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PICK THEIR FAVORITES  From left, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story." Though Stewart was billed third, he took home hte 1940 Academy Award as Best Actor, beating out Cary Grant. |
You may be surprised
by the films they picked
of TheColumnists.com
For this special anniversary
edition, I thought I’d revisit 10 interviews I did with
some great directors from Hollywood’s Classic Era and highlight
the movies they admitted were their personal favorites among
all their films.
Many of the choices surprised me and may astonish you. So, here they are:
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MERVYN LEROY From a 1980 interview with the author |
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It’s not my best movie, but my favorite is "Waterloo Bridge" (MGM, 1940) And you know the last time I was talking to Bob Taylor he said it was his favorite, too. For me it marked a return to directing after several years of producing for MGM. I’d come over from Warners but as one of a handful of producers studio head Louis B. Mayer felt could replace the late great Irving Thalberg. I hated the films I was given, awful stuff like "Dramatic School" (1938). But there was one big winner: "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). When I told Mr. Mayer I wanted to return to my first love, he assigned me to "Waterloo Bridge."
MGM had just bought the (remake) rights from Universal and I did look at the original 1931 version, directed by James Whale,. In that one the girl played by Mae Clark becomes a prostitute and there was a warning from the Breen office (Hollywood's censorship bureau) we’d have to revamp the story. S.N. Behrman did the story and handled those details impeccably. But my intention of shooting at MGM’s British studio was impossible because of the war.
MGM had bought a one picture option from
David O. Selznick for Vivien Leigh, so she was our Myra. She
was on the outs with David after he tested and then turned her
down for the lead in "Rebecca." Her attitude was:
"I’m going to show him." Look at her work
very closely and the illusion she gives as a dancer and it’s
wonderful. She truly resembles a young Margot Fonteyn. And also
her lover, Larry Olivier, was also on the lot making "Pride
and Prejudice," another reason for her cooperation.
For purely box office reasons I had to use Robert Taylor as the
Scottish soldier, Roy, and I was surprised how strong an actor
he really was. Ann Sothern was cast as the third lead as Myra’s
friend and roommate Kitty, but Sothern was making so many "Maisie"
movies right then she was unavailable. We borrowed Virginia Field
and cast Maria Ouspenskaya as the stern ballet mistress. That
was before she started chasing werewolves. (Ouspenskaya played
the Gypsy Maleva in Universal's films about The Wolf Man.)
As Bob’s mother there was the doughty
Canadian actress Lucile Watson and C. Aubrey Smith was Bob’s
commanding officer. Ethel Griffies played a landlady, although
she was uncredited. She played the same part in the original--my
inside joke nobody has ever gotten.
Sam (Behrman) had the bright idea of framing everything in the
present (1940) and then going back and looking at the Great War
romance. It was a lovely touch. When Mayer saw the designs for
our Waterloo Bridge he thought it too pokey so our bridge is
actually much wider than the original one! And we had it built
over two sound stages, quite an engineering feat.
So, for my debut as an MGM contract director I had this lovely
hit which still pulls them in, but on TV these days. There was
another remake in 1956 ("Gaby") with Leslie Caron,
a real ballet dancer, but it was terrible. The boy (John Kerr)
wasn’t right and it only made people remember our version.
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From a 1980 interview with the author |
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What a question! A director usually favors those films that did not do very well. So…here I am thinking about "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and, you know, for many decades it was considered a lost movie. MGM bought the rights for a 1941 remake with Spencer Tracy that was awful. And people assumed my version was lost but now it’s being revived on triple bills–and by MGM! I remember telling the Paramount brass that I would do it only if it were completely faithful to the book. And see here on the wall is a letter from Robert Louis Stevenson’s daughter-in-law stating her extreme pleasure--because book sales suddenly spurted after the movie came out.
Paramount built many Victorian-looking sets, but the casting was a problem. I insisted we go with Fredric March, who at this stage was a pleasant leading man. He took direction marvelously, particularly in the early scenes where we watch the action unfolding from his perspective. As Ivy, the barmaid, I had to have Miriam Hopkins because she could play lewd while other women might back off. In fact she really got into it.
The rest of the cast were contract: Rose Hobart. Tempe Pigott, Halliwell Hobbes. The fidelity to the material meant Jekyll had to change to Hyde before our eyes. How it was accomplished was by stop action photography and infra red photography, so we literally see the hair growing, the simian features erupting as Hyde reverts to the primitive man. The special effects (department) said it couldn’t be done. We did it.
Audiences screamed at these moments but I never thought it was a horror movie. It was inspired by Charles Darwin–exactly when did man cast off his animal characteristics? Freddie was great and got the Oscar although MGM insisted Wally Beery get one, too, because he was only one vote behind. (March and Beery both received Best Actor Oscars.) The movie today is an antique from another era that still packs its punch no matter how many movie monsters one has seen. I’m still very satisfied with it, although I might do it completely differently today.
