The Power and the Glory (1933) User Reviews

Colleen Moore is truly magnificent.

[David-240 · 8/10 · 24 May 2000]

When I first saw Colleen Moore it was in the excellent series about silent films called "Hollywood". There she was in 1980, her hair defiantly bobbed as it was in the Twenties, a sparkling, witty and charismatic elderly lady - the very definition of "presence". Then I saw her fabulous silent comedy work in films like "Ella Cinders" and "Orchids and Ermine". Then the disappointingly sombre talkie "The Scarlet Letter". And now here she is in "The Power and the Glory" giving a performance of staggering power, working expertly alongside one of the talking cinema's finest actors - Spencer Tracy.

I found the movie a little lack lustre story-wise, but Moore and Tracy give such brilliant performances that the story hardly seems to matter. Both actors age from youth to old age in the course of the film - and this is done mostly through acting alone with minimal make-up and hair changes. Moore is almost unrecognisable as the elderly wife, and the scene where she finds out her husband is seeing a younger woman is one of the most magnificently performed scenes I have ever seen. She does most of the scene without dialogue, which is where her silent acting experience gives her the edge, even over Tracy. Contrast this with her delightful comic playing in another silent sequence when she is a young woman and Tracy is struggling to propose to her. Astonishing! What this film reveals more than anything else is how shameful it is that Hollywood let this remarkable actress slip through its fingers and spend most of her life in retirement.

Should Have Been A Career Changer

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 23 September 2010]

During Spencer Tracy's period at Fox, he mostly played as rugged action adventure heroes in forgettable programmers. Very rarely did he get any parts that demonstrated his talents until San Francisco when he was with MGM. The Power And The Glory should have been the career changer that San Francisco later was.

This film is light years different than what he was doing at Fox Films and more typical of his MGM period. It tells the story in the same fashion that Citizen Kane later perfected of the life of a railroad tycoon after his demise. Instead of from many points of view, the film is only told from the point of view of Tracy's best friend as he recalls different points of Tracy's life out of chronological order, the friend being played by Ralph Morgan.

There is an important difference in subject matter as well. Charles Foster Kane is a kid born to wealth and privilege whereas Tracy's Tom Garner was a self made millionaire. Starting out as a track worker and encouraged by his first wife who was a school teacher, Tracy goes to school learns the engineering trade and begins acquiring stock.

But as the demands of acquiring and later maintaining a fortune draw from his time Tracy is less and less attentive to his wife Colleen Moore who becomes something of a harpy. They have a son in Phillip Trent who grows up spoiled rotten.

Later on Tracy marries the daughter of another railroad owner, the much younger Helen Vinson. She carries the ultimate seed of his downfall.

Although the subject matter is far from what he later would do as a director, Preston Sturges wrote the original screenplay for The Power And The Glory. As Sturges was a well read man he might have taken his inspiration in part from our 17th President. Andrew Johnson was a man who did not spend a day in school and what education he did receive came from his school teacher wife. The early years of Tracy and Moore play very much like Andrew Johnson and Eliza McCardle Johnson were supposed to be.

In the underplaying and subtle style that he practically took a copyright out on, Spencer Tracy carefully delineates a character at all stages of his adult life that holds your interest throughout. Colleen Moore does as well. It's a pity that The Power And The Glory was one of her last films, she made the transition from the silent screen apparently easy. But she retired young and wealthy and saw not the need to work. And even though she made a career of playing 'the other woman' Helen Vinson actually does get to marry Tracy as a second wife though in point of fact she is indeed the other woman.

The Power And The Glory proved that they were asleep at the switch at Fox. Tracy's performance should have led to greater roles for him. He would have to wait until he was at MGM for his real glory years.

What's the bottom line? A great and successful businessman with a disastrous personal life

[Michael-110 · 8/10 · 10 January 2000]

The story of Tom Garner opens with his grand funeral and is told through a series of elegant flashbacks narrated by his faithful lifetime friend Henry. Henry and his wife debate whether Tom was a great man and a genius or an utterly worthless scoundrel. The film is beautifully written, acted and directed, and I highly recommend it.

Tom was the fabulously rich and successful owner of a large railroad, dominating his board of directors and his competition, terrorizing his employees, slaughtering strikers. Tom's ambitious wife Sally was responsible for all of Tom's success. When he met her, he was illiterate and entirely content with his work as a trackwalker for the railroad. Sally teaches him to read and takes over his trackwalker job while Tom goes to school. He starts to rise one step at a time through the railroad hierarchy until he eventually takes over as president.

