Directed by:
Frank BorzageScreenplay:
Jo SwerlingCinematography:
Joseph H. AugustComposer:
W. Franke HarlingCast:
Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young, Marjorie Rambeau, Glenda Farrell, Walter Connolly, Arthur Hohl, Dickie Moore, Charles Sullivan, Harold Miller, Edmund Mortimer (more)Plots(1)
This Depression-era romantic drama, which offers a surprisingly potent and unsentimental view of the economic hardships of the time, stars Spencer Tracy as Bill, a rough-hewn laborer struggling to get by and sleeping in a Hooverville shack. Bill meets Trina (Loretta Young), a sad and desperate young woman with no prospects and nowhere to go; her plight touches his heart of stone, and he allows her to stay with him. Bill picks up work where and when he can, while Trina tries to turn their hovel into a home. Bill soon makes the acquaintance of Fay LaRue (Glenda Farrell), a brassy showgirl whose career is on the way up and wouldn't mind if Bill tagged along. But Bill learns that leaving Trina behind won't be as simple as he thought. Trina is pregnant with his child, so he ends up planning a dangerous robbery in hopes of raising enough money to provide a proper home for Trina and the baby. Dealing with tough material in an adult manner, A Man's Castle was considered quite daring in its day. A year after its release, Hollywood adopted the Production Code that prohibited the depiction of unwed cohabitation and premarital pregnancy (among many other things), which would have made this a very different film. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Spencer Tracy
USA
Best movies:
Edison, the Man (1940)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Fury (1936)
Loretta Young
USA
Best movies:
Love Is News (1937)
The Stranger (1946)
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Marjorie Rambeau
USA
Best movies:
The Rains Came (1939)
In Old Oklahoma (1943)
Niagara (1953)
Glenda Farrell
USA
Best movies:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
The Talk of the Town (1942)
Johnny Eager (1941)
Walter Connolly
USA
Best movies:
The Good Earth (1937)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Libeled Lady (1936)
Arthur Hohl
USA
Best movies:
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
The Yearling (1946)
You Gotta Stay Happy (1948)
Dickie Moore
USA
Best movies:
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Out of the Past (1947)
Charles Sullivan
USA
Best movies:
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Great Dictator (1940)
Fury (1936)
Harold Miller
USA
Best movies:
Song of Love (1947)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Edmund Mortimer
USA
Best movies:
Edison, the Man (1940)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
It Started with Eve (1941)
Helen Jerome Eddy
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Kendall McComas
USA
Best movies:
Arrowsmith (1931)
Hector V. Sarno
Italy
Best movies:
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)