why "Test Pilot" fails. It has too many personalities and no personality.