Edoardo, mio figlio

Arnold Boult ( Spencer Tracy ) is a higher rank than just captain of industry as he dupes, browbeats and bribes his way to power in Twentieth century London. With limitless ambition and drive he is not concerned about being liked but having his way. Son Edward is another story however and he slavishly dotes over the boy spoiling him at every turn and using his considerable power, he holds the mortgage to the prep school Edward is about to be expelled from, to allow him to do as he pleases. With this kind of powerful enabling it is little surprise sonny grows into irresponsible adulthood.

Directed sluggishly by George Cukor, Edward, My Son has a stage feel to it as it trundles slowly from scene to scene. We never see the title character but the little he has is fleshed out excellently in conversation and argument between the parents. Tracy as a bullheaded industrialist from across the pond ( Canadian instead of Ugly American ) does a fine job of going against type, playing one of his many fatherly roles with reckless arrogance. Playing opposite Tracy as his wife Deborah Kerr simply walks away with the picture as she goes from housewife to millionaires wife with title before descending into the depths of alcoholism after the loss of her son and a lifetime with Arnold. It may well be the celebrated Kerr's most challenging and finest performance in a career that has had many.

Mid picture the film really begins to bog down as Boult begins an affair with his secretary (Lueen McGrath) that Cukor attempts to sum up in one long laborious scene at her apartment slowing the pace even more, though salvaged somewhat by Kerr who saves her best for last. The denouement is more than satisfying. It's the getting there that's the problem.

Made in the UK by MGM to use up their frozen money in this country. It moves at a glacial pace with Tracey portraying a character who starts out badly and gets worse and worse. The problem is that there is nothing to alleviate the gloom. So it starts out quite interesting but by the hour mark it has become a bore and you just wish for it to end.

Some have commented that they felt that Spencer Tracy was miscast in this film, playing a character very different to the altruists that he typically plays, and being the only American among the principle cast. However, I believe that this perhaps is Tracy's strongest performance, partly because it is so different to his usual roles. Tracy plays a determined and unrelenting man with real strength, although as his wife, Deborah Kerr also has a number of strong scenes, particularly in the final half hour. The two lead performances are however the bulk of what makes this a good film. It is reasonably engaging, with gimmicks of the title character never on screen, and Tracy speaking to the viewer, to keep it interesting, but the plot is not too great in itself, and the story tires before the end. It is also a bit too stagy, which limits how involving it is to an extent. Nevertheless, despite any possible shortcomings, the powerhouse of acting, not only from Tracy and Kerr, but some of the supporting cast too, make this a film worth checking out.

For years I resisted this movie because of the sobbing title. I expected a maudlin, embarrassing tale.

I should have known better. And while I've never been a particular fan of Spencer Tracy (his emotional range never interested me), this time he worked okay, in that he wasn't a god-damned hero, and there wasn't a bevy of minor actors sucking up to him. I liked him being a bad guy; I liked his covert, vaguely whimsical smile. For the first time, I found him believable, more than stock characterization.

Also, the movie was so well crafted that Tracy's ambitions were always credible. And when you understand the motivation, usually, you are sympathetic.

It was Deborah Kerr who stole my interest. Her character, toward the end of the film, is so broken, that she approached Greek classicism. She was ugly, tear-stained, stooped - and her lamentation carried throughout that great barn of a mansion of a home. She couldn't have been more than 35 (ca.), but she had become 80, in spirit. One knew, when she went upstairs that final time, that she would not be seen again, and would only be spoken of in past tense.

Although Kerr is a favorite, there's only one other film of hers that knocked me out: for her beauty, her rawness and her intact feminity - and that of course is "The Sundowners". These two films place her at the pinnacle of Britain's actors.

Good grief, Robert Morley and Noel Langley must have been in a bad mood indeed when they wrote the nihilistic play upon which this film was based.

"Edward, My Son" is a bitter pill of a movie about an absolutely detestable jackass played by Spencer Tracy and the mess he makes of his life and the lives of those he loves in his campaign to spoil his son rotten. Tracy deserves kudos for playing this character at all, one who finds not a hint of redemption by the movie's end. The real reason to watch the film, though, is for Deborah Kerr's tragic performance as Tracy's wife, who begins the film as a vivacious if overly-dependent young mother and ends it as a shattered alcoholic. Her part is fairly small in relation to Tracy's, but she makes the most of every moment on screen and earned her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her efforts.

In a conceit that clearly comes from the stage, we never see Edward, the son who serves as the catalyst for this married couple's disastrous end. Director George Cukor never succeeds in opening this film up and making it feel like anything more than a filmed version of the play. There's a monotony to its rhythms and it feels longer than it is.

Grade: B-