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From a 1983 interview with the author |
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I just watched "Another
Part Of The Forest" (1948) last night, so I’m partial
right now to it. It flopped badly, but at the time Universal-International
was on a big kick of filming Broadway hits. Patricia Neal had
made a huge impact as her stage debut but Warners had just signed
her and I had to use Ann Blyth as Regina. After she played Joan
Crawford’s mean daughter in "Mildred Pierce" the
feeling was she could do anything. But she couldn’t. Remember
this was a prequel to "The Little Foxes" and we really
needed a young Bette Davis. And no such actress existed.
Fredric March and Florence Eldridge saved the day as husband
and wife as well as being married in real life. He was so smarmy
as Marcus Hubbard and gave the best performance. But everybody
hated him including the picture-going public.
An anecdote about dear Flo, who spent most of her time on the
stage. A week into filming she said to me not to worry--in another
10 days she’d have the character down pat and I told her
half the movie would be over by then. She was so used to long
rehearsals in the theater she’d forgotten how different
movie making was!
I stocked the cast with damned good actors: Dan Duryea played
the father of his character in "The Little Foxes."
Edmond O’Brien was very sturdy as another nasty guy. And
John Dall and Betsy Blair delivered mightily. The sheer nastiness!
Where did it come from, I wondered, until I met the author, Lillian
Hellman. She was a real character, the ugliest woman I shall
ever meet, mean but brilliant. The story had Marcus, the merchant
selling tainted produce to the Confederates and as a result the
town lost some 27 soldiers in the Civil War. I always planned
to do a stage revival of it alongside "Little Foxes"
with the same cast in both versions. It’s a movie that deserves
better than its fate because nobody remembers it.
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From a 1984 interview with the author |
 KIRK DOUGLAS in "Lonely Are the Brave" |
That would have to be "Lonely Are The Brave" (1962). It’s funny but that one wasn’t really released by Universal; it sort of escaped. Front office loathed it and gave it no publicity. Kirk Douglas fans came expecting another oater and got this study of a cowboy finding he’s an anachronism in an ever fenced-in modern America.
I loved the novel "Brave Cowboy" by Edward Abbey and Kirk suggested Dalton Trumbo do the screenplay. Kirk had broken the blacklist by hiring Trumbo to write "Spartacus." I think true-blooded Americans hated this one with its depiction of life and women just wouldn’t go see a western, even one that was contemporary. Gena Rowlands was wonderful as the wife. Walter Matthau was the sheriff hunting Kirk down. Kirk was so assured and mellowed during this shoot, he even helped carry the equipment over the long mountain treks. And at a party a few years back the film suddenly emerged as Topic A of conversation—it must have been the TV debut. And I finally spoke up, explaining themes and nobody had had any idea I directed the damned thing. Had I made too many Joan Crawford melodramas? I wondered that night.
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interview with the author |
 JOHN WAYNE ...as Rooster Cogburn |
Oh, I’ll say "True Grit" (1969). Because it summed
up all my westerns. Because Duke Wayne finally got his Oscar.
Which is more than I ever got. (Producer) Hal Wallis pitched
it to me and I bit. Duke was Rooster Cogburn. He even
had the paunch by that time. I remember the day he waddled in
for costume fittings and he really had true girth. He kept looking
at the eye patch on the table and finally yelped, “Hathaway,
if you think I’m wearing that you’re even crazier than
Jack Ford!” It meant his vision was severely compromised
when riding and he did fall off his horse several times.
For the girl, I tested and chose Sally Field, but the big chiefs were having none of that, saying she was a TV name—it would be "Gidget" in a western. So we picked number 2, Kim Darby, and I wonder if she ever realized just how much Duke was helping her in scenes. That year it was the Duke versus those two guys in "Midnight Cowboy" for the Oscar race, two very different Hollywoods in collision and for just about the last time old Hollywood, my Hollywood, won out. By the way Hal phoned me up and offered the sequel "Rooster Cogburn." Duke and Kate Hepburn and I were having nothing of that. He had cancer and she had palsy and I felt it was unwatchable. (Stuart Millar directed it.)
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From a 1979 inteview with the author |
 KATHARINE HEPBURN ...in "The Philadelphia Story" |
I never usually got the Oscar nominations. MGM had so many big name directors, you see. "Little Women" (1933) was my first picture to be Oscar-nominated, but I never got a nomination. "David Copperfield" (1935) was nominated, I was not. "Romeo and Juliet" (1936), same thing. But for The Philadelphia Story" (1940), I got recognized, although I didn’t win.
Did you know MGM bought out three performances
(of the stage version) in New York and photographed them from
stationary cameras just to find where the laughs were? Louis
B. Mayer wanted to buy it for Norma Shearer, but clever Kate
Hepburn had already bought the rights with Howard Hughes’
money and she insisted on being part of any package. She selected
me because we’d done movies at RKO, including her very first,
"A Bill of Divorcement." And Don Stewart fashioned
a screenplay that got rid of the play’s verbosity. He even
eliminated Tracy Lord’s brother altogether.
Kate asked for Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy and had to “settle”
for Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy once told me Cary was
the ballast in that movie, without him it wouldn’t have
worked. Yet he was the one of my four stars (including Ruth Hussey)
who never got nominated. Jimmy won. How many third placed stars
have ever won an Oscar, I wonder. I didn’t win, but in a
sense I did. The film was recently revived in an art house theater
in L.A. to appropriately adoring crowds.
