Big City

Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy are an affectionate couple in "Big City," a small film from MGM, which is surprising, since it has two big stars in it. The happy world of Joe and Anna is torn apart when her brother is killed as a result of a war between the independent cabbies in New York and a large cab company. Anna is blamed and plans are made to deport her.

Rainer and Tracy make a sweet couple; one really believes they're in love. Tracy is wonderful. Rainer is beautiful with soulful eyes, and of course, she gets another telephone call as in "Hello, Flo" in "The Great Ziegfeld." Rainer takes a lot of heat for winning two Oscars in a row and basically disappearing soon after, as if this was her fault. She was, and still is, a strong-willed woman who came up against Louis B. End of story. He's long dead and she's still alive as of this writing, at the age of 96, and made a film in 2003. So take that, Louis.

This film was made at a time when you weren't supposed to see a woman's pregnancy, and though Anna is pregnant in the story, in fact, far enough along to be ready to give birth, from the look of her, the baby should have weighed half an ounce.

The end of the film is a free-for-all featuring some of the great sports figures of the day, listed in the cast, including Jim Thorpe, Maxie Rosenbloom, and Jack Dempsey. Look for Ruth Hussey in a small part as the mayor's secretary.

... declares Chevy Chase in a fake commercial in the first season of Saturday Night Live about some strange product that could be one of several things that nobody can identify. That sentiment applies to this film too. With Spencer Tracy and Luise Ranier in the lead as a cab driver husband and his foreign born and raised wife and the MGM trademark you'd be expecting a melodrama, but when it comes to director Frank Borzage, expect the unexpected.

The overall theme has to do with the war between a large cab company - Comet Cab - and the independent cab drivers in New York City. It's part tragedy in the willingness of city officials to deport an innocent alien girl (Ranier as Anna) without any real due process in order to avoid a controversy, part drama in the war between the cabbies and the conspiracy to hide Anna from the cops until six weeks expires and she becomes an American citizen, and part screwball comedy with a funny but rather pointless street brawl between all of the cabbies with some popular sports figures of the day (Jack Dempsey, Jim Thorpe, Bull Montana, Jack Jeffries and more) thrown into the fight for good measure as well as the chief of police, the district attorney and the mayor getting into the act. Actually the part about hiding Anna is partially played for laughs too, with the joke being on the hapless police always running in circles.

Then there's the bad guy, the muscle for Comet Cab Company who is willing to murder to keep his protection racket rolling who is played by - William Demarest??? Usually the comic relief or a harmless yet crusty fellow, you just know Borzage is playing the drama part of this tongue in cheek with this particular piece of casting. When Uncle Charlie of "My Three Sons" says "I'll rub you out if you talk" it's just hard to be too terribly afraid. All we need is baddie Barton McLane as a hairdresser to make the upside down casting and strange plot roadmap of this film complete.

One of the things Borzage did best was depict camaraderie and heroism, and here you see that in the independent cabbies and their wives who are willing to risk jail to keep Anna hidden from the police, and in Anna when she realizes that her presence among them is causing so much hardship for them.

Don't think I don't like this one - I do. Just sit back and enjoy whatever course of events you are presented and don't try to pigeon hole it or analyze it too much. From the first frame with cabbie Joe Benton attempting to "pick up" his own wife, to the end credits with the normally dignified MGM insignia that instead sports a hand-drawn lion's backside aimed at the audience, I've never seen anything quite like this from the movie factory era of MGM.

After watching Big City a, TCM, television version of the movie, I felt cheated that I had not seen Luise Rainer before. She was magnificent, sweet, and believable. Because of my research on this 1930s two-time, back-to-back Oscar winner, I can't wait to see the other seven films in which she acted. She won an Academy Award in 1937 & 1938. She left acting at the peak of her career, and that is very sad. This woman had something "different" about her. Though she is now 102 years old and lives in England, she has a new American fan. Spencer Tracy was the male lead, and he was his usual incredible self, but Luise Rainer, in my opinion, upstaged the great Tracy!

Fans of Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and director Frank Borzage should enjoy this routine cab-driver/gangster melodrama. The first five minutes are a well-done perceptive trick on the viewer, but it's downhill from there. The acting and directing are above average, but the script is saccharine and almost embarrassing. The climax involves the gimmick of famous prize fighters appearing in a brawl, and there's an attempt to find humor in Guinn Williams drinking a quart of milk non-stop while policemen watch. The interesting plot turn of deportation is not very well handled.

Big City (1937)

*** (out of 4)

Incredibly off the wall and insane drama from MGM has an independent taxi service battling with a union led taxi service. When the union side has their placed bombed one of the indie guys (Spencer Tracy) has his wife (Luise Rainer) suspected and shipped out of the country. This film is all over the map that you could put it in any genre including a romantic comedy, a screwball comedy and an action film. Tracy and Rainer deliver very good performances and their chemistry together is right on the mark. They make for a very romantic couple and Tracy's big crying scene is incredibly touching. It's also great seeing NYC back in the day plus there's a scene inside Jack Dempsey's restaurant, which leads to a street fight with Dempsey himself plus other famous athletes including Jim Thorpe, Man Mountain Dean and various others.