But as Tom becomes a business tycoon, his marriage to Sally gradually falls to pieces. His spoiled son despises him, and he takes up with a much younger woman (the aptly named Eve), with predictably catastrophic consequences. In his business life, Tom is a total success; in his personal life, a disastrous failure. Much like the Hearst figure in "Citizen Kane," Tom symbolizes the best and the worst of the capitalist system.

Spencer Tracy is terrific in the role of Tom Garner and the business scenes ring with authenticity. Colleen Moore is also excellent as Sally; both of them age beautifully in the multi-generational story. The film was written by Preston Sturges, but is nothing like the screwball comedies for which Sturges became famous.

Borges an earlier comparer of 'Power & Glory' to 'Kane'

[bullock83 · 7 January 2011]

Paauline Kael--who made many claims, mostly unfounded, about the "true origins" of 'Citizen Kane'--was by no means the first to mention Sturges' script for 'The Power & the Glory' as a forerunner to Welles & Mankiewicz.

Jorge Luis Borges, in his 1941 review of 'Kane' in the periodical Sur, noticed the similarity in storytelling: "A kind of metaphysical detective story ... the investigation of a man's inner self, through the works he has wrought, the words he has spoken, the lives he has ruined. The same technique was used by Joseph Conrad in 'Chance' (1914) and in that beautiful film 'The Power & the Glory': a rhapsody of miscellaneous scenes without chronological order."

Of 'Kane' Borges also said: "In a story by Chesterton ... the hero observes that nothing is so frightening as a labyrinth with no center. This film is precisely that labyrinth." (Translation by Suzanne Jill Levine, from "An Overwhelming Film" in Borges, 'Selected Nonfictions,' Penguin 1999.) Famous remarks from a famous review, at least in the non-Anglo-Saxon world ... though Borges was critical of 'Kane' as well as complimentary.

In memory of a true friend ...

[lugonian · 7/10 · 1 December 2012]

THE POWER AND THE GLORY (Fox, 1933), directed by William K. Howard, is not so much a religious movie, hence its title, but a narrative story about a fictional character as recalled by a friend who knew him best. Categorized as something ahead of its time where stories told in flashback were commonly stylized a decade later, the original screenplay written by future comedy movie director, Preston Sturges, is noteworthy more for its early screen performance by Spencer Tracy, along with an atypical role by former silent screen flapper of the twenties, Colleen Moore. Though Tracy and Moore have the nominal leads, it's Ralph Morgan whose character participates throughout in both story and voice-over narration through various episodes.

The narrative opens at a church funeral of Tom Garner. As the camera pans around those in attendance, it then captures the presence of an old man named Henry (Ralph Morgan) with bushy mustache, wire glasses and gray hair. Leaving the service as the minister continues officiating about the deceased, Henry comes to the Chicago & Southwestern Railway Company building where he worked under the Tom, the company president. Henry then finds and takes an old photo of Tom and his little boy that rests upon his office desk. Later that evening, Henry, after helping his wife (Sarah Padden) with the dinner dishes, takes out the photograph to then share his memories of a true friend. Henry starts by telling his wife, "It's funny that our friendship began with a fight." Flashbacks recall the initial meeting of Henry (Cullen Johnson) and Tom (Billy O'Brien), and how the older boy was to become an influence in his life. Years later, Tom (Spencer Tracy), who never had any formal education, meets Sally (Colleen Moore), a mountain schoolteacher, who not only tutors him to read and write, but becomes wife and mother to his infant son. As Tom rises from track walker to construction worker to president of a railroad company, his marriage slowly starts to fall apart. Aside from heated arguments with Sally revolving around his pampered adult son (Clifford Jones) being expelled from college, his uncontrollable boozing and wild-living, Tom not only "humiliates" Junior by having him work as a bookkeeper at his company, but ends up having an illicit affair with Eve Borden (Helen Vinson), daughter of a rival railroad magnate (Henry Kolker). After Sally meets with a sad end, Tom marries Eve, who becomes untrue to him. As Tom reaches the pinnacle point to the power and the glory of Tom's life, Henry resumes his memory of a true friend with situations leading to his downfall.

A very interesting premise that tells its story in 76 minutes rather than what possibly could been captured in two hours, Spencer Tracy gives a masterful performance, especially when challenging roles come his way. Playing a natural born leader with unafraid tendencies, his only fear happens to be within himself. Scenes depicting him the silver haired cigar smoking businessman comes to mind of Tracy's later years from the mid-1950s onward when his dark hair turned prematurely white. Colleen Moore, whose character goes through the aging process as well, at one point, makes one think of Margaret Sullavan's golden age sequence from her 1941 edition to Universal's BACK STREET. The similarity between Moore and Sullavan is close to remarkable. While the power of Tracy's super-stardom lay ahead during his peak years at MGM (1935-1954), the glory days of Colleen Moore's era came to an end by 1934. Ralph Morgan, playing the third party, nearly steals the show through his narrative and devotion to a friend he defends to those speaking out against him, even his wife who calls Tom Garner a ruthless egotist. Henry's loyalty of friendship is felt throughout, from their Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry Finn type boyhood summer days by the old swimming hole to their business association during their senior years. Another honorable mention comes from Helen Vinson as the social climbing second wife.

