Spencer Tracy was getting quite old when he made this one. He can still show some power here in his lead role as a stubborn judge with the young girl friend. He does a good job with a challenging script. Lana Turner as the love interest is very effective here. Considering the film's script, she does well too.There are sparks in the cast besides. I think in this case Tracy deserved better script. That seemed to hurt him in his last films. Are there better Tracy films? Yes, but this one is pretty good.Judge Timberlane may not chop down trees but he does Dispense Jusice with authority from the bench.

Cass Timberlane is a surprising piece of work coming from the pen of Sinclair Lewis. Lewis's reputation as American novelist comes from such polemical work as It Can't Happen Here, Main Street, and Elmer Gantry. The novel Cass Timberlane plays more like a Ross Hunter type soap opera.To be sure there are some of the Sinclair Lewis that we know in the class conscious town where Cass Timberlane is a judge. And I certainly can't comment on the book, possibly it was more polemical and political than what we got in the film.Spencer Tracy plays the title role, a judge in an average size midwestern town that has its good and bad, though it seems that how much money you have determines how good you are. Tracy has been a widower for many years and a pretty lonely fellow away from court.But one day in court, young Lana Turner pops up as a witness in a negligence case before the judge. She's from the other side of the tracks so to speak. And there's a considerable age difference. Despite that Tracy and Turner fall in love and are married.At this point the film becomes a soap opera with weak chinned heel Zachary Scott making a big play for Turner who's not happy with the way Tracy's high toned friends are treating her.Tracy's good, he always is and Turner is luminescently beautiful. Scott has the heel role down pat, it's just a carry over from the part he did in Mildred Pierce. Look for a good performance also from Albert Dekker the corrupt leading citizen in the town.This is a film that should have waited a decade and have Ross Hunter produce it.

"Cass Timberlane" is a film about unexpected love and the choices you have to make when you're in love. Directed by George Sidney and starring Spencer Tracy as Cass, a judge in small-town Minnesota who is part of the middle-aged country club set. He's generally living a comfortable and content existence when he meets Virginia (Lana Turner), a woman who is at first a witness for a small claims case and later runs into. They strike up a friendship and then a romance, culminating in their marriage. When their child dies while being born, Virginia finds herself more and more restless and spending more time with Cass' best friend, the younger and handsome attorney Bradd (Zachary Scott). The country club set sees them getting closer, and collectively send Bradd to New York under the guise that he is being transferred for his job, just as Cass is starting to wonder if something is up between Bradd and Virginia. Virginia convinces him that there is nothing going on, and eventually Cass offers to move them to New York so she isn't so bored. Cass is then forced to choose between the love he has for his town and his job, and his love for his wife and her needs.Spencer Tracy is excellent in this film, as he is in all of his films, and Lana Turner is also quite good. The scenes between she and Zachary Scott have enough heat in them to make us wonder if they are guilty of adultery as well. The story is a pretty straightforward drama, nothing special, but it is a good script and offers up enough conflict to satisfy without resorting to overload and ridiculous emotion. This is an average film that was well worth looking up. 6/10 --Shelly

I seem to be a dissenting voice, looking at the other comments on this film. I didn't find it tedious at all. It is a warm, leisurely paced story. Spencer Tracy turns in a sterling performance as a judge who holds firm to old-fashioned values, though his commitment to friendship does blind him to his friends' shortcomings. Lana Turner does OK as a woman from "the wrong side of the tracks" who loves the judge but mistakes his principles for a lack of courage. There are some weak points in the film. Zachary Scott is not convincing at all as the cad who seduces Jenny away from her husband. There is a slightly cardboard quality of the scenes with the judge's society friends. And the subplot of friends wanting the judge to fix a trial in their favor slides so much into the background that it might as well not be in the film at all. But on the whole, I found this to be one of the better May-December romance films I have seen.