In Boys Town (1938), Spencer Tracy plays Father Edward Flanagan, the real priest who founded a home in Nebraska for boys in need of care and a second chance. The film follows Flanagan as he takes in troubled youngsters, including a boy played by Mickey Rooney, and argues that there is no such thing as a bad boy.
Tracy plays Flanagan with quiet conviction rather than sentimentality. He listens more than he lectures, and his faith in the boys feels practical and lived-in. The role won Tracy his second Academy Award for Best Actor in consecutive years, and it remains a warm, humane portrait of a man who believed in young people.
