William Wyler (63 page)
Authors: Gabriel Miller
12
. Todd McCarthy,
Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood
(New York: Grove Press, 1997), 240; Berg,
Goldwyn
, 283.
13
. McCarthy,
Howard Hawks
, 241.
14
. Telegram from Eddie Curtiss to Wyler, October 29, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
15
. Joseph McBride, ed.,
Focus on Howard Hawks
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 47.
16
. Goldwyn to Ferber, October 27, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
17
. Ferber to Goldwyn, October 31, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
18
. Telegram from Ferber to Goldwyn, October 28, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
19
. Edna Ferber,
Come and Get It
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1935), 39.
20
. Ibid., 28.
21
. Ibid., 39.
22
. Ibid., 296.
23
. Ibid., 316.
24
. Robin Wood,
Howard Hawks
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), 121â22.
25
. Ferber,
Come and Get It
, 133.
26
. Berg,
Goldwyn
, 282.
27
. Wood,
Howard Hawks
, 119â20.
28
.
New York Times
, November 12, 1936.
29
. Jimmy Townsend to Wyler, October 29, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
1
. Wyler to Goldwyn, September 3, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
2
. Quoted in Wendy Smith,
Real Life Drama
(New York: Knopf, 1990), 146.
3
. Kingsley,
Five Prize Winning Plays
, 7.
4
. In Nicholas Martin's 1997 revival at the Williamstown Theater Festivalâthe only major revival of the play since its premiereâset designer James Noone replicated Bel Geddes's set but actually did fill the orchestra pit with water.
5
. Merritt Hulburd to Goldwyn, November 8, 1935, Goldwyn Papers.
6
. Hulburd to Goldwyn, November 22, 1935, Goldwyn Papers.
7
. Berg,
Goldwyn
, 278.
8
. Goldwyn to Hellman, October 16, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
9
. Kingsley,
Five Prize Winning Plays
, 78â79.
10
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 169.
11
. Berg,
Goldwyn
, 193.
12
. Ibid., 293.
13
. Joseph Breen to Goldwyn, October 28, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
14
. Quoted in Rollyson,
Lillian Hellman
, 102â3.
15
. Kingsley,
Five Prize Winning Plays
, 125, 109.
16
. Telegram from Kingsley to Goldwyn, undated, Goldwyn Papers.
17
. Kingsley,
Five Prize Winning Plays
, 164.
18
. Rollyson,
Lillian Hellman
, 104, 105.
19
. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Second inaugural Address,” January 20, 1937,
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres50.html
.
20
. Robert Sherwood,
The Petrified Forest
(New York: Scribner's, 1935), 158.
21
. Robert Wyler, notes, April 23, 1937, Wyler Collection.
1
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 174â75.
2
. Memo from Walter MacEwen to Hal Wallis, in
Inside Warner Bros.: 1935â1951
, ed. Rudy Behlmer (New York: Viking, 1985), 40â41.
3
. Behlmer,
Inside Warner Bros
., 42â44.
4
. Legal file on
Jezebel
, undated, Wyler Collection.
5
. Lou Edelman, undated memo, Wyler Collection.
6
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 176.
7
. Whitney Stine with Bette Davis,
Mother Goddam
(New York: Berkley Books, 1979), 100.
8
. Bette Davis,
The Lonely Life
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962), 176.
9
. Owen Davis, manuscript version of
Jezebel
, March 9, 1937, box 17, folder 233, Wyler Collection. Owen Davis (1874â1956) was one of the most prolific writers in the history of the American stage. (Despite the southern setting of
Jezebel
, he was from Portland, Maine.) Davis made his early reputation by turning out dozens of sensational formula melodramas, but when the popularity of that genre began to wane, he decided to write realistic plays for Broadway. An early success was
Detour
, a variation on Eugene O'Neill's
Beyond the Horizon;
Owen's play premiered in 1921, a year after O'Neill's seminal drama. Two years later, Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for
Icebound
. His dramatic adaptation of Edith Wharton's
Ethan Frome
(1936) was also a success. Since much of his early work has been lost, estimates of his dramatic output run from 150 to more than 300 plays. He also wrote some film scripts, notably
They Had to See Paris
(1929) for Will Rogers and an adaptation of Arthur Frederick Goodrich and George M. Cohan's
So This Is London
(1930).
10
. Ibid.
11
. Robert Buckner, script, April 30, 1937, Wyler Collection.
12
. Hal Wallis and Charles Higham,
Starmaker: The Autobiography of Hal Wallis
(New York: Macmillan, 1980), 91.
13
. Stine,
Mother Goddam
, 102.
14
. Charles Higham,
Bette: The Life of Bette Davis
(New York: Macmillan, 1981), 104.
15
.
Directed by William Wyler
.
16
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 182.
17
. Barbara Leaming,
Bette Davis:
A
Biography
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 141.
18
. Charles Higham, “William Wyler Directs Bette Davis in
Jezebel,”
Columbia University Oral History Office,
Fathom: The Source for Online Learning
, last modified 2002,
http://www.fathom.com/feature/35675/
.
19
. Quoted in Leaming,
Bette Davis
, 141.
20
. Charles Affron,
Star Acting
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977), 225.
21
. Bazin,
Bazin at Work
, 17.
22
. Affron,
Star Acting
, 229.
23
. Richard Gilman,
The Making of Modern Drama
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975), 103.
24
. Whitney Stine with Bette Davis,
I'd Love to Kiss You: Conversations with Bette Davis
(New York: Pocket Books, 1990), 14.
25
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 176.
