BOY'S TOWN (MGM, 1938) Warner Home Video
With all the unseemly, and seemingly endless
revelations to come tumbling forth from the Vatican these days, and, its
belated acknowledgement of sex crimes perpetuated on the wayward and very young
for decades at a time, it has become all too easy – and, arguably, fashionable –
to disparage organized religion and its devout followers as the root cause of such
humanitarian blindness. Indeed, Hollywood in its prime became something of a
satellite of the Catholic Church and its fervent desire to expunge such seedy
behaviors being depicted from the motion picture arts. In the wake of Hollywood’s
self-governing code of censorship, the Catholic archdiocese saw to it, virtually
every depiction of the church came across with untainted benevolence and an
outwardly stretched hand offering tolerance and compassion towards all. While no
one can deny the ramifications of what decades of turning a blind eye to these
foibles, perpetuated by some in the church’s name, has since done irreparable
damage to its once Teflon-coated reputation, it is nevertheless certain there were,
and remain those among the clergy who felt the calling deeply, and were
invested in promoting its morality and principles without any hidden agenda. In
acknowledgement of these living saints, we turn our attentions to Edward Joseph
Flanagan (13 July 1886 – 15 May 1948); the Irish-born priest who founded an
orphanage for wayward youth, affectionately forever after to be known as Boys
Town, located in Douglas County, Nebraska.
In Father Flanagan we have, perhaps, the supreme example
of the priest we would all wish to know on a first-name basis; Flanagan’s
immigration to the U.S. in 1904, setting his feet upon a path – first, to Mount
St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he received a Bachelors,
then Master of Arts degree. From this inauspicious debut, Flanagan studied at
St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York, with continued study in Italy,
and, at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. There, he was ordained a priest
in 1912. Assigned to a parish in O'Neill, Nebraska, Flanagan was then relocated
to Omaha where, he pursued his passion to establish a home for unwanted boys.
Initially, Bishop Jeremiah James Harty of the Diocese of Omaha had his
misgivings. So, it is saying a great deal of Flanagan’s persuasive nature, that
Harty nevertheless endorsed the experiment for a working ‘farm-like community’,
located ten miles west of Omaha in 1921. Boys Town would be more than a
repository for these forgotten and discarded young men, but a working
community, influenced by a social hierarchy to be established, managed and
overseen by the boys themselves – of course, under Flanagan’s supervision. The
community grew so large it had its own boy-mayor, schools, chapel, post office,
cottages, gymnasium, and other facilities where boys between the ages of 10 and
16 could receive an education and learn a trade. Flanagan’s ‘experiment’ flew
in the face of traditional reform schools, which Flanagan abhorred, believing such
facilities only sought to prolong the agony of its residents while choosing to
misjudge society’s outcasts as inherently wicked.
“There's no such thing as a bad boy” became Boy’s
Town motto, and, by 1938, Hollywood came to regard Father Flanagan’s legacy as
worthy of an exaltation on celluloid. Acquiring the rights to Flanagan’s
story, MGM raja, Louis B. Mayer wasted no time in casting Spencer Tracy as the
lead, even though Tracy bore no earthly resemblance to the
real Edward Flanagan. Interesting too, to note how far Tracy’s reputation had
matured at the studio since Mayer first laid eyes on him a scant three years
earlier in Fritz Lang’s Fury (1935), and for which Mayer, observing the
dailies then, was rumored to have said, “What to we need another galoot like him?
We already got Wallace Beery.” Tracy also came with his own excess baggage.
By all accounts, his own Catholic marriage to actress, Louise Treadwell was more an
inconvenience, resulting in Tracy’s frequent bouts with the bottle. The strain of Louise giving birth to a deaf
son resulted in Tracy’s lifelong guilt. He fervently believed this was a punishment
for his own sins. By 1933, for all intent and purposes, Tracy was unofficially
gone from the family home, although never to divorce and therefore legitimize the separation.
His public affair with actress, Loretta Young, led to
a brief reconciliation with Louise in 1935, although Tracy continued to live in
hotels. Thereafter, Tracy and Louise lived separate lives; Tracy to indulge in
even more extramarital affairs with some of Hollywood’s top flight female
talent, including Joan Crawford, Ingrid Bergman and, a rumored tryst with a
then 14-year-old Judy Garland! Publicly, Tracy fashioned a career as one of the
industry’s hardest working actors, earning the respect of his peers. But he
would remain deeply troubled in his private life, and frequently go on
hellish benders that threatened his health. Indeed, at the start of Boy’s
Town (1938) Tracy suddenly disappeared from the studio – seemingly, to have
fallen off the earth too. Studio scouts were assigned in a search,
eventually discovering him in a drunken stupor at the racing stables and felled
with a virulent bout of pneumonia. Hospitalized, but recovering in record time,
Tracy emerged from this latest experience, seemingly renewed in his own faith,
and ready to immerse himself in the work. And thus, Mayer – in full acknowledgement
of the events that had preceded the start of the picture – placed his trust and
faith in Tracy’s will power to live up to his commitments for the company.
