The Power and the Glory

When I first saw Colleen Moore it was in the excellent series about silent films called "Hollywood". There she was in 1980, her hair defiantly bobbed as it was in the Twenties, a sparkling, witty and charismatic elderly lady - the very definition of "presence". Then I saw her fabulous silent comedy work in films like "Ella Cinders" and "Orchids and Ermine". Then the disappointingly sombre talkie "The Scarlet Letter". And now here she is in "The Power and the Glory" giving a performance of staggering power, working expertly alongside one of the talking cinema's finest actors - Spencer Tracy.

I found the movie a little lack lustre story-wise, but Moore and Tracy give such brilliant performances that the story hardly seems to matter. Both actors age from youth to old age in the course of the film - and this is done mostly through acting alone with minimal make-up and hair changes. Moore is almost unrecognisable as the elderly wife, and the scene where she finds out her husband is seeing a younger woman is one of the most magnificently performed scenes I have ever seen. She does most of the scene without dialogue, which is where her silent acting experience gives her the edge, even over Tracy. Contrast this with her delightful comic playing in another silent sequence when she is a young woman and Tracy is struggling to propose to her. Astonishing! What this film reveals more than anything else is how shameful it is that Hollywood let this remarkable actress slip through its fingers and spend most of her life in retirement.

During Spencer Tracy's period at Fox, he mostly played as rugged action adventure heroes in forgettable programmers. Very rarely did he get any parts that demonstrated his talents until San Francisco when he was with MGM. The Power And The Glory should have been the career changer that San Francisco later was.

This film is light years different than what he was doing at Fox Films and more typical of his MGM period. It tells the story in the same fashion that Citizen Kane later perfected of the life of a railroad tycoon after his demise. Instead of from many points of view, the film is only told from the point of view of Tracy's best friend as he recalls different points of Tracy's life out of chronological order, the friend being played by Ralph Morgan.

There is an important difference in subject matter as well. Charles Foster Kane is a kid born to wealth and privilege whereas Tracy's Tom Garner was a self made millionaire. Starting out as a track worker and encouraged by his first wife who was a school teacher, Tracy goes to school learns the engineering trade and begins acquiring stock.

But as the demands of acquiring and later maintaining a fortune draw from his time Tracy is less and less attentive to his wife Colleen Moore who becomes something of a harpy. They have a son in Phillip Trent who grows up spoiled rotten.

Later on Tracy marries the daughter of another railroad owner, the much younger Helen Vinson. She carries the ultimate seed of his downfall.

Although the subject matter is far from what he later would do as a director, Preston Sturges wrote the original screenplay for The Power And The Glory. As Sturges was a well read man he might have taken his inspiration in part from our 17th President. Andrew Johnson was a man who did not spend a day in school and what education he did receive came from his school teacher wife. The early years of Tracy and Moore play very much like Andrew Johnson and Eliza McCardle Johnson were supposed to be.

In the underplaying and subtle style that he practically took a copyright out on, Spencer Tracy carefully delineates a character at all stages of his adult life that holds your interest throughout. Colleen Moore does as well. It's a pity that The Power And The Glory was one of her last films, she made the transition from the silent screen apparently easy. But she retired young and wealthy and saw not the need to work. And even though she made a career of playing 'the other woman' Helen Vinson actually does get to marry Tracy as a second wife though in point of fact she is indeed the other woman.

The Power And The Glory proved that they were asleep at the switch at Fox. Tracy's performance should have led to greater roles for him. He would have to wait until he was at MGM for his real glory years.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY (Fox, 1933), directed by William K. Howard, is not so much a religious movie, hence its title, but a narrative story about a fictional character as recalled by a friend who knew him best. Categorized as something ahead of its time where stories told in flashback were commonly stylized a decade later, the original screenplay written by future comedy movie director, Preston Sturges, is noteworthy more for its early screen performance by Spencer Tracy, along with an atypical role by former silent screen flapper of the twenties, Colleen Moore. Though Tracy and Moore have the nominal leads, it's Ralph Morgan whose character participates throughout in both story and voice-over narration through various episodes.

The narrative opens at a church funeral of Tom Garner. As the camera pans around those in attendance, it then captures the presence of an old man named Henry (Ralph Morgan) with bushy mustache, wire glasses and gray hair. Leaving the service as the minister continues officiating about the deceased, Henry comes to the Chicago & Southwestern Railway Company building where he worked under the Tom, the company president. Henry then finds and takes an old photo of Tom and his little boy that rests upon his office desk. Later that evening, Henry, after helping his wife (Sarah Padden) with the dinner dishes, takes out the photograph to then share his memories of a true friend. Henry starts by telling his wife, "It's funny that our friendship began with a fight." Flashbacks recall the initial meeting of Henry (Cullen Johnson) and Tom (Billy O'Brien), and how the older boy was to become an influence in his life. Years later, Tom (Spencer Tracy), who never had any formal education, meets Sally (Colleen Moore), a mountain schoolteacher, who not only tutors him to read and write, but becomes wife and mother to his infant son. As Tom rises from track walker to construction worker to president of a railroad company, his marriage slowly starts to fall apart. Aside from heated arguments with Sally revolving around his pampered adult son (Clifford Jones) being expelled from college, his uncontrollable boozing and wild-living, Tom not only "humiliates" Junior by having him work as a bookkeeper at his company, but ends up having an illicit affair with Eve Borden (Helen Vinson), daughter of a rival railroad magnate (Henry Kolker). After Sally meets with a sad end, Tom marries Eve, who becomes untrue to him. As Tom reaches the pinnacle point to the power and the glory of Tom's life, Henry resumes his memory of a true friend with situations leading to his downfall.