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From a 1988 interview with the author. |
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If I have to pick a current favorite it’s "The Hasty Heart" (1950). Why? I saw it recently and it still works. It was put together by a combination of odd circumstances. Warners had all these frozen funds in the United Kingdom which couldn’t be used abroad, so Jack Warner decided to film this one and "Stage Fright" right in Britain.
Our story took place in tropical Burma and here we are freezing away in the coldest winter Britain had experienced in a century. A complete rain forest and camp was constructed on two enormous soundstages and I came over and so did two stars--Ronnie Reagan and Patricia Neal. Ronnie thought he was the star of this thing and I just froze him out.
In his book he mentions everybody connected with this hit except the director–me! Pat was so lustrous, beautifully effective as the caring nurse. Ronnie was Ronnie. But we needed a young British actor as the third lead. Tested Gordon Jackson--later the butler on PBS’s "Upstairs, Downstairs"—and he was fine, but lacking sex appeal. I was nursing a drink at the studio bar when I saw this young, virile actor, tested him, and a new star was born: Richard Todd.
I resisted the temptation to open it up–the
stage origins can clearly be seen. We were shivering away and
making this compassionate look at a young man who does not have
a future. That though still affects me. I cry a bit ever time
I watch Lachie (Todd) bidding good bye to his mates.
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From a 1978 interview with the author |
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"Now, Voyager" (1942) is the one people still ask about. Not my last,"Sextette." I don’t even want to think about that one! Hal Wallis who ran Warners handed me the script at an early stage and it was earmarked for Irene Dunne. I was then best friends with Bette Davis and showed her a copy and she ran into Jack Warner demanding the part and my ploy worked. Bette had the part.
I saw this as a conflict of equals. I had
to have an actress who could stand up to Bette and got one in
Gladys Cooper. But Hal claimed he’d never heard of her and
had her test! His choice--Dame May Whitty--was too old and too
nice. Gladys was a naturally nasty woman. She’d bite and
claw right back when Bette tried to steal scenes. It’s a
romance, rather too much I felt, but great acting can cover up
a lot.
Subtlety was not Bette’s forte: she wanted to really look
awful as Charlotte in early scenes, I had to tone that down.
And later she demanded to look like Ann Sheridan, which would
have been too much. Of course the movie works because of Claude
Rains, who was the professor. Such a tiny, perfect man. Paul
Henreid was window dressing. At the recent AFI awards he made
fun of me and said he invented the lighting of two cigarettes.
No, Paul, it wasn’t you, it wasn’t me. I stole it from
a 1932 Ruth Chatterton-George Brent movie, "The Crash"
and George told me he stole it from a silent movie. I did two
more movies with Bette. I guess I should have stopped while I
was ahead.
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From a 1999 interview with the author |
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If I say my favorite ever character is Klaatu, do you know what movie it is? Yeah, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). I think the casting was everything. There was always something remote about Michael Rennie, Pat Neal had come over to Fox from Warners, needed work. But her warmth is very necessary to the story.
This wasn’t a "B" but a programmer, meaning we had almost no dough for special effects. Best thing that ever happened to us because we were forced to concentrate on story telling. I love this movie for its simplicity--it’s so much of its time, that Cold War period when Americans were very jittery. For the robot it was the doorman at the Chinese Theatre (Lock Martin), who was 6 feet 9 inches. We put him in two suits, one with a back zipper, one with a front zipper. After an hour he’d say he was fainting. Tall he was, but not very strong.
We packed the story with messages, themes, pleas for world peace. But it’s actually a simple story of alien meets girl, alien loses girl. Oh, that scene where lights go out all over the world capitals? We used stock footage and special effects did the rest.
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From a 1977 interview with the author |
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"Show Boat" (1951) is my best musical. I’d seen and enjoyed the 1936 version, which remains important because of the stage originals repeating their roles for posterity (Helen Morgan and Paul Robeson). I wanted ours to make more sense, so I cut out all the end stuff about the leads confronting another in extreme old age.
Casting was easy: Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel had the looks and the voices –I generally am suspicious of those musicals with dubbed leads. Also, I added Marge and Gower Champion because the thing needed dancing. Agnes Moorehead was Parthy Anne, Joe E. Brown the Captain.
I wanted Lena Horne who had done the tab version in "Till the Clouds Roll By." But producer Arthur Freed insisted the Southern exhibitors would object–the very idea of a Nego playing a Negro. Ava Gardner took over and in looks she was great. Her voice was OK but at the last moment MGM dubbed her voice, over my stern protests. The new voice doesn’t sound like her at all. But on the MGM British album you can still hear Ava. We had a paddle wheeler on the lot, everything was done there because the Mississippi has changed so. I loved the execution of the standards, William Warfield was ace perfect on Ole Man River. It’s a celebration of a passing way of life, color photography and costumes were just fine. I still like that one.
©2009 by Jim Bawden. This column first posted Dec. 7, 2009.
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