Spencer Tracy, Boys Town

as FATHER FLANAGAN 

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

Third time's a charm, right? After somehow getting nominated in lead for a supporting role as a priest who helps reform a morally unruly man, and after winning an Oscar the subsequent year for playing a Portuguese fisherman who helps reform an unruly boy, Spencer Tracy comes back (in his third consecutive attempt to win my heart) as another priest who puts it upon himself to build an orphanage that'll serve to reform a couple hundred unruly boys. And he got a second consecutive Oscar for doing it. So by now it just feels as though the members of the Academy back in the mid-to-late thirties were fixing to troll us all. I know I know, it's of the norm for Oscar to get his panties in a bunch over someone and spoil them rotten with his love in the process, but this is frankly the most preposterous instance I've ever seen where blind, unadulterated adulation is being flung on an actor for literally rehashing the same monotonous schtick over and over again.


I'd probably be more tolerant of this performance if it wasn't Tracy's third in a row of mediocre caliber. If you've seen Tracy's work in San Francisco and wondered to yourself how his performance would have fared if it were actually lead, look no further than right here--because his work as Father Flanagan is really just an extension of his work as Father Mullin (and it even looks as if Tracy's wearing the same exact wardrobe in both films). I will say that Tracy does warm and sweet effectively--he has a soft voice and a kind gentleness to him that wasn't there in San Francisco. Like his work in Captains Courageous, he is more than capable of playing a kind father figure, and his exchanges with the boys in the film come off as pretty natural. I suppose that this performance appealed to the conservative and sentimental hungry audiences of 1938 solely because of how selfless and big-hearted Father Flanagan is. But this role could literally be played by any competent actor and the results would always turn out the same. That's because it's such a terribly artificial role, and offers nothing by way of proving one's acting chops. The entirety of Tracy's performance consists of him shooting a warm smile at some kid, him giving a fatherly lecture to another kid, and him expressing concern either about a kid or his orphanage. He has to say some lines that are just plain terrible (the worst: "There's no such thing in the world as a bad boy" and its sister line, "...there is no bad boy"), and he's robotic in his love for these little boys. It's an extremely simple and boring characterization. And it's not as if Tracy infuses Father Flanagan with any redeeming or mildly interesting facets--no no, this is about as basic and simplistic a performance as you can expect from a typical sappy episode of Full House. Technically, this isn't the worst nominated performance I've ever seen, but I do feel it's one of the worst to have won the Best Actor prize, not so much because it's a role that doesn't provide any actorly challenges whatsoever but because it's a role that doesn't provide any actorly challenges and yet it still won Tracy a second consecutive Oscar. Given that Boys Town was one of the top-grossing flicks of 1938 (and given that Tracy also starred in Test Pilot, another monster hit and Best Picture nominee), I'd say it was a win based on Tracy's status in Hollywood as opposed to merit. But if this hadn't been recognized by the Academy it'd be just a typical nothing performance in an old corny flick--to say that it's the best of its year is completely absurd. What frustrates me most is that it gives no indication of any range or pathos Tracy may possess as a performer (not that his other two nominated performances have done so). It's a performance that's rotten with averageness.