Viewing Boy’s Town today, one cannot help but
recall this nightmarish preamble to a performance that, not only typifies the outward
saintliness the Catholic church aspired to celebrate, and was justly earned by
the real Father Flanagan, but also to honor Spencer Tracy with his second
Academy Award as Best Actor (his first, won the year before for Captains
Courageous, 1938). And even more
miraculously, even knowing about it now does not appear to taint our impressions of
Tracy as this no-nonsense cleric, as at home administering a gentle guiding
hand to the impressionable Pee-Wee (Bobs Watson) – the youngest member of the
group, as treating teenage upstart, Whitey Marsh (the marvelous Mickey Rooney)
with all the contentious, if utterly forthright moral defiance he initially
deserves. It remains the hallmark of a truly great actor to make us believe in the
wares he sells, rather than to gingerly peak from behind the curtain
in search of the magician’s trick by which his fiction appears to transcend
into fact. And thus, Tracy melds seamlessly into Father Flanagan – particularly
in the heart-rending moment when Pee-Wee, having been near fatally struck by an
automobile, unconscious, limp and hoisted into Tracy’s strong arms, is
stoically carried back to the infirmary; Tracy, looking monumentally taken by
the loss, but refusing to bow to emotion as a tear-stained Whitey looks on with
imploding self-doubt and disbelief. If for no other moment in the picture,
Spencer Tracy justly deserved the Academy Award for this overwhelmingly emotional
moment - a monument to the real Father Flanagan. On Oscar night, Tracy devoted the bulk of his
sincere thanks to Flanagan, adding, “If you have seen him through me, then I
thank you.” Alas, an overzealous MGM publicity representative announced that
Tracy was donating his Oscar to Flanagan without first confirming this with
Tracy. The actor’s response – “I earned the thing. I want it” sent minor
shock waves through Metro’s PR department; the Academy, hastily creating
another statuette, bequeathed by the studio to the real Boys Town, with the
inscription “To Father Flanagan, whose great humanity, kindly simplicity,
and inspiring courage were strong enough to shine through my humble effort -
Spencer Tracy.”
While some of the scene in the picture were
photographed on the grounds of the real Boy’s Town, the bulk of the movie was
shot more conveniently on MGM’s back lot and inside studio-bound recreations on
a sound stage. In-house Metro workhorse director, Norman Taurog directs Boy’s
Town as a poignant and inspirational tribute to Edward J. Flanagan, perhaps
ever-aware to tread lightly. In the movie, Flanagan’s inherent believe in the
goodness of all boys compels him to create a retreat for America’s wayward youth.
As dramatically satisfying and all encompassing an entertainment as Boy’s
Town remains, it sincerely pales in comparison to the hardships of the real
Father Flanagan, though studio montage-maker, Slavko Vorkapich’s skilled use of
montage helped to succinctly illustrate a few of the more glaring difficulties Flanagan
encountered on the road to establishing his community for boys. The story, as
scripted by Dore Schary, Eleanore Griffin and John Meehan opens with Flanagan
attending an execution as the condemned’s spiritual guide. Flanagan cannot help
but think how different this man’s life might have turned out to if only his
youth had been more satisfying; if only, someone – anyone – had cared.
Flanagan’s resolve is further strengthened when he observes a small contingent
of parent-less boys brawling in the street. Three are immediately apprehended
by the police and sentenced to juvenile detention. But Flanagan pleads for each
boys’ release into his protective custody.