As good as the actors are, there's something amiss to what should have become a celebrated masterpiece and a Academy Award nomination for Tracy, that being the often confusing story structure presented in jumbled fashion rather than in chronological order. Interestingly, it's Morgan's character who, through his narration, puts the pieces together even if not in any round-about way. Whether or not the actual intention of the narrative, chances are possibly deletions of certain key sequences leaving certain questions unanswered could have had something to do with some of its confusion. Take note that the familiar presence of veteran character actor, J. Farrell MacDonald, is briefly spotted that he can easily be missed by anyone familiar by his presence through a blink of an eye. No doubt, this narrative idea was good enough to have been duplicated and improved upon by future film directors who might have used this particular movie as its basic tool.

Long unseen, largely forgotten and at one point feared lost to film history, THE POWER AND THE GLORY finally turned up after many years in revival movie houses before being televised first on public television stations (notably New York City's own WNET, Channel 13, where it premiered in July 1992) and later on cable TV networks as the Fox Movie Channel and Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: September 18, 2011). Through its availability and occasional television revivals, this production from the neglected Fox Film era (1929-1935) should still be of some interest to film scholars and classic movie lovers of modern times. All the power to you. (***)

Solid Drama

[eddie-83 · 7/10 · 11 May 2000]

A precursor to "Citizen Kane" in its analysis of the life of a just deceased tycoon, here reviewed by his faithful secretary in a series of interlocking flashbacks. In Spencer Tracy's 15th film he already looks middle-aged even in the scenes where he is meant to be young!

A little silent-screen type emoting is understandable given the vintage but this is a most enjoyable, well-written drama.

I agree with jdeamara --the story just doesn't quite click.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 29 February 2008]

Spencer Tracy plays a self-made industrialist who worked like a dog to become a major railroad baron. Somewhere along the way, though, he lost track of what motivated him to do this in the first place and by the end of the film he realized, too late, that his work was in vain.

The review by jdeamara seemed right on when it said that this movie suffered because the way of presenting the movie by bouncing back and forth to tell the story seemed haphazard and that the characters needed to be further developed. Spencer Tracy is a complex character but instead of showing him in a comprehensible manner, the story bounces around so much that you never really come to know who he is or his motivations. The same went for many of the supporting characters--especially his wife. When he and his wife argued, it seemed like much of the context was missing. Plus, whether or not Tracy played a jerk or not wasn't really answered--and this question is the basis for the movie that is told by Ralph Morgan through flashbacks.

An interesting effort but that is all. For a much, much better film about the millionaire industrialist starring Tracy, try watching EDWARD, MY SON--a far more complex and enjoyable film.

By the way, according to IMDb the rumor started by Pauline Kael that this film was the inspiration for CITIZEN KANE was unfounded. As for me, I didn't see the parallel either.

Power & the Glory- The Glory that Power Didn't Bring ***

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 24 June 2008]

A real sudsy soap opera here as Spencer Tracy tackles the role of an illiterate until the age of 20. He marries the woman who teaches him and her ambition and his drive leads him to success.

Success but no happiness here. A n'eer-do-well son and a faltering marriage leads to disaster and tragedy. Tracy buys a railroad and succeeds only to be subjected to a disastrous rail strike and the death of 406 workers.

The film appeared at the beginning to be uneven but is rejuvenated thanks to the excellent use of flashbacks here.

A double separate suicide here. We know that riches can't buy happiness but this is a little too far fetched. Nonetheless, we have riveting performances by Tracy and Colleen Moore. Ms. Vinson, as the 2nd wife, is also quite effective.

What benefits a man who gains the world, but loses his soul?

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 19 January 2007]

Preston Sturgis' THE POWER AND THE GLORY was unseen by the public for nearly twenty or thirty years until the late 1990s when it resurfaced and even showed up on television. In the meantime it had gained in notoriety because Pauline Kael's THE CITIZEN KANE BOOK had suggested that the Herman Mankiewicz - Orson Welles screenplay for KANE was based on Sturgis' screenplay here. As is mentioned in the beginning of this thread for the film on the IMDb web site, Kael overstated her case.