A very interesting premise that tells its story in 76 minutes rather than what possibly could been captured in two hours, Spencer Tracy gives a masterful performance, especially when challenging roles come his way. Playing a natural born leader with unafraid tendencies, his only fear happens to be within himself. Scenes depicting him the silver haired cigar smoking businessman comes to mind of Tracy's later years from the mid-1950s onward when his dark hair turned prematurely white. Colleen Moore, whose character goes through the aging process as well, at one point, makes one think of Margaret Sullavan's golden age sequence from her 1941 edition to Universal's BACK STREET. The similarity between Moore and Sullavan is close to remarkable. While the power of Tracy's super-stardom lay ahead during his peak years at MGM (1935-1954), the glory days of Colleen Moore's era came to an end by 1934. Ralph Morgan, playing the third party, nearly steals the show through his narrative and devotion to a friend he defends to those speaking out against him, even his wife who calls Tom Garner a ruthless egotist. Henry's loyalty of friendship is felt throughout, from their Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry Finn type boyhood summer days by the old swimming hole to their business association during their senior years. Another honorable mention comes from Helen Vinson as the social climbing second wife.

As good as the actors are, there's something amiss to what should have become a celebrated masterpiece and a Academy Award nomination for Tracy, that being the often confusing story structure presented in jumbled fashion rather than in chronological order. Interestingly, it's Morgan's character who, through his narration, puts the pieces together even if not in any round-about way. Whether or not the actual intention of the narrative, chances are possibly deletions of certain key sequences leaving certain questions unanswered could have had something to do with some of its confusion. Take note that the familiar presence of veteran character actor, J. Farrell MacDonald, is briefly spotted that he can easily be missed by anyone familiar by his presence through a blink of an eye. No doubt, this narrative idea was good enough to have been duplicated and improved upon by future film directors who might have used this particular movie as its basic tool.

Long unseen, largely forgotten and at one point feared lost to film history, THE POWER AND THE GLORY finally turned up after many years in revival movie houses before being televised first on public television stations (notably New York City's own WNET, Channel 13, where it premiered in July 1992) and later on cable TV networks as the Fox Movie Channel and Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: September 18, 2011). Through its availability and occasional television revivals, this production from the neglected Fox Film era (1929-1935) should still be of some interest to film scholars and classic movie lovers of modern times. All the power to you. (***)

The film begins with a funeral to the sound of "nearer my God to thee" and the soundtrack includes Gounod's "Ave Maria" as well.

This is the story of a self-made man,the American dream come true.From a track walker to a railway society tycoon,through the strikes and the strife of life ,Tom makes his way of life,abetted by wife Sally who taught him reading,writing and arithmetic when he was already a grown-up.

This is some kind of "Citizen Kane" in miniature ,relatively speaking ,a decade before Orson Welles' masterpiece happened.The story is told by Tom's good friend Henry,with wife making frequently unsympathetic comments .The movie alternates between present and past,back to childhood's days when Tom taught Henry to swim and to dive.

The story is a bit melodramatic ,mainly towards the end when the son falls in love with his stepmother and illustrates the famous sentence "you gain the world and lose your soul" ,which Tom's last word reinforces.

Henry was an educated man whereas Tom was essentially a self taught person .Tom got it made ,but in the end ,according to Sturges' screenplay,it's Henry's way which leads to true happiness.

Paauline Kael--who made many claims, mostly unfounded, about the "true origins" of 'Citizen Kane'--was by no means the first to mention Sturges' script for 'The Power & the Glory' as a forerunner to Welles & Mankiewicz.

Jorge Luis Borges, in his 1941 review of 'Kane' in the periodical Sur, noticed the similarity in storytelling: "A kind of metaphysical detective story ... the investigation of a man's inner self, through the works he has wrought, the words he has spoken, the lives he has ruined. The same technique was used by Joseph Conrad in 'Chance' (1914) and in that beautiful film 'The Power & the Glory': a rhapsody of miscellaneous scenes without chronological order."

Of 'Kane' Borges also said: "In a story by Chesterton ... the hero observes that nothing is so frightening as a labyrinth with no center. This film is precisely that labyrinth." (Translation by Suzanne Jill Levine, from "An Overwhelming Film" in Borges, 'Selected Nonfictions,' Penguin 1999.) Famous remarks from a famous review, at least in the non-Anglo-Saxon world ... though Borges was critical of 'Kane' as well as complimentary.