Lee Tracy

I wrote this ages ago for another forum:

Lee Tracy, too little known today, is one of the all-time great comic actors and a personal favorite of mine. He was the original Hildy Johnson in The Front Page on Broadway and although his major films are not numerous, each is a delight. Blessed Event with co-star Dick Powell and Bombshell with co-star Jean Harlow are gems long beloved by Thirties film buffs, but even they may not have seen The Half-Naked Truth, which is a pure jolt of the Lee Tracy magic. His physical and vocal presence are uniquely and unmistakably his: the lankily elastic body, the whirling-dervish energy, the sarcastic tone, the long fingers that always seem to be jabbing in someone's direction. There's not another screen actor I can think of who has quite the manic joie de vivre of the young Tracy. In The Half-Naked Truth, he plays a carnival barker and theatrical promoter who will go to any insane lengths to hog headlines (a very contemporary figure for us!). He's paired with Lupe "Mexican Spitfire" Velez, who proves to be an extremely apt partner for him; you believe in these two together, and that makes their final scene surprisingly emotional. (Tracy's magnetism definitely has its romantic aspect; watching Bombshell, an audience can be driven to heights of frustration waiting for Tracy and Harlow to realize that they are, in fact, perfect for one another.) The wonderful ending of The Half-Naked Truth also crystallizes the Tracy credo in a single line: "What good is life if you don't get some fun out of it?" You can have some of that fun by watching this film.

POSTSCRIPT: When I say that Tracy and Harlow are "perfect for each other" in Bombshell, I mean within the context of the film, that ends when the film is over: you can't actually imagine a future for them, but they demand to be paired by the 90 minute mark. Oddly, you can just about imagine a future for Tracy and Velez in The Half-Naked Truth (which is one reason its final scene is so good).

Tracy, a talent who takes a back seat to no one, pissed away his career, literally, in 1934. He had been cast in the film Viva Villa! (imagine Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa!), which was filmed partly on location in Mexico City. Bad boy Tracy pulled a prank by standing on the balcony of his hotel room and urinating on a passing military parade. This created quite a scandal. He was fired from the film and, although he did not stop working thereafter, he found himself increasingly relegated to second-tier productions.

Tracy did continue to appear in theater and, later, television, and had a bit of a comeback playing the President in Gore Vidal's The Best Man both on Broadway (he was nominated for a lead Tony) and film (he was nominated for a supporting Oscar). But his moment was really that 1925-1935 decade, both on stage in New York and on film in Hollywood.