There are about six narrators who take turns dealing with the life of Charles Foster Kane: the newsreel (representing Ralston - the Henry Luce clone), Thatcher's memoirs, Bernstein, Jed Leland, Susan Alexander Kane, and Raymond the butler. Each has his or her different slant on Kane, reflecting their faith or disappointment or hatred of the man. And of course each also reveals his or her own failings when they are telling their version of Kane's story. This method also leads to frequent overlapping re-tellings of the same incident.

This is not the situation in THE POWER AND THE GLORY. Yes, like KANE it is about a legendary business leader - here it is Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy), a man who rose from the bottom to being head of the most successful railroad system in the country. But there are only two narrators - they are Garner's right hand man Henry (Ralph Morgan) and his wife (Sarah Padden). This restricts the nearly three dimensional view we get at times of Kane in Garner. Henry, when he narrates, is talking about his boss and friend, whom he respected and loved. His wife is like the voice of the skeptical public - she sees only the flaws in Henry.

Typical example: Although he worked his way up, Tom becomes more and more anti-labor in his later years. Unions are troublemakers, and he does not care to be slowed down by their shenanigans. Henry describes Tom's confrontation with the Union in a major walk-out, and how it preoccupied him to the detriment of his home life. But Henry's wife reminds him how Tom used scabs and violence to end the strike (apparently blowing up the Union's headquarters - killing many people). So we have two views of the man but one is pure white and one is pure black.

I'm not really knocking THE POWER AND THE GLORY for not duplicating KANE's success (few films do - including all of Orson Welles' other films), but I am aware that the story is presented well enough to hold one's interest to the end. And thanks to the performances of Tracy and Colleen Moore as his wife Sally, the tragedy of the worldly success of the pair is fully brought home.

When they marry, Tom wants to do well (in part) to give his wife and their family the benefits he never had. But in America great business success comes at a cost. Tom gets deeply involved with running the railroad empire (he expands it and improves it constantly). But it takes him away from home too much, and he loses touch with Sally. And he also notices Eve (Helen Vinson), the younger woman who becomes his mistress. When Sally learns of his unfaithful behavior it destroys her.

Similarly Tom too gets a full shock (which makes him a martyr in the eyes of Henry). Eve marries Tom, and presents him with a son - but it turns out to be Eve's son by Tom's son Tom Jr. (Philip Trent). The discovery of this incestuous cuckolding causes Tom to shoot himself.

The film is not a total success - the action jumps at times unconvincingly. Yet it does make the business seem real (note the scene when Tom tells his Board of Directors about his plans to purchase a small rival train line, and he discusses the use of debentures for financing the plans). Sturgis came from a wealthy background, so he could bring in this type of detail. So on the whole it is a first rate film. No CITIZEN KANE perhaps, but of interest to movie lovers as an attempt at business realism with social commentary in Depression America.

Some power, some glory

[marcslope · 7/10 · 20 March 2008]

Despite later claims, this early-talkie melodrama has very little in common with "Citizen Kane": It's a biopic of a ruthless but human fictional plutocrat, told in flashback but hopping around time. The scriptwriter, Preston Sturges, shows none of his later gift for sparkling dialog, and none of the myriad cinematic innovations of "Kane" are evident. Still, it's very watchable, with a young Spencer Tracy (his old-man makeup makes him look just like, well, an old Spencer Tracy) showing depth and authority, and Colleen Moore -- a little past her prime, and not physically well matched -- playing a multifaceted woman-behind-the-man. There's also Helen Vinson as one of the most treacherous femmes fatales in movie history, sending the final third into ecstatic soap-opera reverberations. The surviving print is jumpy and has missing audio snippets, and there are some plot holes left open (how would she know whose son it was if she's sleeping with both of them?), and the music is awfully hokey. For all that, I was quite fascinated.

Boring.

[PWNYCNY · 5/10 · 12 May 2008]

Surprisingly mediocre Preston Sturges script. The story is corny, dull, stagy, and devoid of any strong dramatic content. That is, it's just plain boring. Some say that this movie is a precursor to Citizen Kane? Any resemblance between a unique masterpiece like Citizen Kane and this movie has to be purely coincidental. Spencer Tracy gives what has to be his weakest performance of his movies. Some of the acting is almost laughable. The plot is contrived and implausible. The movie became livelier in the scene with the strike but only for a few moments. The movie has the quality of a television soap opera but doesn't generate enough dramatic tension to maintain interest.

