Man's Castle

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Movie
German title A castle in New York
Original title Man's Castle
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 66 minutes
Rod
Director Frank Borzage
script Jo Swerling
production Frank Borzage for Columbia Pictures
music William Franke Harling
camera Joseph August
occupation

Man's Castle (Alternate Title: A Castle in New York ) is a 1933 American film starring Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young and directed by Frank Borzage .

action

Trina is homeless and has not eaten for days, so she looks so longingly at the bag of popcorn that Bill is feeding the pigeons that he spontaneously invites them to eat. Bill wears a tailcoat and top hat, but a second look reveals that he is advertising a coffee brand as a living advertising figure.

After the princely meal, Bill Trina offers shelter in his modest hut on the edge of the slums at the port. Trina is overwhelmed by so much helpfulness and tries everything in her power to offer Bill a nice and cozy home. The young woman falls in love with Bill, who is usually rude and dismissive, and who is having an affair with the Tingeltangelsinger Fay La Rue. Bill doesn't want to give up his independence for anything in the world, so he always sleeps with the window open so that he can always see the moon and stars. One day, Trina becomes pregnant from Bill. Although the news almost throws Bill off track, he promises Trina to take care of her and the child. Since the two have no money, they get married by a traveling preacher in a small ceremony, but without entering into a legally binding marriage. Bill tries to raise money for Trina through a break-in, but the robbery goes wrong. Bill can only escape with difficulty. Just before the police can arrest Bill, Bill and Trina jump on a passing train to start a new life elsewhere.

background

Neither Loretta Young nor Spencer Tracy had played roles in their careers that really matched their talent and charisma. Young in particular had worked in over 40 films, but her studio Warner Brothers mostly used her in cheaply produced romances and socially critical dramas.

It was a stroke of luck for both actors when director Frank Borzage used them for the roles in Man's Castle .

The film is considered to be one of the director's most romantic films. The sometimes drastic portrayal of poverty during the Great Depression served him as the background for the love story in which the two heroes have to prove themselves. His characters are detached from the sometimes brutal reality. For Borzage, poverty is less of a real than a spiritual threat to the love between Bill and Trina. So they are not so threatened by hunger and misery as by the rampant spirit of decadence and hopelessness. Bill's development is exemplary for many heroes at Borzage: independence and self-sufficiency are expressions of weakness, not of strength. Only by believing in something that is outside the real world, on a metaphysical level, does Bill manage to free himself from cynicism and despair. By finally recognizing Trina's love and taking care of her, both of them ultimately free themselves from their fears about the future.

The last shot of the film, when Trina and Bill jump on the passing train and drive into their future, reflects this decision to free themselves from everyday dangers through mutual responsibility. The camera pans upwards, away from the two lovers who lie tightly entwined on the thatched wagon floor. The camera detaches itself from the cramped environment and shines, as John Belton put it in an essay on the film

"To glide weightlessly, in glorious and everlasting love."

The film historian Hervé Dumont summed up the director's message as follows.

“[The films] depict nothing more than the emergence of an affection, the search for authenticity, an inner career. The poet of loving intimacy is born and his material has been found: a man and a woman, both seemingly hopeless loners, outsiders, even deserters, overcome their egocentric drives in order to enhance each other in the course of several life tests - whether war, disease or poverty . They are strengthened by their love for one another. Unrestricted, emphatically non-bourgeois love, which is at the same time the object and subject of Borzage's entire filmography and, depending on the story, transcends time, space, possibly death. "

Spencer Tracy, who was already married by the time, and Loretta Young, whose first marriage was annulled, fell in love while filming and had an affair that the gossip newspapers cannibalized. In late 1934, Loretta Young published a statement that she and Tracy, who were both strictly Catholic, had ended their relationship because their beliefs would forbid them to divorce and therefore no future together was possible.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see essay on nzz.ch  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.nzz.ch