VOICE Journal of the Alex Film Society Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007, 2 pm & 8 pm 4/07 of theTHEATRE The Best Years of Our Lives
By Randy Carter
irector William Wyler returned from World War II a changed man. He lost the hearing in one ear Dfrom explosions filming the Italian campaign, but it was the emotional debt he owed to his fallen comrades that weighed on his conscience. Like fellow veterans George Stevens, John Ford and Frank Capra he came home to postwar Hollywood and cautiously took up the wand of make believe after years of filming carnage, death and concentration camps.
Postwar movie attendance reached peaks that have never been duplicated, but it was the soldiers themselves who shaped the presentation of The Best Years of Our Lives. Across four long years GI’s fought and died and… The Greatest Generation watched movies… movies on returned to work sheets, movies to write a story treatment. He turned out a novel in on the decks of blank verse entitled GLORY FOR ME, the story of three battleships, movies in jungle camps, movies in bombed men coming back to face civilian life. out churches and castles. These men facing real death and injury had no patience for phony heroics on In the original story, Homer, the young enlisted man screen. They booed lustily any actor or situation that returned with war wounds that produced spastic didn’t ring true. There was a new reality in post war paralysis. Concerned that an actor portraying that type Hollywood and Wyler and his peers got the message. of wound would be hopelessly unconvincing, Wyler and screenwriter Robert Sherwood visited veterans’ hospitals According to Goldwyn legend, Time Magazine printed and were introduced to amputees. Non-actor Harold a picture showing a group of homecoming Marines Russell, a sergeant who had lost both hands when a leaning out of windows of a railway car on which had dynamite charge exploded prematurely during training been chalked “Home Again!” Sam picked up the phone in North Carolina and had been featured in an Army and for $12,500 commissioned author MacKinlay Kantor Pictorial Service documentary, intrigued Wyler. Russell Continued on Page 7
The Best Years Of Our Lives...... 1 Perspective: Fredric March...... 6 Perspective: Samuel Goldwyn...... 2 Short Subjects...... 7 Feature credits...... 4 Calendar...... 8 SAMUEL GOLDWYN the producer
Pictures are for entertainment, was born. DeMille moved the I was always an independent messages should be delivered operation into a barn in Cahuenga producer, even when I had by Western Union” Pass and they became the first permanent feature film company partners – S. Goldwyn – S. Goldwyn actually located in the town of independently. In 1923 he became Hollywood – it was 1913 and the an independent producer and movie was The Squaw Man. e was an independent formed Samuel Goldwyn, Inc. He long before the break- said: “I found that it took a world Hup of major studios and of time trying to explain my plans their chains. He was among the to my associates; now I can save first advocates of the primacy of all that time and energy, and put writers, of putting classics on film, it into making better pictures.” of transferring Broadway hits to Hollywood cameras. But he was In 1925, he married actress also infamous for his relentless Frances Howard who became ambition, bad temper and genius his lifelong partner – both in for publicity – Samuel Goldwyn marriage and business. became Hollywood’s mentor for For the next 35 years, Goldwyn all future independent producers. was the boss and sole proprietor of his own production company, Born in Warsaw, Goldwyn, with the a mini-studio specializing in newly “Americanized name” Samuel expensive “quality” films, distributed Goldfish, became a factory worker initially by United Artists and later at a glove factory in Gloversville, by RKO. The Goldwyn lot, now NY where he discovered he was called Hollywood Center Studios an extraordinary salesman. Goldfish remained in New York to is located on Formosa Avenue and sell the film to theatres, but soon Santa Monica Boulevard. Touted by On a bitter cold winter day in New grew tired of