Renting a run down flat with the aid of his friend,
Dave Morris (Henry Hull), Flanagan begins developing a formula for turning
demoralized youth into proud citizens. His task is not an easy one. Editor of
the leading newspaper, John Hargraves (Jonathan Hale) thinks Flanagan big-hearted
and empty-headed. He resolves to topple the priest’s early ambitions at the
first hint that the project is a failure. That potential for failure is
realized in the diminutive roughneck, Whitey Marsh. Having been sentence to
life in prison, Whitey’s brother, Joe (Edward Norris) agrees to donate his
entire life’s savings to Flanagan’s mission if he will take in his younger
brother. Flanagan accepts the challenge. But Whitey is the defiant sort. He
quickly makes a nuisance of himself, earning everyone’s contempt except the
school’s youngest recruit, Pee-Wee. Unable to adapt to Flanagan’s seemingly
sunny outlook and promises for a brighter future, Whitey continues to stumble
and fall. However, when Pee-Wee is accidentally side-swiped by an automobile,
Whitey – devastated that his own actions may be to blame, wanders despondently
away from Boy’s Town, inadvertently giving Hargraves the ammunition required to
end Flanagan’s ambitious endeavor for a community devoted to restoring the
morality and spirit of young men. Whitey then becomes accidentally involved in
a bank robbery; Joe, mistakenly shooting him in the leg. Joe takes Whitey to a
church and calls Flanagan anonymously, after which Whitey is taken back to Boys
Town. Accepting full responsibility for Whitey, who refuses to inform on his
brother about the robbery, Flanagan is unaware of the peril Whitey now faces alone.
Joe’s cohorts want to kill Whitey. But Joe protects him until Flanagan and the
boys arrive. The criminals are recaptured and Boys Town is rewarded with a flurry
of donations. A now committed Whitey is elected the new mayor of Boys Town and
Flanagan, renewed in his own faith, begins to plan for an expanded new
facility.
Maudlin in spots, Boy’s Town nevertheless
emerges as an exaltation and testament to blind optimism. Given the precarious
nature of the world in 1939, teetering on the brink of another World War, the
picture emerged as MGM’s bright spot of hope in stark counterbalance to the
abysmal future faced by far too many by the end of that fateful year. Viewed
today, Boy’s Town retains its aura of saintly grace. The ‘relationship’
between Tracy’s Flanagan and Rooney’s Whitey is the linchpin here; Rooney’s superb
ability to play rough and tumble one minute, morally distraught, but having
seen the ‘proverbial’ light the next, leads these performances into a sort of
morally satisfying high ground without ever devolving into hackney religious
tripe. Interesting to reflect on this as one of Dore Schary’s early forays at
the studio he would eventually come to helm as Vice President in Charge of Production,
and then, studio boss, after Mayer’s unceremonious deposition in 1950, and,
alas, prematurely run into the ground with his own pontificating and overly
preachy ‘message’ pictures; distinctly, at odds with Metro’s more refined and
glamorous in-house style. Boy’s Town harbors none of Schary’s
overzealous nature to prove a point, perhaps because his screen credit is shared,
and thus, his influence, diluted to the point of being palpably appealing to a
mass audience. Lest we forget, in its prime, MGM were the grandest purveyors of
entertainments that most often hit their target audience like a great bullseye.
Boy’s Town is but one such shining example of the studio at its zenith –
all the pistons firing in unison on a wonderful story. And while Father Flanagan became
internationally renowned after the picture’s release, his greatest honor would
take some 70 plus years to mature. In June, 2015, the Vatican declared Flanagan
as ‘venerable’ – the first step to his being canonized as a Catholic saint.
Warner Home Video’s DVD of Boy’s Town is
respectable, if flawed. The gray scale
exhibits deep blacks, excellent contrast and a minimum of age-related
artifacts. Grain toggles back and forth – some scenes appearing almost void of
it, while others seem to be heavily mired by an artificial boost of it. There
is also the ever-so-slight hint of edge enhancement and shimmering of fine
details. Given that the DVD is now heading towards a 30-yr. old transfer, I am
going to cut this one some slack – not so much for Men of Boy’s Town,
Taurog’s tepid sequel, released in 1941 and an altogether forgettable movie besides.
Warner has included this as ‘an extra’ but afforded it virtually zero
consideration. The image is grainy, fuzzy, softly focused and riddled in
video-based chroma bleeding and dirt and age-related damage. Precisely what is
the point to offer an entire movie in this fashion, marked as virtually
unwatchable, is frankly beyond me. The Dolby Digital audio on both movies is
adequate, though just. Extras include an infomercial for the real Boy’s
& Girl’s Towns of America and a vintage short subject on the real
Father Flanagan. Bottom line: Boy’s Town comes highly recommended. A fine film,
deserving of a much finer transfer than this. One may sincerely hope to find Boy’s
Town making the leap to Blu-ray someday. The sequel is unworthy of further
consideration – especially, on this DVD!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
Boy's Town 4
Men of Boy's Town 1.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
Boy's Town 3.5
Men of Boy's Town 1.5
EXTRAS
1
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