MAN'S CASTLE (USA/1933)

This Depression romance features Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young as a couple living in a shantytown in NYC. Tracy's Bill is a rather complex young man. He is crafty, resourceful, and carries himself with confidence, but beneath the surface he is insecure and anxious about his future prospects. One theme of the film concerns what people will or won't do to find food and shelter. But gradually the issue of whether Bill will supress his rootlessness and aimlessness in order to love his girl the way she obviously deserves takes hold. Being a pre-code film, co-habitation, sex, and pre-marital pregnancy are handled much more realistically than they would until the 1960s. Man's Castle includes some sublimely lyrical passages. This is Hollywood cinema at its best. Andrew Sarris wrote in the most influential book about film written in English ("The American Cinema: Directors and Directors 1929-1968): director "Frank Borzage was that rarity of rarities, an uncompromising romanticist. He plunged into the real world of poverty and oppression to impart an aura to his characters, not merely through soft focus and a fluid camera, but through a genuine concern with the wondrous inner life of lovers in the midst of adversity".