selling – he wanted to publicists for his “Goldwyn Touch,” York, he walked into a nickelodeon be a producer. The company merged he boosted the careers of many on Herald Square to warm up. in 1916 with Adolph Zucker’s actors at various times included, Watching the jerky, silent one- Famous Players and eventually Lawrence Olivier, Merle Oberon, reelers fired his imagination. became Paramount Studios. Dana Andrews, Ronald Colman, Eddie Cantor, Gary Cooper, David He rushed directly from the Goldfish sold his interest in 1917 Niven and Danny Kaye with movies nickelodeon on Thirty-fourth Street for $900,000. He then formed a like Wuthering Heights, Dodsworth, to his brother-in-law’s apartment, new production company (as a Pride of the Yankees, The Bishop’s passionate about launching a career producer!) with the famous theatrical Wife, and Best Years of Our Lives. in motion pictures. Jesse Lasky Selwyn family. The new partners asked how long Sam had been invented the name Goldwyn Ironically, Goldwyn had a falling- contemplating this idea. “About Pictures. The Goldwyn Company out with Wyler over who should get a half hour,” Goldfish replied, “as stars including Mabel Normand the lion’s share of credit for Best long as it took me to get home.” and Will Rogers. But a short time Years. Their friendship was soon later, to the Selwyn’s dismay, restored - speaking for the majority Lasky was not enthusiastic, but Goldfish made the company name of those who worked under the lash Goldwyn stirred the interest of a his own – he officially became of the Goldwyn whip when Wyler young playwright, Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and promptly said, “Even when you can’t agree to direct their first movie and the left the partnership. That company with Sam, you have to respect him.” Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company later merged to become M-G-M. But Goldwyn preferred to produce Continued on Page 3 www.AlexFilmSociety.org – – Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007 Goldwynisms
From that cold day in the nickelodeon to 1959, Goldwyn producer over 100 films. His “In two words: last film wasPorgy and Bess im-possible.” (1959) starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. Samuel Goldwyn, who had been wheelchair-bound after a debilitating stroke in 1969, died in his sleep on January 31, 1974 at the age of 95. Looking at Goldwyn’s contribution to the American cinema, no one would deny that some of “...We’ve all passed Hollywood’s best years were spent a lot of water since with Samuel Goldwyn. then.”
We welcome once again Linda Harris as a contributor.
Samuel Goldwyn Filmography “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” (partial, in viewer preference)
The Internet Movie Database lists 174 titles for Goldwyn including: “The movies is a place where everybody can go and not blush Dodsworth (1936) over what they see on the Porgy and Bess (1959) The Little Foxes (1941) screen.” Street Scene (1931) Wuthering Heights (1939) ”Too caustic? To hell with the costs, Pride of the Yankees (1942) we’ll make the picture anyway.” The Bishop’s Wife (1947) Stella Dallas (1937 and 1925) “Anyone who goes to a Guys and Dolls (1955) psychiatrist should have The Secret Life of Walter Mitty his head examined.” (1947) Barbary Coast (1935) Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
Goldwyn also appeared on On Fredric March: “When you’re a star, The Ed Sullivan Show in 1952 “I’m overpaying him, but you have to take the bitter he’s worth it.” with the sour.”
Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007 – – VOICE of the THEATRE William Wyler’s Black and White – 1946 – 172 min Samuel Goldwyn Productions The Best Years Print Courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Directed by...... William Wyler (AA) of Our Lives Written by...... MacKinlay Kantor (Novel Glory for Me) Robert E. Sherwood (AA) Cast Producer by...... Samuel Goldwyn (AA) Myrna Loy...... Milly Stephenson Cinematographer...... Gregg Toland Fredric March (AA)...... Al Stephenson aerial Cinematographer...... Paul Mantz* Dana Andrews...... Fred Derry Editor...... Daniel Mandell (AA) Teresa Wright...... Peggy Stephenson executive in charge of production Leon Fromkess Virginia Mayo...... Marie Derry assistant director...... Joseph Boyle Cathy O’Donnell...... Wilma Cameron Original Music by...... Hugo Friedhofer (AA) Hoagy Carmichael...... Butch Engle musical director ...... Emil Newman Harold Russell (2 AA)...... Homer Parrish Art Directors...... Perry Ferguson & George Jenkins Gladys George...... Hortense Derry Set Decorator...... Julia Heron Roman Bohnen...... Pat Derry illustrator...... Dorothea Holt* Ray Collins...... Mr. Milton Costume Designer...... Sharaff Minna Gombell...... Mrs. Parrish Hair Stylist...... Marie Clark Walter Baldwin...... Mr. Parrish Make up by...... Robert Stephanoff Steve Cochran...... Cliff Scully sound recordist...... Richard DeWeese Dorothy Adams...... Mrs. Cameron supervising sound editor...... Gordon Sawyer Don Beddoe...... Mr. Cameron sound...... Larry Gannon* Victor Cutler...... Woody Merrill special effects director...... John P. Fulton* Marlene Aames...... Luella Parrish special effects...... Harry Redmond Sr.* Charles Halton...... Mr. Prew (Novak Complaint) key grip...... E. Truman Joiner* Ray Teal...... Mr. Mollett (Axis powers sympathizer) title designer...... Dale Tate* Howland Chamberlain...... Mr. Thorpe Dean White...... Mr. Novak John Ince...... Ryan* Erskine Sanford...... Mr. Bullard Teddy Infuhr...... Dexter, Brat in Drugstore* Michael Hall...... Rob Stephenson Jackie Jackson...... A Boy* Gene Krupa...... Himself (archive footage) Robert Karnes...... Technical Sergeant* James Ames...... Jackie* Kenner G. Kemp...... Man At Bank Dinner* Carol Andrews...... Saleswoman* Donald Kerr...... Steve the Bartender* Mary Arden...... Miss Barbour* Alyn Lockwood...... Counter Girl* Al Bridge...... Gus, Salvage Superintendent* Susan Mann...... Announcer* Harry Cheshire...... Minister at Wedding* Michael Mauree...... Glamour Girl* Joyce Compton...... Hat Check Girl* Doreen McCann...... A Girl* James Conaty...... Man At Bank Dinner* Peggy McIntyre...... Girl at Soda Fountain (Enter Mollett)* Heinie Conklin...... Customer* Chef Milani...... Giuseppe (Lucia’s Restaurant proprietor)* Bert Conway...... ATC Sergeant* Harold Miller...... Wealthy Man at Nightclub* Clancy Cooper...... Taxi Driver* Ernesto Morelli...... Card Player* Mady Correll...... Announcer* William Newell...... Waiter At Bank Dinner* Roy Darmour...... Parking Lot Attendant* Georgie Nokes...... One of Homer’s ‘Kids’* Hal K. Dawson...... Man at Airport* William H. O’Brien...... Nightclub Waiter* Claire Du Brey...... Mrs. Talburt, Perfume Customer* Joe Palma...... Card Player* Tom Dugan...... Doorman* Leo Penn...... ATC Corporal* Edward Earle...... Steese (Bank)* Caleb Peterson...... Black Soldier At Airfield* Blake Edwards...... Corporal at ATC Counter* Norman Phillips Jr...... Clarence ‘Sticky’ Merkle* Billy Engle...... Customer* Jack Rice...... Apartment Desk Clerk* Ben Erway...... Lou Latham (Bank)* Suzanne Ridgeway...... Girl At Table With Cliff* Doris June Fesetta...... Camera Girl* Mickey Roth...... Boy at Soda Fountain (Enter Mollett)* Pat Flaherty...... Salvage Foreman (Junking Bombers)* Ruth Sanderson...... Mrs. Garrett* Tennessee Ernie Ford...... Nightclub/Hillbilly singer* Ralph Sanford...... George H. Gibbons* Louise Franklin...... Ladies’ Room Attendant* Noreen Sayles...... A Girl* Harry Gillette...... Card Player at Lucia’s* Stephen Soldi...... Card Player* Art Gilmore...... Trailer Narrator (voice)* John Tyrrell...... Angus (Gus), Butch’s Waiter* Dick Gordon...... Maitre d’Hotel* Amelita Ward...... Counter Girl* Earle Hodgins...... Diner Attendant (Lucia’s)* Marek Windheim...... Waiter at Lucia’s Restaurant* Stuart Holmes...... Wedding Guest* Catherine Wyler...... Department store extra* Ray Hyke...... Gus The Foreman* * uncredited, AA Academy Award
www.AlexFilmSociety.org – – Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007 Photo Gallery
Photos (clockwise from above):
Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007 – – VOICE of the THEATRE PERSPECTIVE: Fredric March
and again in 1946 for The Best Years of Our Lives. In 1954, March hosted the 26th Annual Academy Awards®.
