As other reviewers have noted, this is an unjustly neglected Depression-era film. Directed by Frank Borzage (two Oscars) and written by Jo Swerling (Leave Her to Heaven, The Westerner, Lifeboat, etc.), it is a tough-minded, well-structured and -realized move about denizens of a New York City shantytown. They're grifters, beggars, and women forced into prostitution, but they're a community of people both good and bad, with loyalties as complex as any group's.

Perhaps primary among this movie's many admirable qualities is the contrast between Spencer Tracy's character, Bill, and Loretta Young's Trina. He tough-talking, physically aggressive, and evidently fearless-- but Bill is not the character who gives this film its steely sense of survival. While he blusters, Trina actually hangs tough (if that term can be applied to a character so ladylike). Her devotion to him is obvious, and complete. When she becomes pregnant, she says she will raise it herself if he wants to leave. Such is the dignity of Loretta Young's performance (at age 20) as a very simple, even simple-minded character, that she seems neither weak or dependent, but rather a woman who recognizes happiness when she finds it, and love, and who has learned the hard way that it's worth holding on to because it doesn't come around often, and what's rare is precious.

Although this rarely seen film is not available on video, and has not been shown on cable that I am aware of, it is a classic which deserves the light of day. Spencer Tracy, before his MGM years and major stardom, was teamed with Loretta Young, one of the major stars of the early 30's, and sparks were united.

Tracy is a rough and tough shanty town character who takes in down on her luck Young. Slightly mistreating her, Tracy is on the verge of leaving her when she drops a bombshell that will change their lives. Also around are Marjorie Rambeau as a drunken neighbor with a heart of gold (and giving a very sensitive performance), Glenda Farrell as a singer who turns Tracy's head, and Walter Connelly as another neighbor who becomes a father-like figure to the two.

The camera work and settings are rough and gritty, almost like a Warner Brothers film. However, this was made at Columbia, then a second-rate "B" studio which was most known at the time for its string of films directed by Frank Capra (usually starring Barbara Stanwyck). It is short and sweet (66 minutes according to Leonard Maltin), and very moving. I agree with Maltin's comment that Tracy's character was a bit much to take at times, but it is evident that he hides many facets behind his hard exterior. The story is very close to the play "Lilliom" (Tracy finding spiritual guidance after a failed payroll robbery), and ironically Tracy's character's name is Bill, changed to Billy for the musical "Carousel".

Young, never one of my favorites, was at her best in the early 30's before she became too "lady-like". Even though her character is sweet and vulnerable, she is far more realistic than she got in her more esteemed years after winning the Oscar for "The Farmer's Daughter". Farrell is fine in her few scenes, but has little to do. It's a shame that this very talented lady never rose above the line of secondary roles or leads in "B" features. If "A Man's Castle" makes its way onto cable (or with some miracle, home video), I highly recommend it to film students and historians.

I generally find Loretta Young hard to take, too concerned with her looks and too ladylike in all the wrong ways. But in this lyrical Frank Borzage romance, and even though she's playing a low-self-esteem patsy who puts up with entirely too much bullying from paramour Spencer Tracy, she's direct and honest and irresistible. It's an odd little movie, played mostly in a one-room shack in a Hooverville, unusually up-front about the Depression yet romantic and idealized. Tracy, playing a blustery, hard-to-take "regular guy" who would be an awful chauvinist and bully by today's standards, softens his character's hard edge and almost makes him appealing. There's good supporting work from Marjorie Rambeau and Glenda Farrell (who never got as far as she should have), and Jo Swerling's screenplay is modest and efficient. But the real heroes are Borzage, who always liked to dramatize true love in lyrical close-up, and Young. You sort of want to slap her and tell her character to wise up, she's too good for this guy, but she's so dewy and persuasive, you contentedly watch their story play out to a satisfying conclusion.