The Power and the Glory (1933 film) life. Otherwise, according to Sturges, their lives did not correspond. In 2014, "The Power and the Glory" was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The film is unrelated to the 1940 novel of the same title by Graham Greene. After the funeral service for Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy), a powerful and much-hated railroad tycoon who committed suicide, his best friend Henry (Ralph Morgan) recalls Garner's life, his family problems, and his rise from track walker to president of the railroad. Sturges originally wrote the script as
The Power and the Glory suppress the Catholic Church. That suppression had resulted in the Cristero War (1927-1929), so named for its Catholic combatants' slogan "Viva Cristo Rey" (long live Christ the King). In 1941, the novel received the Hawthornden Prize British literary award. In 2005, it was chosen by "TIME" magazine as one of the hundred best English-language novels since 1923. The main character is an unnamed 'whisky priest', who combines a great power for self-destruction with pitiful cravenness, an almost painful penitence, and a desperate quest for dignity. By the end, though, the priest "acquires a real holiness." The other principal character is