Rosebud

[wes-connors · 8/10 · 1 October 2011]

After despised railway tycoon Spencer Tracy (as Tom Garner) dies, boyhood pal Ralph Morgan (as Henry) recounts his friend's life. As we flashback, the young lads become friends during a near-drowning incident. Growing up illiterate, Mr. Tracy meets his perfect match in schoolteacher Colleen Moore (as Sally). Alas, Tracy's life is filled with triumph and tragedy. With Ms. Moore's edging, he rises to the top but becomes corrupt. Despite denials, "The Power and the Glory" provided Orson Welles with the blueprint for a revered classic; he needn't have worried, this does not diminish "Citizen Kane" (1941) in any way. Proving films can inspire without being innately inspirational, "The Power and the Glory" has the prerequisite flawed classic qualities...

Tracy is terrific, but does not really excite; however, this is a technical concern. A former "silent movie" star taking a few years off, Moore contributes a notably adroit supporting performance. Director William K. Howard gets to work with photographer James Wong Howe and an innovative Preston Sturges story. The non-linear narrative was new to talking films, and thus disarmed contemporary viewers. There looks to have been an unwelcome studio-ordered edit as the story seems shortened; and, of course, Mr. Wells (and I) would have ended it differently - the scene with Tracy kneeling by his bed, bathed in sunlight, with son Phillip Trent (as Tommy) and Mr. Morgan, should have ended with a close-up of the scar on Tracy's outstretched hand...

******** The Power and the Glory (8/16/33) William K. Howard ~ Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson

Underrated film, even here on IMDb

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 6/10 · 18 September 2011]

This is one of those early 30's films that has moments that impress, and other moments that disappooint.

Those who are giving this film somewhat negative reviews have, I think, forgotten what was typical in films in 1933. Tracy, long -- in my mind -- one of the two greatest film actors in American cinema (the other being Cary Grant), starred in a number of forgettable films before making "Fury" in 1936. But I had not been aware of this earlier film until this evening. Although it may not have been a break-through film for Tracy, it should have been.

I'm not a fan of excessive flashbacks, although they have their place. I'm even less of a fan of non-sequential flashbacks, and that is what this movie offers us. Perhaps that's what kept it from being a great film.

Nevertheless, it is a powerful story of what was a simple man, driven to excellence by his first wife, but who (along the way) finds a new love and second wife, resulting in the suicide of his first wife. Then, feeling ignored after years of marriage, the second wife has an affair with Tracy's son (this is so subtle, given the mores of the day, you will have to watch for this or you may miss it. Tracy's character then commits suicide himself. All powerful stuff for 1933! The story is built around Tracy's ownership of a railroad, and many comparisons have been made with "Citizen Kane". Apparently, Welles denied he had ever seen this film, but, to be honest, I don't believe him.

The rest of the cast is very good, although names most of us are not familiar with today.

This is a must-see for Tracy fans, and highly recommended for other lovers of cinema. The print shown on Turner Classic Movies is not in pristine condition, but is still very watchable. As of this writing in 2024, this film is available on DVD.

Tawdry

[view_and_review · 3/10 · 16 January 2024]

"The Power and the Glory" was meandering along at an average pace until it completely fell off the tracks. It wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't bad for the first hour or so. Then there came the point where railroad workers were gathering to form a collective unit and the big boss made his presence known. That's where I had enough.

"Power and Glory" was essentially about a man named Thomas Garner (Spencer Tracy). He was your prototypical pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps guy. He was illiterate until the age of twenty when he met his future wife Sally (Colleen Moore) who taught him how to read. She didn't stop there. She encouraged him to go to college where he could get enough of an education to make something of himself instead of just a railroad walker (not sure exactly what they did).

With his education and new found ambition Tom worked his way up until he became the president of Chicago & Southwestern Railway Co. It was a real rags to riches story which brings me to the scene I began my review with.

The railway workers were gathered to talk strike. They were several hundred deep and all riled up. Old Tom Garner defiantly walked through the whole lot of them and stepped up to where the speaker was. He told the speaker to stand down and so he did as sheepishly as he was hawkish before Tom arrived.

Tom then gave every man an ultimatum: be at work by 12:00 or be fired. He then launched into a speech that was pure spin doctoring.

"You know this isn't a private fight. There are store keepers waiting for goods, women waiting for food, and there are babies waiting for milk. Well they're not going to wait any longer. This railroad runs tonight." It was just like a corporate hawk to lay blame at the feet of common workers for problems the corporation created and had the ability to fix.

Tom's cowboy move to bark down hundreds of working men looking for better conditions reminded me of Walter Huston in "The Criminal Code" where he, as a warden, walked into a prison yard of about two-thousand inmates to essentially dare them to try any monkey business while he ran the prison. Hollywood BS through and through.