26
. Leaming,
Bette Davis
, 144.
27
. Production notes, Wyler Collection.
28
. Treatment by Clements Ripley, July 14, 1937, Wyler Collection. This collection also contains a revised treatment by Ripley and Abem Finkel dated September 14, 1937.
29
. Affron,
Star Acting
, 233.
1
. See George Bluestone,
Novels into Film
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), and Michael A. Anderegg,
William Wyler
(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979). John Harrington's “Wyler as Auteur,” in
The English Novel and the Movies
, ed. Michael Klein and Gillian Parker (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981), focuses more on Wyler's contributions as a director.
2
. Anderegg,
William Wyler
, 67.
3
. Slocombe, “The Work of Gregg Toland,” 71.
4
. Richard Griffith,
Samuel Goldwyn: The Producer and His Films
(New York: Museum of Modern Art Film Library, 1956), 34.
5
. Anderegg,
William Wyler;
Harrington, “Wyler as Auteur.”
6
. Harrington, “Wyler as Auteur.”
7
. John Gassner and Dudley Nichols,
Twenty Best Film Plays I & II
(New York: Garland, 1977), 331.
8
.
Variety
, April 13, 1939.
9
. Berg,
Goldwyn
, 328.
10
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 198.
11
. George N. Fenin and William K. Everson,
The Western
(New York: Penguin, 1977), 247.
12
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 205.
13
. Darryl Zanuck to Goldwyn, July 3, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
14
. Stuart Lake to Goldwyn, July 10, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
15
. Goldwyn to Zanuck, August 14, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
16
. Lillian Hellman to Goldwyn, August 9, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
17
. Oliver La Farge, notes on script, August 31, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
18
. Stuart Lake's revised treatment, June 1, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
19
. Niven Busch treatment, October 24, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
20
. Edwin Knopf, memo, September 26, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
21
. Memo from Jock Lawrence to Goldwyn, October 19, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
22
. Jeffrey Meyers,
Gary Cooper: American Hero
(New York: Cooper Square Press, 1998), 139.
23
. Goldwyn to Gary Cooper, November 2, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
24
. Cooper to Goldwyn, November 18, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
25
. Goldwyn to Cooper, December 29, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
26
.
Hollywood Reporter
, December 1, 1939.
27
. Quoted in Herman, A
Talent for Trouble
, 206.
28
. Telegram, January 6, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
29
. Dmitri Tiomkin to Goldwyn, April 25, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
30
. Richard Slotkin,
Gunfighter Nation
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), 286.
31
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 206â7.
32
. La Farge, notes on script, August 31, 1939.
33
. Jock Lawrence, notes on script, October 19, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
34
. One need only compare the conflict between Ryker and Starrett in
Shane
, where both sides are presented sympathetically. Director George Stevens (like Wyler) recognizes the historical necessity of the homesteaders' viewpoint, but the magnitude of the struggle between the two sides is more compelling in the later film.
35
.
San Antonio
(1945; directed by David Butler) deals with outlaws' attempts to steal cattle and ruin the Texas economy during the 1870s, a decade before Wyler's film takes place. That film, which opens with shots of large herds of cattle, stars Errol Flynn as Clay Hardin, who will save the cattle industry from the outlaws.
36
. Wyler's best friend, John Huston, would revisit the Bean-Langtry story in
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
(1972), with Paul Newman as the judge and Ava Gardner as Lillie.
37
. Robert Warshow,
The Immediate Experience
(1962; reprint, New York: Athenaeum, 1970), 138.
38
. This relationship can be seen as the prototype for other buddy-rival westerns, such as
Bad Company, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Vera Cruz
, and others.
39
. Toland uses a flickering candle again, to far different effect, in
The Grapes of Wrath
(released the same year), when Tom Joad lights a candle in his parents' deserted house and discovers Muley.
40
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 211.
41
. Ibid., 212.
42
. Affron,
Star Acting
, 239.
43
. Davis,
The Lonely Life
, 250â51.
44
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 212.
45
. Ibid.
46
. Ibid., 215. Another ending was filmed in which the disputed scene between Leslie and Robert is eliminated. We see Leslie put on her glasses and try to knit her lace. She breaks down in frustration and walks out the back door, dropping the lace. The rest of the scene is the same, except that Wyler cuts from the party to the lace on the floor.
47
. Ed Sikov,
Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis
(New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 162.
48
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 215.
1
. Telegram, February 22, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
2
. Berg,
Goldwyn
, 355.
3
. Ibid.
4
. Philip Dunne,
Take Two
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 93.
5
. Ibid., 94.
6
. Ibid.
7
. Ibid., 96.
8
. Herman,
A Talent for Trouble
, 219.
9
. Dunne,
Take Two
, 97.
10
. Hellman,
Six Plays
, 156â57.
11
. Ibid., 205.
12
. Ibid.
13
. Hellman to Goldwyn, undated (possibly March 1940), Goldwyn Papers.
14
. Reeves Espy, May 3, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
15
. Interoffice memo from Edwin Knopf to Goldwyn, May 3, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
16
. Memo from Jock Lawrence to Goldwyn, undated, Goldwyn Papers.
17
. Wyler to Goldwyn, May 6, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
18
. Hellman to Goldwyn, January 27, 1941, Goldwyn Papers.
19
. Telegram from Goldwyn to Wyler, March 21, 1941, Goldwyn Papers.
20
. Berg,
Goldwyn
, 358.
21
. Davis,
The Lonely Life
, 206.
22
. Sikov,
Dark Victory
, 179.