March was one of the few actors to resist signing long-term contracts with the studios, and was able to freelance and pick and choose his roles, in the process also avoiding typecasting. By this time, he was working on Broadway as often as in Hollywood, and his screen career was not as prolific as it had been.
March, however, won two Best Actor Tony Awards: in 1947 for the rnest Frederick McIntyre play Years Ago, written by Ruth We Live Again (1934) with Anna Sten, Bickel began his career as Gordon; and in 1957 for a Broadway A Samuel Goldwyn production. a banker, but an emergency production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long E Day’s Journey Into Night. appendectomy caused him to cancer. He was married to actress reevaluate his life, and in 1920 Florence Eldridge from 1927 until he began working as an extra in A friend of playwright Arthur his death; they had 2 adopted movies made in New York City, Miller, he was favored by the children. using a shortened form of his writer to inaugurate the part of mother’s maiden name, Marcher. Willy Loman in the Pulitzer Prize- He appeared on Broadway in 1926, winning Death of a Salesman and by the end of the decade signed (1949). Director Elia Kazan cast a film contract with Paramount Lee J. Cobb, however, as Willy Pictures. Loman, and Arthur Kennedy as his son Biff Loman, two men that the director had worked with in the film Boomerang! (1947). March later played Willy Loman in Columbia Pictures’s 1951 film version of the play, directed by Laslo Benedek. Perhaps March’s greatest late-in-life role was in Inherit the Wind (1960), opposite Spencer Tracy. With Humphrey Bogart in Paramount’s When March underwent surgery for The Desperate Hours (1955). prostate cancer in 1972, it seemed Academy Awards® and nominations his career was over, yet he managed 1952 Nominated to give one last great performance Death of a Salesman With Olivia de Havilland in Warner Bros’ in The Iceman Cometh, as the Anthony Adverse (1936) 1947 Won complicated Irish bartender, Harry The Best Years of Our Lives March won an Oscar® nomination Hope. Ironically, co-star Robert 1938 Nominated in 1930 for The Royal Family of Ryan was entering the final stages A Star Is Born Broadway, in which he played a of lung cancer, so the film was shot 1932 Won role based upon John Barrymore. on a deathwatch. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde He won the Oscar® for Best Actor 1931 Nominated in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Fredric March died in Los Angeles, The Royal Family of Broadway California, at the age of 77 from www.AlexFilmSociety.org – – Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007 The Best Years of Our Lives Cont’d from page 1 would play Homer and win two $11 million in the U.S. and Canada Best Picture Academy Awards® for the same part, during its first years in release and, Samuel Goldwyn an honorary Oscar™ and one for Best in Great Britain, out grossing Gone Supporting Actor. With the Wind. On March 11, 1947 Best Writing, Screenplay President and Mrs. Harry Truman Robert E. Sherwood Fredric March came on board when attended the Washington premiere William Powell beat him out for with Robert Sherwood. Two nights Nominated Best Sound, Recording the title role in Life With Father later The Best Years of Our Lives Gordon Sawyer (1947). Sam Goldwyn persuaded dominated the entire Myrna Loy to play the wife of the Oscar® slate. Honorary Award banker gone to war, Fredric March. Harold Russell He thought she might be sensitive The Best Years of Our Lives For bringing hope and courage to about playing Teresa Wright’s 1946 Academy Awards® his fellow veterans through his mother but she signed with great appearance in enthusiasm. Virginia Mayo was Best Actor in a Leading Role The Best Years of Our Lives Dana Andrew’s two timing wife and Fredric March Cathy O’Donnell played the young Best Actor in a Supporting Role girl destined to marry the amputee. Harold Russell Best Director Dana Andrews was chosen to play William Wyler ex-pilot Fred Derry, featured in one Best Film Editing of the most memorable sequences Daniel Mandell in the film. Wyler had discovered Best Music, Scoring of a in Ontario, twenty-five miles Dramatic or Comedy Picture east of Los Angeles, a graveyard Hugo Friedhofer for bombers and fighter planes constructed too late to be used in the war. “We’ve got to use this”, he told Sherwood and cameraman Greg Toland (Citizen Kane). With a Including Short Subjects series of dolly shots and the sound of actual engines starting and taking The Vanishing Private off, they recreated the feeling of an actual bombing run with Andrew’s Walt Disney Donald Duck Cartoon, Technicolor – 1942 – 7:30 min. character once again in the nose of Print courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures a B-17. Produced by.....Walt Disney The Best Years of Our Lives cost Directed by...... Jack King $2.1 million dollars to produce and Story by...... Harry Reeves & Carl Barks Wyler took great care to rehearse Animation Paul Allen Hal King, Ed Love, and discuss every sequence until the cast understood the context and Charles A. Nichols, Vladimir Tytla, Judge Whitaker the intent. The film opened in New Layouts...... Bill Herwig York in November of 1946, replacing Voices...... Billy Bletcher, Don Brodie, Clarence Nash Laurence Olivier’s Henry V at the Song...... Leigh Harline Astor, with special pricing ($2.40 Music...... Oliver Wallace on weekends for reserved seats). It became a phenomenal success with Private Donald camouflages a cannon with invisible paint then paints critics and public alike, earning himself to escape the wrath of Sergeant Pete.
