4-Film Collection: Spencer Tracy
Warner Archive delivers four classics starring Spencer Tracy in this collection that gathers a quartet of previously released Blu-ray discs in one handy, affordable package.
If you want to expand your classic film library without breaking the bank, Warner Archive’s series of 4-Film Collections is a great way to do so. They’re themed around an actor, director, or writer and serve up four films on individual Blu-rays, as opposed to packing them all into one or two discs and compressing the video quality.
In this case, we have four films from the prolific career of Spencer Tracy, who was in over 75 movies and earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning a pair of them back-to-back in 1937 and 1938.
Fury (1936)
Directed by Fritz Lang.
Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, and Walter Brennan.
Our first movie is also notable as German director Fritz Lang’s first American work. It’s one of those “the more things change, the more they stay the same” movies in its portrayal of how a mob mentality can push otherwise-decent people to horrible actions.
Spencer Tracy stars as Joe Wilson, a hard-working gas station owner who’s on his way to meet his fiancee, Katherine Grant (Sylvia Sidney) when he’s arrested under suspicion of kidnapping a child. The evidence is circumstantial and flimsy, which the sheriff acknowledges, but he wants due process to take its course first.
However, rumors begin to spread among the local populace, and soon that “evidence” becomes a clear-as-day sign to them that Joe is guilty. When a mob shows up at the jail, the sheriff and his deputies refuse to allow them to take Joe to be lynched, which leads to a riot and Joe’s seeming death. Afterward, the district attorney attempts to try the main perpetrators but runs into a roadblock when no one will identify the guilty parties.
I’ll leave the plot description there because the story has a couple nice twists and turns en route to a nuanced ending. Like many great movies, Fury lets the viewer sort out everything that has happened and decide how they feel about all of the characters’ actions.
In addition to the theatrical trailer, you get a commentary track featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, who gives a scholarly discussion of the movie. Lang also pops in with comments culled from interviews Bogdanovich conducted with him in 1965.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Libeled Lady (1936)
Directed by Jack Conway.
Starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Walter Connolly.
Spencer Tracy was a busy guy in the mid-1930s: Fury and Libeled Lady are two of the three movies he was in that were released in 1936 (San Francisco, with Clark Gable, was the third). While the name of this one might make it seem like it’s a serious film, Libeled Lady is actually one of the early screwball comedies.
In this one, Tracy stars as newspaper editor Warren Hagerty, whose publication, the New York Evening Star, has been sued for $5 million by a rich socialite (Connie Allenbury, played by Myrna Loy) after an article falsely accuses her of breaking up a marriage.
Warren hatches a plan to recruit former reporter Bill Chandler (William Powell), who has a reputation as a ladies’ man, to marry his long-suffering girlfriend, Gladys Benton (Jean Harlow), and maneuver Connie into a position of being alone with him. When the press finds out about the incident, Warren theorizes, they will believe that Connie really could commit adultery.
As hare-brained schemes go, this one is a doozy, but Gladys goes along with it in the hope that she can finally get Warren to marry her for real. Bill ends up going to great lengths to win Connie’s confidence and get her alone, but the pair fall in love in the process, and eventually Gladys starts to think that maybe Bill is a better catch than Warren.
Hijinks ensue, of the staid 1930s variety, before the story comes to a mostly-satisfying conclusion. Libeled Lady is very much a product of its time in many ways, but it’s a fun film if that kind of thing is up your alley.
Extras on this disc include a trio of MGM shorts from the era (back when movies had short films preceding them), the theatrical trailer, and Leo is on the Air, a radio show segment promoting the film.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Northwest Passage (1940)
Directed by King Vidor.
Starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Young.
If you thought the last film showcased antiquated attitudes, Northwest Passage ups the ante. Based on the 1937 novel of the same name by Kenneth Roberts, this one puts Spencer Tracy in the role of Robert Rogers, who in 1759 led a group known as “Rogers’ Rangers” in a battle against a village of Indigenous Abenaki people in Canada.
Roberts’ book is based on real people and events that happened during the French and Indian War, including the raid that slaughtered many men, women, and children in the village. Yes, the Abenaki had been raiding colonial settlements, with help from French troops, but, as they say, two wrongs don’t make a right.
While Northwest Passage does try to portray the Indigenous people in a more balanced light, with Rogers’ group assisted by other Native Americans who have had conflicts with the Abenaki, there’s a moment where Rogers tells a young boy that he’ll call him “Billy” and I died a little inside. I doubt many filmgoers in 1940 knew about the history of Native Americans being forcibly assimilated into local cultures, being forced to give up their original names in the process, but that makes the moment a lot harder to stomach in 2026.
That said, this is a fun adventure film, and director King Vidor does an excellent job of capturing beautiful northwestern landscapes and harrowing action scenes. The bonus features found here include the theatrical trailer and a 9.5-minute promotional film called Northward, Ho!, which was a making-of featurette decades before the word “featurette” existed.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Directed by John Sturges.
Starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine, and Lee Marvin.
The previous film was in Technicolor, but it was shot in the 1.33:1 Academy aspect ratio. Bad Day at Black Rock is an Eastmancolor Cinemascope movie, the only one of the four films found here in a widescreen aspect ratio.
Spencer Tracy stars here as John J. Macreedy, a one-armed World War II veteran who arrives in the tiny town of Black Rock to find a Japanese-American man named Komoko. He quickly meets a wall of resistance led by Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), who counts Hector David (Lee Marvin) and Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) among his loosely organized gang.
The year is 1945, and anti-Japanese sentiment still runs strong through the town, which Macreedy discovers as he has conversations with Smith and others. Anne Francis plays Liz Wirth, whose brother runs the hotel where Macreedy is staying; she offers some assistance to the newcomer, but she also has divided loyalties.
The story, guided by well-known director John Sturges, is a slow burn as Macreedy begins to realize that his life could be in danger if he stays much longer. There isn’t another train out of town until the next day, however, so he does his best to survive the situation in the meantime, eventually deciding to rally some of the other people in the town to his cause.
I’ll admit I hadn’t seen Bad Day at Black Rock before now, and I came away with the realization that it’s one of those underappreciated films that should get more love. It was nominated for three Oscars but didn’t win any of them, although that’s hardly a strike against it. Check it out if you can.
On the bonus features front, you’ll find the theatrical trailer and a commentary track by film scholar Dana Polan, who delivers the kind of “film class on a disc” discussion that I always enjoy.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
Originally published February 19, 2026. Updated February 18, 2026.
