Of William Wyler Ben-Hur (1925); More Than 30 Years Later, Wyler Directed the Charlton Heston Remake
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screens › Worked on the chariot race scene in the first The ‘enigma’ of William Wyler Ben-Hur (1925); more than 30 years later, Wyler directed the Charlton Heston remake. › Directed Universal’s first all-sound film shot The eight Oscar nominations for 1946’s baby-faced Terence Stamp in The Collector outside of a studio, Hell’s Heroes (1930). The Best Years of Our Lives – and seven stat- crowned the director’s accolade streak by uettes, including those for picture, director, foreshadowing the Oscar fusillade of The › Married Margaret Sullavan after they actor, and screenplay – didn’t include a nod Silence of the Lambs in her nominated per- fought famously on the set of The Good Fairy to grande dame Myrna Loy, who took the formance as a cellar captive. (1935), one of Preston Sturges’ best high road in her autobiography four decades Of the seven Best Actor and Best Actress early screenplays. later despite never having received a single Academy Awards in Wyler’s oeuvre, the ladies Academy Award nomination during her take it in five. William Wyler’s Desperate › Married a Texan, Margaret Tallichet, an SMU 55-year film career. About the director, how- Hours: A Director’s Drama, the Austin Film graduate from Dallas (1938). ever – William Wyler – she minced no words: Society’s latest Essential Cinema series, › Daughter Catherine was named for Cathy in “My only reservation about doing that pic- spotlights three of them: Bette Davis Wuthering Heights (1939). ture concerned working with William Wyler,” (Jezebel), Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver), and wrote the actress, “because of stories from Olivia de Havilland (The Heiress). First-time › Worked with renowned cinematographer Bette Davis and other actors about his end- Oscar walk-offs Audrey Hepburn (Roman Gregg Toland on six films. less retakes and bullying. ‘I hear Wyler’s a Holiday) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) Greer Garson married the actor who plays sadist,’ I told Sam.” complete the squad, though not this particu- › Samuel Goldwyn, a movie producer from lar Director’s Drama. Leave the comedies to her son in Mrs. Miniver (1942), about which its director famously said, “Christ, when movie producers put their onscreen Billy Wilder. dyslexic, Billy Wilder. “He was not a particu- credit after the director’s, played it off. Lighter fare united Wyler and Hepburn larly well-read man. As a matter of fact, he what a tearjerker.” “‘That isn’t true,’ he replied, with a genuine two out of three times together, but the hated reading. He was not a particularly stu- › The hallway reunion scene in The Best Years Goldwynism, ‘he’s just a very mean fellow.’” actress never warms to Peter O’Toole in dious man. He had no idea about Strasberg of Our Lives (1946) was based on Wyler’s own “Willy” Wyler had a reputation all right. Technicolor caper How To Steal a Million methods, about Russian theatre. There was return home from World War II, during which “I’d seen Willy be very hard on other peo- (1966), and she’s miscast in Lillian just an instinct in him that told him when it he lost most of his hearing in the Air Force. ple in the two previous pictures we did Hellman’s sapphic scare The Children’s was right. When it felt true.” together,” offers Myrna Loy’s co-star Teresa Hour (1961) – a remake of the director’s “A genius,” trumpets John Huston, Wyler’s › Wyler’s friend Dashiell Hammet was the first Wright in the former’s memoir, Myrna Loy: first censored attempt at the material in lifelong friend, “for getting the truth out of an writer on Detective Story (1951). Being and Becoming. “He could wear people 1936, These Three. Look instead to coltish actor. Getting his very best performance. A › Audrey Hepburn’s screen test for Roman down with the amount of takes he’d make.” Teresa Wright, a film series in her own most sophisticated thing Willy was after.” Holiday (1953) was extended without the Apparently it worked, too. Wyler remains right, standing chin up to Bette Davis in Billy Wilder: “There was a finesse in that actress’ knowledge (the camera operator was the most nominated director in the ledger of another ruthless Hellman play, The Little guy, which you would not