Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Screen Classics) (105 page)

Academy Award nomination: Frank Morgan, supporting actor.

1943

A Guy Named Joe
(MGM) Released December 24. Length: 118 minutes. Production began February 15; the
The New York Times
reported on September 19 that Fleming completed principal shooting that week. He shot a new closing sequence for the film starting on November 10. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson, Ward Bond, James Gleason, Lionel Barrymore, Barry Nelson. Production: Everett Riskin, producer; Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter (from Frederick Hazlitt Brennan’s adaptation of Chandler Sprague and David Boehm’s original story); George Folsey and Karl Freund, cinematographers.

Academy Award nomination: Sprague, Boehm, original story.

1946

Adventure
(MGM) Released February 19. Length: 125 minutes. Production dates: Fleming began preparing the project in February 1945, started shooting in mid-May, and completed principal photography on September 21. He concluded postproduction on November 12 and left the studio for a three-month leave that turned out to be permanent. Cast: Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Joan Blondell, Thomas Mitchell, Tom Tully, Richard Haydn, Lina Romay, Harry Davenport, Tito Renaldo. Production: Sam Zimbalist, producer; Frederick Hazlitt Brennan and Vincent Lawrence, screenwriters (from Anthony Veiller’s and William H. Wright’s adaptations of Clyde Brion Davis’s novel); Joseph Ruttenberg, cinematographer.

1948

Joan of Arc
(Sierra Pictures, released by RKO) Released November 10. Length: Cut to 100 minutes in 1950, restored to 153 minutes in 1998. Production dates: September 16–December 18, 1947; retakes February 16–25, 1948. Cast: Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Leif Erickson, John Ireland, George
Zucco,
George Coulouris, John Emery, Gene Lockhart, J. Carrol Naish, Jeff Corey, Hurd Hatfield, Shepperd Strudwick. Production: Walter Wanger, producer; Maxwell Anderson and Andrew Solt, screenwriters (from Anderson’s play
Joan of Lorraine
); Joseph Valentine, cinematographer.

Academy Award nominations: Ferrer, supporting actor; Bergman, actress; Richard Day, Edwin Casey Roberts, Joseph Kish, art direction (color); Joseph Valentine, William V. Skall, Winton Hoch, color cinematography (winners); Dorothy Jeakins, Barbara Karinska, costume design (color) (winners); Frank Sullivan, film editing; Hugo Friedhofer, music; Walter Wanger, special award “for distinguished service to the industry.”

UNCREDITED WORK

1938

The Crowd Roars
(MGM) Released August 5. Length: 92 minutes. Production dates: April 25–May 27. Richard Thorpe is credited director. Fleming did retakes in mid-July. Cast: Robert Taylor, Edward Arnold, Frank Morgan, Gene Reynolds, Maureen O’Sullivan, Lionel Stander, Jane Wyman, Nat Pendleton. Production: Sam Zimbalist, producer; Thorpe, director; Thomas Lennon, George Bruce, and George Oppenheimer, screenwriters (from a story by Bruce); John Seitz and Oliver Marsh, cinematographers. (Remade as
Killer McCoy,
directed by Roy Rowland.)

Too Hot to Handle
(MGM) Released September 16. Length: 105 minutes. Jack Conway is credited director. Eleven reels. Production began on May 9 and ended in August. The
Hollywood Reporter
stated on July 30, “Jack Conway collapsed on the set . . . stricken with flu, taken home, Victor Fleming assigned to direct.” Cast: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, Walter Connolly, Leo Carrillo, Marjorie Main, Willie Fung. Production: Lawrence Weingarten, producer; Laurence Stallings and John Lee Mahin, screenwriters (from a story by Len Hammond); Harold Rosson, cinematographer.

The Great Waltz
(MGM) Released November 4. Julien Duvivier is credited director. Length: 102 minutes. Production began in early May. The
Hollywood Reporter
announced on September 19, “After seven weeks work on
The Great Waltz,
Victor Fleming and John Lee Mahin leave for Rogue River fishing.” After Fleming remade substantial portions of the film, Josef von Sternberg lent a hand on montages and the concluding scenes and finished up on September 21. Cast: Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravet, Miliza Korjus, Hugh Her
bert,
Lionel Atwill, Curt Bois, Leonid Kinskey, Herman Bing, Sig Rumann, Henry Hull. Production: Bernard H. Hyman, producer; Samuel Hoffenstein and Walter Reisch, screenwriters (from Gottfried Reinhardt’s story); Joseph Ruttenberg, cinematographer.

Academy Award nominations: Korjus, supporting actress; Ruttenberg, cinematography (winner); Tom Held, film editing.

1940

Boom Town
(MGM) Released August 30. Length: 118 minutes. Jack Conway is credited director. Production started in March; a Jimmie Fidler column dated May 21 reports on Fleming shooting retakes. Cast: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, Chill Wills. Production: Sam Zimbalist, producer; John Lee Mahin, screenwriter; Harold Rosson, cinematographer.

FILMS NOT MADE, OR DIRECTED BY OTHERS

1924

In February, Fleming announced as director of
The Mountebank,
from the novel by William J. Locke. Released in September as
The Side Show of Life,
directed by Herbert Brenon.

In April, Fleming announced as director of
The Honor of His House,
a remake of the 1918 film directed by William DeMille, with Sessue Hayakawa. Not made.