"Power and Glory" only got worse when Tom found out that his baby with his new wife Eve (Helen Vinson) was his own son's. It was the kind of bombshell that's used for salacious drama, but it only served to make it cheap and tawdry. To end it all Tom killed himself just to make it more tragic.

Free on YouTube.

Disappointing

[jdeamara · 10 April 2005]

This movie, apart from its innovative narrative style and a few great scenes, is rather disappointing. It tells the story of a millionaire, Tom Garner, by inter-cutting between two series of flashbacks, one telling the story of him as a young man -- his rise; the other of him as an old man -- his fall. The inter-cutting, though innovative, doesn't serve much purpose, and seems haphazard. Moreover, it concentrates too much on him as an older man, on the lurid melodramatic tale of how he and his wife meet similar ends through suicide brought on by the adultery of their respective spouses. Hardly as much time is spent fleshing out the character of Tom himself. No scenes are given to the development of the adult friendship between Tom and Henry, Tom's best friend who also serves as narrator of the film. This makes a scene where Henry argues with his wife that Tom was a good man seem pretty hollow; it's hard to take a stand, since so little insight is given into what made Tom truly tick. If this film served as an inspiration to "Citizen Kane," at least those behind Kane remedied the main flaw of "The Power and the Glory," by fully realizing and exploring its main character. 6/10

Tracy's best early work.

[st-shot · 6/10 · 29 March 2024]

The Power and the Glory is perhaps Spencer Tracy's most accomplished performance before superstardom swept him up a few years later. While some might point to 20 Thousand Years in Sing Sing as his breakout role, his stretch from a youthful railman to railroad owner, displays the deceptive naturalness of his laid back style that made him the iconic film actor his career delivered.

Rail walker Tom Garner (Tracy) is more than satisfied in life with his job. Illiterate he meets and marries Sally (Colleen Moore) whose support and teaching eventuate in a meteoric rise to owning a rail road. A hard driving workaholic, he battles unions, makes enemies and has an affair that destroys his marriage. Upon remarrying he even makes a bigger fool of himself.

"Power" pre-dates and resembles Citizen Kane as the film opens at Garner's funeral. The story told mostly by a simpering sycophant (Ralph Morgan) attempts his best to paper over the execrable Garner but even the loyal employee's wife near end is fed up with his whimpering and heads for bed.

Drably directed by William K Howard, it does not deter from Tracy's well metered maturing performance, even if absent from actress Helen Vinson's blatant pre-code seduction of his son in the film's most provocative moment.

A sober early script from Preston Sturges with Colleen Moore as Garner's wife delivering more than her share of powerful and touching moments.

The Power and the Glory review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 18 April 2020]

Following the funeral of a ruthless businessman, his life is recalled by his one remaining friend. The oft-noted parallels to Citizen Kane are impossible to miss, but this is a crude template that's completely lacking in substance and fatally tries to tell an epic tale in barely an hour-and-a-quarter. The non-linear narrative is intriguing though, and Spencer Tracy is good. An hour longer and it might have been a classic.

Stunning Performance by Colleen Moore!!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 28 November 2011]

Though strong and downbeat in theme, the similarities between "Citizen Kane" are obvious. Like "Kane", "Power" opens with the death of it's hero - Kane drops a glass ball and cries "Rosebud!!" while Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy) is already gone, a suicide, and the film begins at his funeral. One of the mourners, Henry (Ralph Morgan) leaves the service and walks to the railway office. As he walks people mutter uncomplimentary things about Garner, showing that he was held in less than high regard. When Henry's wife threatens to throw Garner's picture out, he says "You can't judge him by ordinary standards. He was too big". So it is established that Garner, like Kane, was a great man, damned by some, applauded by others.

The film owes everything to it's imaginative screenwriter, Preston Sturges, who created the role specifically for Spencer Tracy and I agree, Fox missed the opportunity of developing the greatest actor they ever had under contract (he played a similar role in 1934s "Now I'll Tell" - and they still didn't have the foresight to keep him). At Fox he was being developed as a gangster in the George Bancroft tradition and he was very hesitant to take on the role because of it's range, taking him from youth to old age. However Tracy dug deep within himself and director William K. Howard could only marvel when he saw Tracy's depth of characterization. I think the story also had similarities with the 1949 movie "All the King's Men" - which told of an uneducated "hick", who with his school teacher wife's help climbed to a position of power. Based on the life of Huey Long, Governor of Louisiana, this movie may have been a thinly veiled attempt to tell his story up to a point (Long was still alive in 1933).

Henry's friendship with Tom started when they were children around the old swimming hole. His memories of Tom are of a brave, determined man who goes out and gets what he wants. He also remembers when Tom first met Sally, the young school teacher who teaches him to read and write and also becomes his wife.

