The Hard Guy

If you haven't seen this yet, don't read the plot summary. It starts off as a grim, naturalistic story of a starving urban family and the father's struggle to do something to make a change. How surprising to see Spencer Tracy so young and unformed as an actor! I won't give away the surprise ending because, frankly, without the surprise ending the short has little to offer. In only six minutes or so, it has no time to go into depth. Every time I see one of these early 1930's depression-era films that treat the underdog working man with such sympathy, I wonder what has changed so much in our society. Can you imagine any major studio project--other than a foreign import--set in the present time that sides with a working-class character who robs and pulls guns on his victims? Yes, it's another era, isn't it? That's not exactly what happens here, but this short plays on our expectation that that is what WILL happen. An interesting curio. Because TCM does not list shorts on its schedule, I just happened to be setting my TV to tape something on TCM later in the day when I caught the "one reel wonders" intro, and thought I'd hang around to see what it was. And after this, TCM ran an obscure 1930 interview with D.W. Griffith as filler! Great stuff, but is there any way we could find out about them IN ADVANCE, TCM???

Unemployed Guy (Spencer Tracy) complains to his wife Ellen (Katharine Alexander) about his life. They have a young daughter. He reads about a jewel heist in the newspaper. He takes his gun to do who knows what. Later that night, Ellen overhears two policemen looking to take down a gunman. Guy returns with lots of stuff.

This is most interesting for a young Spencer Tracy. He is about 30 here and it's one of his first roles. His face is much younger and I probably wouldn't recognize him. On the other hand, the voice is unmistakable. He has nascent leading man presence. Katharine Alexander does well. This probably needs another scene where he is holding the gun outside a store. That would really help the ending.

... as the titular "Hard Guy". Which is to say he is a desperate out-of-work husband and father. From the conversation apparently this family has been doing well at some point in the past. His wife is supportive, but their young daughter has malnutrition and needs good - and that means expensive - food in order to recover. They are living in a poorly furnished flat in an Hell's Kitchen, New York.

Tracy tries on his hat and coat from his army days and finds a gun. When he takes the gun with him as he heads out without clearly stating his intentions, his wife fears he will do the worst.

This was enlightening in the sense that it was my impression that the Depression didn't really start to take a toll until 1931. From an art design perspective, this family's tenement has one of the highest ceilings that I've ever seen. From a talent recognition perspective, this short proves that Warner Brothers let Spencer Tracy get away from them. They also let Clark Gable get away too, but that would be a couple of years down the line.

This short film is worth a look for the film history of it all.

A very young Spencer Tracy plays the eponymous guy in this Depression-era short that starts out as a gritty slice of realism and, due to a surprise and funny ending, ends as a comedy. This kind of thing served merely as a time filler, so there's no point in reviewing it for its artistry or film techniques. But it is very interesting from a historical standpoint. Simply knowing that this short film played in mainstream movie houses, and addressed the Depression head on, shows how different a world we live in today, when mass entertainment seeks to do anything but make its audiences think about current events. And there's a chilling moment when Tracy says that the war they're currently waging (the Depression) makes the war they just lived through (WWI) seem like a cake walk---this wouldn't have been chilling at the time, but from today's vantage point, knowing WWII was just around the corner, it gives this little nothing of a film a prophetic quality.

My first thought when I saw it was that this short is something you would never see now. A short film with a happy ending seems to be something unattainable in this generation. Anyway that being said it's neither a great nor a bad short. A man and his wife are trying to feed and provide for their child. The man goes out, hoping to find a job, but first grabs his revolver. His wife find the revolver in the coat and is scared. He goes out with the gun and returns with a haul. His wife assumes that he stole the things after hearing a commotion downstairs with a police officer chasing after. Finally he tells her he sold the gun. Spencer Tracy is young and an okay actor. In my opinion just as he always was. If you want to see an entertaining movie with Spencer Tracy, try "Desk Set." It is apolitical and is a pretty cute comedy involving a mad computer and a coupl'a risqué librarians.