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Cass Timberlane is one of the only movies in which I don't detest Spencer Tracy. In fact, I actually like him in this film. He's a respectable judge who falls in love with the beautiful yet low-class Lana Turner. In a particularly touching scene, Lana miscarries their child, and Spence is tasked with telling her. He holds her hand and speaks tenderly, an emotion he rarely showed in his performances.

As you might expect, since Spence is older, cultured, and moral, and his bride is not, they have marital problems. Spence is frequently embarrassed by Lana's ignorance and free-spiritedness, and Lana is often bored by his stodginess. Before long, a younger man, Zachary Scott, catches her eye. But, in order to find out how this well-done drama turns out, you'll have to rent it. And since it's one of the only Spencer Tracy movies I like, I recommend that you do.

Spencer Tracy is a hard-nosed small town judge who meets feisty, attractive young Lana Turner in his courtroom one day and finds himself smitten; they date and he soon proposes, but there's an immediate problem: Lana's from the poor side of town and doesn't have the judge's class (she bowls and plays baseball) while all the judge's high society friends mingle at cocktail parties and gossip on the phone. From the way the film is written and directed, we are to assume Lana is really benefiting from this marriage, but she's never as happy as she was in those early scenes of "poverty" and, worse, she never returns to her roots, just goes around in circles finding the judge's money, power and friends a chore. The script is actually rather condescending in its approach to Turner's character; it has been written by people with money who have no idea what the "poor side of town" even looks like, and the filmmakers can't even grasp the fact that Turner (and maybe even judge Tracy) would be much happier away from all the champagne and telephone gossips and get involved in some low-income fun (like bowling!). Instead of focusing on the class-issue, they throw another man in Lana's path, which is the oldest issue in the book. This movie doesn't have any courage, and only the early courting scenes have spark. Tracy and Turner do all they can, but it's a lost cause.

I seem to be a dissenting voice, looking at the other comments on this film. I didn't find it tedious at all. It is a warm, leisurely paced story. Spencer Tracy turns in a sterling performance as a judge who holds firm to old-fashioned values, though his commitment to friendship does blind him to his friends' shortcomings. Lana Turner does OK as a woman from "the wrong side of the tracks" who loves the judge but mistakes his principles for a lack of courage. There are some weak points in the film. Zachary Scott is not convincing at all as the cad who seduces Jenny away from her husband. There is a slightly cardboard quality of the scenes with the judge's society friends. And the subplot of friends wanting the judge to fix a trial in their favor slides so much into the background that it might as well not be in the film at all. But on the whole, I found this to be one of the better May-December romance films I have seen.

"Cass Timberlane" is a film about unexpected love and the choices you have to make when you're in love. Directed by George Sidney and starring Spencer Tracy as Cass, a judge in small-town Minnesota who is part of the middle-aged country club set. He's generally living a comfortable and content existence when he meets Virginia (Lana Turner), a woman who is at first a witness for a small claims case and later runs into. They strike up a friendship and then a romance, culminating in their marriage. When their child dies while being born, Virginia finds herself more and more restless and spending more time with Cass' best friend, the younger and handsome attorney Bradd (Zachary Scott). The country club set sees them getting closer, and collectively send Bradd to New York under the guise that he is being transferred for his job, just as Cass is starting to wonder if something is up between Bradd and Virginia. Virginia convinces him that there is nothing going on, and eventually Cass offers to move them to New York so she isn't so bored. Cass is then forced to choose between the love he has for his town and his job, and his love for his wife and her needs.

Spencer Tracy is excellent in this film, as he is in all of his films, and Lana Turner is also quite good. The scenes between she and Zachary Scott have enough heat in them to make us wonder if they are guilty of adultery as well. The story is a pretty straightforward drama, nothing special, but it is a good script and offers up enough conflict to satisfy without resorting to overload and ridiculous emotion. This is an average film that was well worth looking up. 6/10 --Shelly

Cass Timberlane is a surprising piece of work coming from the pen of Sinclair Lewis. Lewis's reputation as American novelist comes from such polemical work as It Can't Happen Here, Main Street, and Elmer Gantry. The novel Cass Timberlane plays more like a Ross Hunter type soap opera.

To be sure there are some of the Sinclair Lewis that we know in the class conscious town where Cass Timberlane is a judge. And I certainly can't comment on the book, possibly it was more polemical and political than what we got in the film.

Spencer Tracy plays the title role, a judge in an average size midwestern town that has its good and bad, though it seems that how much money you have determines how good you are. Tracy has been a widower for many years and a pretty lonely fellow away from court.

But one day in court, young Lana Turner pops up as a witness in a negligence case before the judge. She's from the other side of the tracks so to speak. And there's a considerable age difference. Despite that Tracy and Turner fall in love and are married.

At this point the film becomes a soap opera with weak chinned heel Zachary Scott making a big play for Turner who's not happy with the way Tracy's high toned friends are treating her.

Tracy's good, he always is and Turner is luminescently beautiful. Scott has the heel role down pat, it's just a carry over from the part he did in Mildred Pierce. Look for a good performance also from Albert Dekker the corrupt leading citizen in the town.

This is a film that should have waited a decade and have Ross Hunter produce it.