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.
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.