Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Screen Classics) (100 page)

381
“made a lot of trouble”: Rawlings to Bee McNeil, June 24, 1941, Rawlings Papers.

382
“When the boys get home”: Lawrence to Rawlings, May 22, 1941, Rawlings Papers.

382
“We didn’t agree”: Louella Parsons column, May 29, 1941.

382
“Fleming doesn’t like producers”:
The New York Times,
June 8, 1941.

382
“I was only on the set twice”: Rawlings to Bee McNeil, June 24, 1941, Rawlings Papers.

383
“How can I make”: Kazan,
Life.

383
“What ails the works”: Mitchell to Rawlings, June 27, 1941, Rawlings Papers.

383
“Victor Fleming, one of the greatest”: Interview in
Focus on Film
(Winter 1975).

384
“Our minds are not”:
Lion’s Roar,
Jan. 1944.

25 Bonhomie in Bel-Air and
Tortilla Flat

385
shot a letter: Aug. 27, 1941. Having finally persuaded Fleming to sign a long-term deal with the studio, MGM’s contracts department wasn’t going to tolerate any contrary publicity about the director’s independence or availability: “We desire to notify you that Mr. Fleming is under contract to us under the provisions of which contract we are entitled to his exclusive services during the term thereof, which is not scheduled to expire prior to . . . several years from this date. This letter is written to advise you that we are insisting and will insist upon the full protection of our rights under said contract.” MGM legal files.

385
“Fleming had a nervous breakdown”: Rawlings to Bee McNeil, June 24, 1941, Rawlings Papers.

389
she nearly upended:
Los Angeles Times,
March 6, 1939.

390
“It wasn’t exactly a farm”: From Miller’s unpublished memoir.

390
“for the same reason”: Wynn,
Ed Wynn’s Son.

391
“We opened them up, full throttle”:
Cycle World,
Aug. 1993.

392
“She was clearly”: Bacall,
By Myself.

392
“Do you notice”: Ibid.

392
“Lu the Jew”: Having a nickname herself may have prompted Slim to bestow them on others. According to Hoagy Carmichael (
Sometimes I Wonder
), she liked to refer to Howard Hawks as “Great White Father” because of his prematurely gray hair.

393
“razz him about the money”: Hedda Hopper column, Jan. 31, 1945.

393
“and flirting, of course”: Bacall,
By Myself.

394
“just told stories about Hawks”: Vidor, sound recording (1971), UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections.

395
acquired Hollywood heat: MGM announced its production of
Tortilla Flat
in 1940 in the wake of the success of
The Grapes of Wrath;
Ruth Hussey at one point was announced to play Sweets Ramirez.

396
MGM had refused to grant: Steinbeck to Annie Laurie Williams, June 24, 1941, John Steinbeck Collection, Stanford University.

396
set a meeting: Simmonds,
John Steinbeck.

396
“I’ve planted all the seeds”: Steinbeck to Annie Laurie Williams, Aug. 5, 1941, Steinbeck Collection.

396
“and when he returned it”:
The New York Times,
Nov. 30, 1941.

396
According to Mahin: Marshall,
Blueprint on Babylon
.

396
“Its single dirt street”:
Los Angeles Times,
Jan. 11, 1942.

397
“fate in the picture”:
The New York Times,
Nov. 30, 1941.

397
“tried to slow down”:
Los Angeles Times,
Jan. 11, 1942.

397
“tall and patrician”: Lee,
Chasing Hepburn.

398
He had promised Saint Francis: Joseph R. Millichap gets this whole episode wrong in his
Steinbeck and Film.
He writes, “In the novel [Pirate] mentions that the dog was later run over by a truck; in the movie the little dog is right up there, on the screen, wagging his tail in close-up.” Actually, the movie is faithful to the original anecdote.

398
“I tried to steal scenes”:
Life,
June 1, 1942.

398
“for Christ’s sake, Garfield”: Swindell,
Body and Soul.
Swindell told me his source for this dialogue was MGM talent scout Billy Grady.

399
“It was an honest part”: Hedda Hopper column, August 4, 1951.

399
“John Garfield was wonderful to work with”: Ibid.

399
pointed exchange: MGM legal files.

26 World War II with Tears

401
Deacon had asked:
Los Angeles Times,
Jan. 9, 1940. Deacon’s mental decline continued after his stroke, but not his ability to place ads. In
1951
, his ad read, “For $1 I will tell you what is killing the major portion of the trees.” He died in a Pasadena nursing home in 1952, age ninety-two. In death, he would suffer the same exclusion from the family circle he had in life; Eva bought the crypt above Victor for herself but buried Deacon in a plot outside the mausoleum at Hollywood Memorial Park.

402
“boiled-and-buttered native corn”: Agee,
Agee on Film.

402
“drifted away”: Kantor included this account of the aborted
Buffalo Bill
project in his papers, along with his treatment and memos to Fleming and Zimbalist; they reside in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress.

403
“the fakiest guy”: Interview with William Wellman, in Schickel,
Men Who Made the Movies.

404
Fleming told him: Dickran Kouymjian, “Saroyan Shoots a Film,” in Hamalian,
William Saroyan.

404
“the first woman”: Warren G. Harris,
Clark Gable
(New York: Harmony Books, 2002).

