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Tuesday, January 16, 2018

CASS TIMBERLANE (1947)

Lesser Sinclair Lewis novel, but loaded with dramatic goods largely glossed over in this big hit from M-G-M (a top ten pic). Directed by George Sidney, on a rare excursion from lighter fare & musicals, it’s so over-upholstered & fitted with cushy suspension, it smooths out the character bumps & personality conflicts built into Lewis’s story. Solid citizen, middle-aged judge Spencer Tracy scandalizes his own Country Club Set when he falls hard and quickly weds refreshingly spunky Lana Turner (wrong-side-of-the-tracks/half his age). Only best pal and third-wheel Zachary Scott approves, but largely because he’s carrying his own torch for Turner. But what should give things that distinctive Lewis edge, the ingrown corruption of a ‘big’ small-town with one major industry, and how it insidiously infects & blindsides even ‘good guys’ like Tracy & Scott without them quite knowing how they’ve been sucked in, gets short shrift next to the uncomfortable balancing act of three friends tied up in a romantic knot. And even there the film goes out of its way to let everyone off the hook. Donald Ogden Stewart, at his best adapting Philip Barry material like HOLIDAY/’38, hasn’t the tough hide to capture the coarser qualities of upper-crust, knee-jerk MidWest snobbery out of Lewis’s style-free writing. Or perhaps the sharp edges just got tamped down in the M-G-M mill. Still, you can see the outlines of what Lewis was getting at and the film, with Tracy offering a final romantic lead, reps a significant bump up from his previous Elia Kazan flopperoo, the all-star disaster THE SEA OF GRASS/’47.

DOUBLE-BILL: Romantic comedy from Sinclair Lewis? Try MANTRAP/’26, directed by Victor Fleming with Clara Bow (at her very best) being fought over to fine comic effect in the Canadian backwoods by Percy Marmont & Ernest Torrence.

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