After Spencer Tracy's atrocious Portuguese accent in Captains Courageous, Hollywood sought fit to cast him as a Mexican peasant in Tortilla Flat. In the silver screen, it was common to cast white actors as different ethnicities, but Tortilla Flat and Dragon Seed might take the cake. Spencer Tracy, Frank Morgan, John Garfield, Hedy Lamarr, Akim Tamaroff, Allen Jenkins, and Sheldon Leonard all putting on phony accents make for a pretty unwatchable movie.
It's also a John Steinbeck story, so you know you're in for a long haul of depression, as well as an old man who gets swindled and is attached to his dog. In this one, the old man is Frank Morgan, and he does the best he can with the material he was given. It's not his fault he was cast as a Mexican! His scenes with his dogs are very touching, and here at The Rag, we were proud to right a wrong and award him a Best Supporting Actor award. If you love Frank Morgan and want to see his Rag-winning movie, you can try this out, but be prepared to fast-forward through the rest of the movie. Fans of anyone else in the cast, you can try something else this weekend.
It's also a John Steinbeck story, so you know you're in for a long haul of depression, as well as an old man who gets swindled and is attached to his dog. In this one, the old man is Frank Morgan, and he does the best he can with the material he was given. It's not his fault he was cast as a Mexican! His scenes with his dogs are very touching, and here at The Rag, we were proud to right a wrong and award him a Best Supporting Actor award. If you love Frank Morgan and want to see his Rag-winning movie, you can try this out, but be prepared to fast-forward through the rest of the movie. Fans of anyone else in the cast, you can try something else this weekend.