404
“specific and highly important assignment”: Gable’s military career is outlined in detail in Steven Agoratus, “Clark Gable in the Eighth Air Force,”
Air Power History
(Spring 1999).

405
“magical thinking”: Didion,
Year of Magical Thinking.

406
“They sent me everything”: Letter from St. Johns to Lucile Fleming, sent just after Fleming’s death. St. Johns didn’t like to waste lachrymose anecdotes and recycled this one in her 1969 memoir,
The Honeycomb.
But in the new version, which ends the book, Fleming, whom she described as looking a lot like the
Gunsmoke
star James Arness, mixed compassion with a patriotic homily: “Never forget that cutting down Papa’s pants for Junior was what made the United States great in the first place. The day we forget to use up everything, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the half-used cans of toothpaste, we won’t be the USA any more.”

407
“The proprietors of MGM”: Trumbo to Kempton, 1957, published in the
Nation,
April 5, 1999.

407
“convinced there was going to be trouble,” “I didn’t want to have”: Cook,
Dalton Trumbo.

408
“like Clark Gable”: Trumbo’s treatment for
A Guy Named Joe,
called
Three Guys Named Joe,
is included in the War Department review file in the National Archives, College Park, Maryland. Also in that version, the characters of Pete Sandidge and Al Yackey open the film with some randy dialogue with a British farm girl about pullets.

409
“because of the disparity”: Corliss,
Hollywood Screenwriters;
“Dalton Trumbo,” appreciation by Corliss.

409
“Flying isn’t tough”: Lee,
Chasing Hepburn.

409
“all wars are bad”:
The New York Times,
June 28, 1970.

410
“redeeming
Topper
twist”: Comments from Major Ralph Jester, Colonel Falkner Heard, Colonel Edward Munson, Colonel William Wright, and Lieutenant John T. Parker Jr. are in the War Department review file for
A Guy Named Joe,
National Archives.

411
“take on a dangerous job”: Joseph Breen’s suggestions for the ending are in the Production Code file for
A Guy Named Joe,
Margaret Herrick Library.

411
“I suppose the film,” “got the idea that,” and “my
best—
very best”: Interview appendix to Harvey,
Romantic Comedy.

412
“I used to go to the studio”: Interview in
Films of the Golden Age
(Summer 2004).

413
“Spencer never acts”: Associated Press, April 3, 1938.

413
“I looked at the schedule”: DeFore’s story about Spencer Tracy’s scene is from his interview in the Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, collection number A1980.0154; viewed at Margaret Herrick Library.

414
“a voice rumbled back”: Letter from Trumbo in the
The New York Times,
Aug. 6, 1967.

415
motorcycle crash: Johnson verified to Spencer Tracy biographer Bill Davidson (
Spencer Tracy: Tragic Idol
) that it was a motorcycle accident.

415
“I had to crawl across”: Interview with Johnson in the
Toronto Star,
Jan. 26, 1988.

415
“They had already tested”: Van Johnson, “My Life,” as told to Ruth Waterbury,
Photoplay,
March 1945.

415
“has more heart”: Hedda Hopper column, May 7, 1944.

415
“at the door”: Beecher,
Luckiest Guy in the World.

416
MGM asked: War Department file.

416
“as long as possible”:
Los Angeles Times,
April 5, 1943.

416
One unit spent: The War Department file details the work of the second units and includes suggestions on increasing cooperation between MGM and the military. The Army Air Forces embraced the second-unit footage and in January 1944 asked permission to use clips from
Joe
plus stills showing P-38 tactics. The AAF’s then-classified General Information Bulletin published them—the first time a commercial motion picture was used for training purposes.

416
“right from fields”: Letter from Carter Barron, MGM’s Washington, D.C., liaison, in the War Department file.

416
“They wanted to see”: Interview with Johnson in the
Toronto Star,
Jan. 26, 1988.

417
The BMP’s primary mission: For a historical overview of the bureau, see Koppes and Black,
Hollywood Goes to War.
Mention of the “Four Freedoms” is in the Office of War Information publication “Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry.”

417
Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips:
The 1944 cartoon has the indestructible Bugs on a Pacific island confronting bucktoothed Japanese soldiers. He refers to one of them as “monkey face.” The BMP files also question the 1943 Jack Benny comedy,
The Meanest Man in the World.
The bureau argued that overseas audiences probably would not recognize that Benny and his valet, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, were a comedy team, so might interpret their relationship as the true nature of race relations in the United States.

417
The script shows: Trumbo’s script copy is in his papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

420
The wartime Office of Censorship: Koppes and Black,
Hollywood Goes to War.

420
“every human being”: The BMP script review, including comments by Lillian R. Bergquist and telegrams from Ulric Bell, is in the records of the Office of War Information at the National Archives.

420
“The entire ending”: The only known interview with a member of the BMP staff was conducted by Harry A. Sauberli Jr. for “Hollywood and World War II: A Survey of Themes of Hollywood Films About the War, 1940–1945” (master’s thesis, University of Southern California, June 1967).

421
“The ending negates”:
The New York Times,
Jan. 9, 1944.

421
“And even if it does fizzle”: United Press, March 15, 1943.

421
“Now that Spielberg”: Pauline Kael,
Movie Love: Complete Reviews, 1988–1991
(New York: Dutton, 1991).