expect if you just Tinseltown accolades, one Oscar for directing Foxes, then snatching Best Actress in a talked to him across a card table – where you instructed to keep filming after a “cut” was shy of John Ford’s four, and tied with Frank Supporting Role honors for Mrs. Miniver talked to him most of the time.” yelled), and it was on the basis of this footage Capra at three. Wyler was recognized in the and finally graduating to its World War II Counsellor at Law (1933), Wyler’s first (“Was I any good?”) that she got the part. category more than both of them combined. bookend, The Best Years of Our Lives, for screen gem and one of John Barrymore’s last Ford and Capra each took home Best Picture which Fredric March won his second gold great roles, finesses a crudely effective, not- and director only once. All three of Wyler’s tie clip while Myrna Loy got air. so-slow boil out of its star’s volcanic talent. directing trophies – for 1942’s Kirk Douglas – another great pro- Mrs. Miniver, 1956’s The Best file – gnashes out a terrific turn in Years of Our Lives, and 1959’s the one-act, two-room cop drop Ben-Hur – were matched by a Detective Story, a canon sleeper Best Picture win. His other alongside The Collector. Likewise, nods were for Dodsworth Films screen Tuesdays, 7pm, Oct. 19: Counsellor at Law Humphrey Bogart, nearly two (1936), Wuthering Heights at the Alamo Drafthouse South Oct. 26: Jezebel decades after a vicious comeup- (1939), The Letter (1940), The (1120 S. Lamar). For ticket info Nov. 2: Mrs. Miniver pance in Wyler’s Dead End (1937), Little Foxes (1941), The Heiress and program notes, Nov. 9: The Heiress loosens a raw home invasion in (1949), Detective Story (1951), see www.austinfilm.org. Nov. 16: The Desperate Hours The Desperate Hours (1955), his Roman Holiday (1953), Friendly second to last film. All are rabid Persuasion (1956), and The iconography for the ages. › Spencer Tracy had agreed to play the Fredric Collector (1965). Save perhaps for Bette “As for Willy’s legendary penchant for Bogie’s brick wall in The Desperate Hours, March role in The Desperate Hours (1955) but Davis tempest The Letter, one of three films retakes,” acknowledged Loy in her 1987 Fredric March, inspired AFS’ new Wyler cycle. wouldn’t cede top billing to Humphrey Bogart. the screen demon made with Wyler, the book, “I experienced it only once. … We did The five entries of I Married a Witch: Fredric director’s 12 nominations constitute their it over and over again, every possible way – March’s Comic Curse in 2008 – which ended › Jessamyn West adapted her book Friendly own graduate film course. upside down, backward, everything – without with The Best Years of Our Lives – left The Persuasion (1956) with Wyler’s brother N ever satisfying him.” Desperate Hours on the cutting room floor for Robert. The author, who wrote To See the Wyler wasn’t in it for the ego. The Swiss- Daughter Catherine Wyler’s documentary obvious (and murderous) reasons. That Dream about the experience, said of film- German Jew from Alsace-Lorraine (born in Directed by William Wyler, the subject of series’ proposed follow-up, a John Barrymore making: “A movie is a guess at an echo.” 1902 and first cousin once removed to Carl which died three days after being interviewed grouping, couldn’t score 35mm prints that › Wyler quit The Sound of Music to make in July 1981, explains the cineaste’s so- Laemmle, who founded Universal) also holds film archives and movie studios are more The Collector (1965) after casting Julie the record for most actor nominations in his called sadism with expert witnesses. and more reluctant to lend out now – except Andrews as Maria. films (36), starting in 1936 with Dodsworth, “He was an amazingly inarticulate man about for Counsellor at Law, which AFS landed. when Walter Huston was nominated as the tit- what he wanted,” states Bette Davis flatly. William Wyler directed the two films, and I – Gleaned from William Wyler: The ular husband in a crumbling marriage. Nearly “That’s the enigma of Wyler,” accents Willy curated both roundups. Authorized Biography by Axel Madsen (1973) 30 years later, Samantha Eggar opposite Wyler’s doppelgänger to the cinematically Hopefully Myrna Loy’s next. N a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m OCTOBER 15, 2010 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E 51.