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Cass Timberlane

1947, Movie, NR, 119 mins

Cass Timberlane: Review

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Based on Sinclair Lewis' novel, CASS TIMBERLANE is a chronicle of a May-December marriage, intercut with indications of the small-town predjudice that Lewis wrote of so well in Arrowsmith and Main Street. Spencer Tracy is Cass Timberlane, a 40ish judge in Minnesota who falls for Turner (the film's advertising campaign read, "TNT, Tracy 'n' Turner"), a sexpot who is out of his class. Turner, who never looked better, does a good job as she limns the role of the somewhat confused girl who does her best to fit into Tracy's world. They marry and she is subtly shunned by his snobbish friends, but it doesn't matter to either of them as their love seems solid. Soon enough she begins to show signs of being bored, and her one enjoyment is the attention showered upon her by local rakehell Zachary Scott. (Scott made a career out of playing ne'er-do-wells and cads in films such as MASK OF DIMITRIOS and MILDRED PIERCE.) When her child is stillborn, Turner convinces Tracy to flee the provinces and accept a position at a large Big Apple law firm. She is struck by life in the big city but Tracy longs for the quieter climes of his native state. He wants to leave, but she is reluctant and now takes up with Scott again, who has been lurking in the wings ready to pounce on Turner. Then tragedy strikes. Turner is injured and finally finds happiness as Tracy takes her back into his arms for a final fade-out. Fine acting dominates this otherwise predictable film. Lewis has never been the easiest author to adapt for the screen because so much of his genius was in the description of subtleties that cannot be realized without the intrusion of a voice-over description. Excellent supporting cast performances include a surprise cameo by Walter Pidgeon as himself in a party scene. Tracy only agreed to do the film after John O'Hara was removed from script chores because O'Hara had done a version Tracy found unacceptable. Donald Ogden Stewart's treatment of the story intrigued Tracy. Stewart was an actor before turning to writing and played the role of Nick Potter in Philip Barry's "Holiday" on Broadway in 1928. Ten years later he cowrote the screenplay for the second version of that play and in 1940 he won an Oscar for his adaptation of another Barry play, "The Philadelphia Story." leave a comment
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