The Show-Off

Here’s one from early in Spencer Tracy’s career. He plays a windbag who possibly doesn’t mean anybody any harm, but harms them nonetheless. As they say in Texas, he’s all hat and no cattle. A young woman inexplicably falls for him—okay, he’s glib, and she’s naïve, it happens—and they marry. He’s a liar and a fantasist, and I hated pretty much everything about him. He’s one of those guys who has to touch you to talk to you, throwing his arm over your shoulder, invading your personal space. Her parents are onto him—all it would take for me would be the first time he called me “Popsy-Wopsy” and my wife “Mumsy-Wumsy,” which he does over and over—but love is blind. What really pissed me off is that in the end he comes out smelling like a rose.