Research on short subjects courtesy of the Cine-Loa Archives. Feature credists courtesy of IMDB.com.
Vol. 13, No. 2 April 28, 2007 – – VOICE of the THEATRE www.AlexFilmSociety.org Society News Tickets: 818.243.2539 Crime Scene Investigation Benefits the Alex Saturday, July 7, 2007 at 2 pm & 8 pm History For Hire is a leading prop and set decoration provider On the Big Screen of the Alex Theatre! for the motion picture industry. When owner and AFS Board Member Pam Elyea got a call from C.S.I. New York with a request for period film projectors, she knew how to add FORBIDDEN some reality to the scene. Her next call was to AFS Board member (and Alex Theatre projectionist) George Crittenden PLANEt to see if he could come to the set as a consultant. George said he’d be delighted to lend a hand if any fee could be At once intelligent and campy, Forbidden Planet donated to the Alex Theatre to complete the soundproofing is an intriguing; sci-fi classic that borrows from of the projection booth. This long delayed project became Shakespeare’s The Tempest and strongly anticipates the happy benefactor of George’s $1,200 donation. “Star Trek” in its sci-fi milieu.
George spent several days at CBS Radford Studios (formerly Set in 2200 AD, a spacecraft from Earth arrives at a distant planet to investigate the Republic and Mack Sennett Studios) and had a wonderful status of a missing colonizing party. What Commander John Adams (Leslie Nielsen) time with the cast and crew. The only sour note was the and his crew find is a single survivor, the secretive, uncooperative Dr. Morbius story line… the projectionist gets murdered. Thanks George. (Walter Pidgeon) — and his virginal but uninhibited daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). As Adams’ crew prepares to relay their discoveries to Earth and receive further instructions, the deadly force that decimated the first crew reawakens. Key members Randy Carter, President of Adams’ team are found murdered and Dr. Morbius may not be revealing all he knows... Forbidden Planet was nominated for an Oscar™ (special effects) and is presented in CinemaScope with Color by DeLuxe. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1956).
membership application Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 8 pm ONLY mail with check to: Alex Film Society 8th Annual! Live Music, Comedy acts, and Laurel & Hardy’s THE MUSIC BOX. P. O. Box 4807, Glendale, CA 91222-0807 VAUDEVILLE EXTRAVAGANZA!
Once again the grand tradition of Vaudeville returns the Alex Theatre to its roots when we present 5 live acts of live music, magic, comedy and thrills. Our evening will be capped off by two comedy classics both involving pratfalls and stairs: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s THE MUSIC BOX (1932) and Larry, Moe and Curly in AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE (1941). This is an evening of family entertainment at its best, don’t miss it!
Voice of the Theatre Published by and for members of the Alex Film Society P. O. Box 4807 • Glendale, CA 91222 • 818.754.8250 [email protected] $3 (mailed free with membership) editor randy carter design/layout brian ellis distribution andrea humberger printer patterson graphics, burbank ©2007 AFS, all rights reserved