Man's Castle (Frank Borzage, 1933)
According to the newspapers the banks of this country are full of gold, the granaries are bursting with grain, and yet there are 12 million people out of work.
A love story about Bill (Spencer Tracy) and Trina (Loretta Young). They meet while Bill, dressed in a suit and top hat, is feeding the pigeons, while Trina looks hungrily at the bread going to the birds. Turns out that Bill's suit has a flashing advertisement on the chest, and that Bill is just as broke as Trina.
Trina looks so hungry on a physical level, all skin and bones, those huge eyes staring up at Bill. But the way she kisses and hangs on to Bill suggests a different kind of hunger. A moonlight skinny dip in a pond near the New York Depression shanty town, purifies the new lovers, and sanctifies their carnal love. Damn, I love pre-Code movies!
Spencer Tracy is certainly no Charles Farrell when it comes to looks or physical presence, but he has other gifts, and brings them to the fore. Constantly putting Trina down, poking her, pulling her hair, it's obvious that it's all bluff, and there's a real tenderness and sincerity under it all. The thing that really gets me about a lot of Borzage's films is that men are often all bluster around the women, but there's never even the threat of implied violence in their actions, the threatening nature of masculinity so often seen in Hollywood films. His films are endlessly fascinating, just to watch the endless manifestations and variations in the interactions of the main couple. Bill seems scared, baffled, overwhelmed by this elemental force that has engulfed him, and all the wise-cracking comes across as so much hot air. He tries to run, jumping onto a passing freight train, but he jumps off and crashes to the ground.
I love the under(over)current, the fact that it mixes with the Depression milieu so perfectly, and you get these desperate, crazed, beautiful moments. The pregnancy monologue: "You're a prisoner inside of me!" and the final shot of the couple in the boxcar (!! amazing!!). Trina has this rapturous look on her face, of complete abandonment. Bill is submissive, bowed, at the mercy of this force. Both are happy, content. A moment like Steinbeck put in Grapes of Wrath, but couldn't make it in Ford's adaptation. Crazy good. Borzage good.