Their son grows up to be a bit of a layabout and when he is kicked out of school, Sally is horrified when Tom gives him a lowly job as a clerk in his railway. She also realises that she and Tom are drifting apart and that she, not Tom, wanted the power and the glory - he would have been content to be a track walker all his life, if Sally hadn't fired him with ambition. So far Tom's home life hasn't portrayed him so badly - but it is in the boardroom where you understand why Sally believes that her life with Tom has been hard. He is a tyrant who runs roughshod over anyone who gets in his way.

In a dramatic scene after Tom tells her he has found someone else, Sally, in a daze, walks in front of a train. Tom, very shortly after, marries his mistress, Eve (Helen Vinson) but, following the same pattern, he begins to neglect her, as he is often away breaking up strikes and disagreements within the railway. She then turns to his son, who has returned to his idle ways and in a shocking finale, Tom finds that the little child he thinks is his has really been fathered by his own son!!!

Sturges apparently based his screenplay on ideas from the stories his wife told him about her grandfather, cereal king C.W. Post, who did end his life in suicide. It occurred to Sturges that he could tell a story, the way it had reached his ears, in fragments.

A good story backed up with an innovative presentation

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 24 April 2017]

...distinguishes this film from many of the other Fox films from 1930 to 1935. Add fine actors like Spencer Tracy and you have a great show. It was quite something to watch the "American Dream" become the "American Nightmare" for Tracy's character, railroad magnate Tom Garner, and for that matter his wife Sally (Colleen Moore) as well.

Preston Sturges had been writing dialogue for films since 1930, but this was his first original screenplay. He scrambled the chronological sequence of events in a story told in flashback for a corrosively ironic effect. The viewer is able to leap across decades of time in a cut and see how the characters have lived up to or more often failed to live up to our and their own expectations.

Tom Garner's story is told by his executive secretary and lifetime friend, Henry (Ralph Morgan), after his funeral, in response to Henry's wife's cutting remarks about what an evil person Tom was and why he was a suicide because of his conscience. Henry disagrees. Now Fox was not Paramount in 1933, so some of the story is a bit eye-rolling, especially when Henry praises Tom's bravery as a child for jumping from a great height into a local stream that almost led to his death. Being dared to do something stupid and then taking that dare is not something that is a test of future greatness. But the story improves from there.

Tom never went to school, and as an adult went to the local schoolteacher, Sally, to read the letters for him from Henry. She offers to tutor him in basic reading, writing, and math, and they fall in love and marry. The marriage proposal involves a cute scene that is completely narration by Henry. Young Tom is happy being a "track walker" for the railroad and has no ambition. Sally, though, sees sparks of future greatness in Tom and comes up with a way where she supports the two of them by track walking in his place and he goes to engineering school to get a job with more potential on the railroad.

But Sally has created a monster. Tom evolves from being an enthusiastic engineer after graduation to becoming all consumed with being the most powerful railroad magnate in the U.S. and loses his earlier gentle giant attributes. Actually, Sally creates two monsters. The second is their son, Tom Jr., who she spoils rotten so that he becomes an amoral loafer, getting kicked out of Yale. This sets up the potential for all of the disasters that come afterward.

Many have said that this form of storytelling was what inspired Orson Welles to write "Citizen Kane" in the format that he did, but even if it didn't, there is an overarching mystery in both films. The first from Kane, is well known. How did anybody know Kane's final words since it appears he died alone in his room? The question for this film is how was Henry privy to all of the details of what made Tom commit suicide, as well of the private details of his life unless Tom was some kind of chatty Kathy with his old friend and secretary? Just wondering.

God on the tracks

[dbdumonteil · 30 April 2008]

The film begins with a funeral to the sound of "nearer my God to thee" and the soundtrack includes Gounod's "Ave Maria" as well.

This is the story of a self-made man,the American dream come true.From a track walker to a railway society tycoon,through the strikes and the strife of life ,Tom makes his way of life,abetted by wife Sally who taught him reading,writing and arithmetic when he was already a grown-up.

This is some kind of "Citizen Kane" in miniature ,relatively speaking ,a decade before Orson Welles' masterpiece happened.The story is told by Tom's good friend Henry,with wife making frequently unsympathetic comments .The movie alternates between present and past,back to childhood's days when Tom taught Henry to swim and to dive.

The story is a bit melodramatic ,mainly towards the end when the son falls in love with his stepmother and illustrates the famous sentence "you gain the world and lose your soul" ,which Tom's last word reinforces.

Henry was an educated man whereas Tom was essentially a self taught person .Tom got it made ,but in the end ,according to Sturges' screenplay,it's Henry's way which leads to true happiness.

