If I were asked which were the best scenes Victor Fleming had directed, I would answer, "The bar-room scenes in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde." If I were asked which was the best film he directed, my reply would be "Tortilla Flat".
I've never been able to understand the critical apathy to this fine film. I strongly suspect that most of them haven't seen it. I guarantee that if it was spoken in a foreign language, they would be rating it with silver stars and golden superlatives. I wish I could get hold of a dubbed Italian print. I'd pass it off as an early work by De Sica; and I bet I'd be able to land a score of rave reviews for the asking.
A picaresque tale of life among squalid California paisanos, "Tortilla Flat" had rather an odd history: John Steinbeck wrote the novel in 1935 and found his first public. Dramatist Jack Kirkland (Tobacco Road) made it into a dirty, dismal, unsuccessful play in 1938, and socked friendly drama critic, Richard Watts Jr, for saying so. It went to Paramount for peanuts ($4,000) and after some customary Hollywood sleight-of-hand, wound up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $60,000.
After Steinbeck had come by success and a bank account (then swollen by the astronomical $300,000 Fox had paid for his novel-play, "The Moon Is Down"), he brooded over his wayward "Flat", and offered Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $10,000 to buy it back. This virtually unheard- of maneuver produced its almost inevitable result: "Tortilla Flat" became a movie.
Of all the big and little books Steinbeck has written, "Tortilla Flat" still rates with me as his most satisfying job. It wrestles with no big problems like The Grapes of Wrath or The Moon Is Down or Of Mice and Men. For though Steinbeck writes like a realist, he thinks like a sentimentalist. And in the frankly sentimental "Tortilla Flat", he writes about his lazy, simple-hearted Mexicans with a warming glow and an indulgent sympathy.
It is the outstanding virtue of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's movie that — due mainly to Fleming's masterful control of atmosphere and acting — it preserves Steinbeck's sympathies.
For the first time in her Hollywood career, Hedy Lamarr depends on no glamorous clothes or background to enhance her charms. She wears no fake eye-lashes, no make-up except a ten-cent lipstick and grease to darken her skin. Her costume cost less than four dollars and took less than four minutes to slip into. Commenting on the joys of working with her, John Garfield confessed: "I tried to steal scenes from Hedy, Hedy tried to steal them from Spencer Tracy, Tracy tried to steal from Frank Morgan, Morgan tried to steal from me, and the dogs stole the show."
Garfield's witticism, of course, is somewhat inaccurate. Tracy's performance is by far the best. Morgan's ingrained tendency to over- act is always evident — especially in his later scenes. As for the dogs: their vision strikes a somewhat jarring note, and the scene would be better deleted, if only in the interests of good taste.
Fleming's great achievement in "Tortilla Flat" was that he created a leisurely atmosphere, without causing us to lose interest in the proceedings. It is true that he was helped considerably by Karl Freund's photographic expertise and the John Lee Mahin-Benjamin Glazer script itself. After all, we don't meet characters like these paisanos every night. Their story is as fascinating as it is original and off-beat. But even so, we could still get bored with them, if they were not handled with a polished touch and a sure sense of timing.
I've never been able to understand the critical apathy to this fine film. I strongly suspect that most of them haven't seen it. I guarantee that if it was spoken in a foreign language, they would be rating it with silver stars and golden superlatives. I wish I could get hold of a dubbed Italian print. I'd pass it off as an early work by De Sica; and I bet I'd be able to land a score of rave reviews for the asking.
A picaresque tale of life among squalid California paisanos, "Tortilla Flat" had rather an odd history: John Steinbeck wrote the novel in 1935 and found his first public. Dramatist Jack Kirkland (Tobacco Road) made it into a dirty, dismal, unsuccessful play in 1938, and socked friendly drama critic, Richard Watts Jr, for saying so. It went to Paramount for peanuts ($4,000) and after some customary Hollywood sleight-of-hand, wound up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $60,000.
After Steinbeck had come by success and a bank account (then swollen by the astronomical $300,000 Fox had paid for his novel-play, "The Moon Is Down"), he brooded over his wayward "Flat", and offered Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $10,000 to buy it back. This virtually unheard- of maneuver produced its almost inevitable result: "Tortilla Flat" became a movie.
Of all the big and little books Steinbeck has written, "Tortilla Flat" still rates with me as his most satisfying job. It wrestles with no big problems like The Grapes of Wrath or The Moon Is Down or Of Mice and Men. For though Steinbeck writes like a realist, he thinks like a sentimentalist. And in the frankly sentimental "Tortilla Flat", he writes about his lazy, simple-hearted Mexicans with a warming glow and an indulgent sympathy.
It is the outstanding virtue of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's movie that — due mainly to Fleming's masterful control of atmosphere and acting — it preserves Steinbeck's sympathies.
For the first time in her Hollywood career, Hedy Lamarr depends on no glamorous clothes or background to enhance her charms. She wears no fake eye-lashes, no make-up except a ten-cent lipstick and grease to darken her skin. Her costume cost less than four dollars and took less than four minutes to slip into. Commenting on the joys of working with her, John Garfield confessed: "I tried to steal scenes from Hedy, Hedy tried to steal them from Spencer Tracy, Tracy tried to steal from Frank Morgan, Morgan tried to steal from me, and the dogs stole the show."
Garfield's witticism, of course, is somewhat inaccurate. Tracy's performance is by far the best. Morgan's ingrained tendency to over- act is always evident — especially in his later scenes. As for the dogs: their vision strikes a somewhat jarring note, and the scene would be better deleted, if only in the interests of good taste.
Fleming's great achievement in "Tortilla Flat" was that he created a leisurely atmosphere, without causing us to lose interest in the proceedings. It is true that he was helped considerably by Karl Freund's photographic expertise and the John Lee Mahin-Benjamin Glazer script itself. After all, we don't meet characters like these paisanos every night. Their story is as fascinating as it is original and off-beat. But even so, we could still get bored with them, if they were not handled with a polished touch and a sure sense of timing.