In June, Fleming announced as director of Zane Grey’s
Border Legion.
Released in October, directed by William K. Howard. Also that month, Fleming announced as director of
Tongues of Flame,
from the novel by Peter Mac-Farlane, starring Thomas Meighan and Bessie Love. Released in December, directed by Joseph Henabery.

In October, Fleming’s Paramount production of Bret Harte’s
Outcasts of Poker Flat
(first filmed by John Ford at Universal in 1919) is canceled when the actress Patterson Dial breaks her jaw in an accident.

1925

Fleming announced as director of
White Heat,
from a
Saturday Evening Post
story by R. G. Kirk, screenplay by Percy Heath, starring Thomas Meighan. Made at First National in 1926 as
Men of Steel,
directed by George Archainbaud and starring Milton Sills, who also got a screenplay credit.

In
December, Fleming takes himself off
Behind the Front
to replace James Cruze on
The Blind Goddess.
Edward Sutherland directs
Behind the Front,
released in 1926.

1928

In July, Fleming announced as director of
Burlesque,
the first all-talking picture for Paramount. Released as
The Dance of Life
in 1929, directed by John Cromwell and Edward Sutherland.

1930

In May, Fleming announced as director of
Painted Lady
at Fox, later made as Spencer Tracy film
The Painted Woman
in 1932, directed by John Blystone.

In September, Fleming signs with Columbia to direct
Arizona,
starring Jack Holt. The studio cancels the film and later reactivates it with George Seitz directing.

1934

In June, Fleming announced as director of
Indochina,
to star Joan Crawford. Not made.

1936

On January 10, Sidney Franklin takes over direction of
The Good Earth
following complications from Fleming’s kidney stone surgery.

1937

In October, Fleming and Lighton announced as director and producer of
Kim,
based on the Rudyard Kipling novel. Finally made by MGM in 1950 and released in January 1951, directed by Victor Saville.

1938

In May, Fleming announced as director of Clark Gable/William Powell picture based on P. C. Wren’s novel
The Spur of Pride.
Not made.

1939

In December, MGM backs out of a planned film of John Steinbeck’s
Red Pony,
to star Spencer Tracy. Later made independently, directed by Lewis Milestone, and released in 1949.

1940

In May, Fleming announced as director of Clark Gable picture based on life of nineteenth-century outlaw Soapy Smith. Released October 1, 1941, as
Honky Tonk,
directed by Jack Conway, with the name of Gable’s character changed to Candy Johnson.

1941

On May 19, Fleming ends production of
The Yearling
in Ocala, Florida, after seventeen days in production. The picture, using Fleming’s second-unit footage and directed by Clarence Brown, is released in 1946.

On August 30, Fleming and Howard Hawks announce plans for a co-production of the Ernest Hemingway story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” to star Gary Cooper. Their version is not made.
The Macomber Affair,
directed by Zoltan Korda, is made in 1947, starring Gregory Peck.

1942

In early March, MacKinlay Kantor writes a treatment for
Buffalo Bill,
to star Clark Gable. The project is turned down by the MGM front office.

In mid-March, Fleming is announced as director of
Shadow of the Wing,
a production canceled when Clark Gable joins the Army Air Forces.

1948

In July, RKO pulls out of plans to film
The Robe,
with a script by Maxwell Anderson and Andrew Solt, to star Gregory Peck. It eventually is made at 20th Century–Fox in 1953, with a screenplay by Albert Maltz and Philip Dunne, starring Richard Burton.

WORK AS CINEMATOGRAPHER

Apart from
The Envoy Extraordinary,
which he shot for the short-lived Santa Barbara Motion Picture Company in 1914, Fleming’s entire output as a director of photography was linked to the director Allan Dwan, the writing-directing team of John Emerson and Anita Loos, and the producer and star Douglas Fairbanks. Many silent-film credits have been lost even for films that have survived. But strong written and/or anecdotal evidence suggests that Fleming was behind the camera for the following films:

WITH
DWAN

Betty of Greystone
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). Starring Dorothy Gish.

WITH DWAN AND FAIRBANKS

The Habit of Happiness
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). With Dorothy West.

The Good Bad Man
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). With Bessie Love.

The Half-Breed
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). With Alma Rubens and Jewel Carmen.

Manhattan Madness
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). With Jewel Carmen.

WITH EMERSON, LOOS, AND FAIRBANKS

His Picture in the Papers
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). With Loretta Blake.

The Americano
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). With Alma Rubens.

In Again, Out Again
(Artcraft-Paramount, 1917). With Arline Pretty.

Wild and Woolly
(Artcraft-Paramount, 1917). With Eileen Percy.

Down to Earth
(Artcraft-Paramount, 1917). With Eileen Percy.

OTHER FAIRBANKS FILMS SHOT BY FLEMING

American Aristocracy
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). Directed by Lloyd Ingraham. With Jewel Carmen.

The Matrimaniac
(Fine Arts–Triangle, 1916). Directed by Paul Powell. With Constance Talmadge and Winifred Westover.

The Man from Painted Post
(Artcraft-Paramount, 1917). Directed by Joseph Henabery. With Eileen Percy.

His Majesty, the American
(United Artists, 1919). Directed by Joseph Henabery. With Marjorie Daw and Lillian Langdon.

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———.
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