Interesting editorial slant in this movie

[kittyvista · 8/10 · 9 December 2020]

The one thing that I found intriguing about this movie was its editorial slant. While many movies produced during the 1930s depicted the wealthy and powerful of the country as callous robber barons, this one presented the main character as having many noble and admirable traits, although he is misunderstood by many around him. Spencer Tracy's Tom Garner is a roustabout who rises - with both the assistance and motivation of his wife - to great weath and power. His friend, Henry, takes the less ambitious and risky route, attending business school. As Garner rises, he takes Henry up with him.

Tracy's character is impugned by Henry's wife for two reasons - 1) he has an affair that causes his wife to commit suicide, and 2) he uses outside security to "bust" a union strike, causing the deaths of 400+ people. Henry shows her the other side of both stories - that Garner himself wasn't responsible for the violence that ensued; his main concern was not letting his freight customers down, and 2) the affair had been engineered by the former owner of a short line railroad that Garner's enterprise had just purchased, who put his daughter up to "snagging" the old man as leverage to keep some power.

The overall concept in this film is that the wealthy and powerful have feet of clay - it doesn't make them intrisically evil, just human.

Excellent Movie

[guint-1 · 8/10 · 18 November 2013]

My review will make better sense only if you have read the majority of the reviews that have gone before. The one missing ingredient that I feel stands out from other reviewers is the position of second wife Eve. You must understand that she was a "plant" produced by her father to get in good with the old man (Tom Garner) when Tom purchases his ( Eve's father) railroad. Daughter Eve's job seems to be to interest Tom enough to have her father placed in an influential position. Her reward we are left to assume is wealth & social position. She succeeds but is obviously bored. The movie turns on two scenes- the first is the first wife's (Sally) realization that she cannot compete with the money & power plus a younger love interest that her husband has garnered over the years. She does not want to compete but suggest only that Tom enjoy the fruits of his hard earned accomplishments. The second scene is when Tom realizes that in choosing the spoils he has gained nothing. The scene is made poignant by Tom repeating exactly what wife Sally said as she bowed out of their relationship and thereby giving in to "The Power & the Glory". Both realized the totally seductive nature of wealth & power and chose not to intervene in passing it on to their love ones. No, the movie does not quite convince this theme to the audience but it is there if you listen closely & carefully. For me what is missing is the reason or reasons that Tom is so driven. In "Citizen Kane" a movie so often compared to this one we learn why Charles Foster Kane is so driven and that in itself makes the story. But Tom Garner? The best we can come up with is that it's in his genes! ( as suggested by Henry the storyteller when Tom takes a dare & jumps from a high place & cuts his hand). Or was it Sally who claims she drove Tom and was "hard" & cared only about bettering themselves. Maybe? But we see no evidence of this as the story unfolds. Finally a comment on the s flashback style used to tell the story. True is not done in the traditional chronological order but personally I found this both innovative & enjoyable.

Good Film

[Michael_Elliott · 14 April 2008]

Power and the Glory, The (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Preston Sturges wrote the screenplay for this film, which is best remembered for being an influence on Citizen Kane but more on that in a bit. The film opens up at the funeral of a man named Tom (Spencer Tracy), a railroad tycoon who just killed himself. While most people hated Tom's guts, his best friend (Ralph Morgan) saw him as something else and this is when we see Tom's story being told through flashbacks. From his early childhood, to his first marriage (Colleen Moore) and up to his final days. The screenplay by Sturges tells the film at three different points of Tom's life and it lays all the details out quite well but by jumping around so much I found it rather difficult to really get an opinion on Tom. We see some good, some bad but I was never really able to connect with him so that's why the ending didn't come off as emotional as it was intended. As I said, this film is best remembered for being an influence on the Wells film and I must say that I was quite shocked to see how much Citizen Kane borrowed from this movie. I was expecting a few similarities but the truth is that you could argue that the Wells film was a major rip off from various story details to the way the story is told. The opening and closing images are pretty much an exact copy and there's enough similar themes here to make it quite shocking that Sturges or Fox didn't sue RKO. Back to this film, Tracy gives a superb performance, which requires him to age thirty-years, which he does very well. Tracy was excellent in all of his scenes and really came across strong during Tom's breakdown towards the end. Morgan is also excellent as the best friend and does a very good job with the narration as well. Both Moore and helen Vinson, playing his second wife, are good but there's no question that the film belongs to Tracy. While this film certainly isn't in the same league as Citizen Kane I do believe that the Welles film is somewhat protected because not too many have seen this film. If more people watch this film then I think the credit for being original might leave the Welles movie.