Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Screen Classics)
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184 “a marvel”: Weales, Canned Goods as Caviar.
185 “He had a knack”: Kaplan to Stenn.
185 “being tough”: Astor, Life on Film.
185 “fix one of ’em”: United Press, Dec. 30, 1938.
190 “Something for the boys”: Stenn, Bombshell.
191 “Very hard-nosed”: Sheldon to Stenn.
191 “I felt he”: Tetrick to Stenn.
191 “one of the shabbiest acts”: Stenn, Bombshell.
192 “This staying around home”: Los Angeles Times, Sept. 13, 1932.
192 “The day she came back”: Stenn, Bombshell.
192 “How are we going”: Astor, Life on Film.
192 “I’m sure you don’t”: Stenn, Bombshell.
192 “I’m sorry, honey”: Marx and Vanderveen, Deadly Illusions.
193 “there was never a family”: Cecil B. DeMille, Autobiography.
193 “He went up to San Francisco”: McBride, Hawks on Hawks.
194 “What man doesn’t”: Kael, When the Lights Go Down.
194 “male fascism”: Kael, Deeper into Movies.
194 “I remember one lovely story”: From the Reminiscences of Ben Hecht (1957) in the Oral History Collection of Columbia University, p. 50.
195 “worked around the clock”: In a statement he wrote called “A Formula for Screen Success,” in Hughes, Truth About the Movies, by the Stars, Fleming said, “Work would be my formula . . . You must know your stuff and be prepared to deliver it. And you must also give it without stint—without thought of the hard, grinding effort and often-times long hours.”
195 “sure-fire b.o.”: Variety, Nov. 8, 1932.
14 Pioneering the Screwball Comedy
197 “were a daily delight”: Stewart, By a Stroke of Luck.
197 “When Vic got a scene going”: Abrams to David Stenn.
198 “In the carnival scenes”: From an undated newspaper clipping John Gallagher found in the Theater Collection of the Philadelphia Free Library. It’s a filler item of unusually grave character, consistent with the weightier pronouncements Fleming had been handing the press since the mid-1920s. Under the headline “Direction Very Important,” Fleming, described as a successful cameraman turned director of films such as The Wet Parade and Red Dust, says, “The thing that every motion picture director must keep in mind is that motion pictures do move: to create a single beautiful composition isn’t sufficient. Beauty must be combined with action or the whole structure is of little value.”
198 Stewart, under the rear end: In By a Stroke of Luck, he wrote, “Every producer, incidentally, seemed to have some similar signature-tune for use in conferences with writers. Irving [Thalberg] would constantly toss and catch a coin. Others would have their nails manicured, their shoes shined, or their hair trimmed. It was very impressive. I added my own identifying symbol during the shooting of the carnival scene in The White Sister when Vic Fleming let me play the rear end of a trick horse.”
198 Fleming wanted to close: Variety, Feb. 26, 1933.
199 “had achieved certain effects”: Gish, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me.
199 one of the best: Ed Sullivan column, Nov. 10, 1938.
199 “The Gable blow-torch style”: Jordan, Clark Gable.
199 “Pre-eminently a woman’s picture”: Variety, March 21, 1933.
199 “continues to interest Hollywood”: Louella Parsons column, March 30, 1933.
199 “That came in, again”: McGilligan, Backstory.
200 “He has a crush on Lola”: MGM studio conference notes on Bombshell, USC Cinema and Television Library.
201 satire, burlesque, and wallow in the mud: Bombshell is both one long in-joke and a collection of in-jokes, many of which were known only to the filmmakers. A partial list: Frank Morgan’s “Pops” is based loosely on Clara Bow’s father; Una Merkel’s embezzling secretary is based on Daisy DeVoe, Bow’s secretary; Lola Burns must do retakes on Red Dust because of Hays Office complaints; Lola’s sheepdogs are based on those of Jeanette MacDonald and Alice Brady; two extras in white nun habits are in the background in the studio—a reference to Fleming’s White Sister. Hugo, the phony marquis, is a composite. At least three actresses—Mae Murray, Gloria Swanson, and Constance Bennett— had been married to, or involved with, questionable “royalty.” Brogan calls the cameraman Hal (Rosson). Brogan calls Lola “Baby,” Harlow’s real-life nickname. Brogan doesn’t want anyone loafing on his set. Fleming was famous for this. The mention of the Monarch casting director, “Ben Veranda,” is a reference to the MGM casting director, Ben Piazza.
204 took credit for ad-libbing: “As a matter of fact, I created the ‘barefoot’ line myself. I was pitching woo to Harlow and it just popped into my head. Victor Fleming, the director, liked it so much he kept it in the picture.” Interview in Hartford Courant, Aug. 1, 1966.
205 “disconcerted by”: Eyman, Lion of Hollywood.
205 an epic Don Juan: Kundera, Unbearable Lightness of Being.
207 Royal Hawaiian Hotel: Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 13, 1933.
207 spent the next two months: Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 25, 1933. The specimens were confirmed by the Steinhart Aquarium.
207 “the shyest, most bashful guy”: Howard Strickling, Tornabene collection.
208 “alienating the affections”: Paul A. Lockwood v. Victor Fleming and John Doe, Seduction, Alienation of Affection, Los Angeles Superior Court No. 367168.
208 become “infatuated”: Los Angeles Times and Examiner, July 7, 1934.
208 could not grant: Los Angeles Times and Examiner, July 11, 1934.
208 divorce went through: Marjorie DeHaven Lockwood is known to have married once more after her 1936 divorce from Paul Lockwood, in a union that lasted just under six months, ending in divorce in 1939. Her screen dancing credits included Pigskin Parade. She died in 1975, age sixty-two.
209 “I worked alone”: Booth to Stenn.
209 “Bombshell was a SENSATION”: Stenn, Bombshell.
209 night letter: Oct. 5, 1933, MGM legal files.
209 “Box office returns”: Letter to Louis B. Mayer, Dec. 20, 1933, MGM files.
209 Singin’ in the Rain: Movieline, April 1990.
15 Treasure Island
210 “the scum of the earth”: Black, Hollywood Censored.
211 lobbied in vain: Cooper, Please Don’t Shoot My Dog.
211 “If Fleming didn’t do it”: Jackie Cooper, Turner Classic Movies interview conducted by Margarita Landazuri on November 30, 1994; from a complete transcript, courtesy of Alexa Foreman.
211 “If you dove in the water”: The Reminiscences of Jackie Cooper ( June 1959) in the Oral History Collection of Columbia University, p. 852.
211 wear a wig: Cooper, TCM interview.
211 “the leisurely start”: Los Angeles Times, Sept. 2, 1934.
212 “Character to the boy”: Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Humble Remonstrance.” The essay is Stevenson’s reply to his friend Henry James’s quibble in “The Art of Fiction” that he felt distant from Treasure Island because “I have been a child in fact, but I have been on a quest for buried treasure only in supposition.” Stevenson responded, “If he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never been a child.”
212 “a picture so good”: Wilson, Film Criticism of Otis Ferguson.
213 “Lionel Barrymore was just marvelous”: Mahin in Marshall, Blueprint on Babylon.
213 Oakland riding-academy manager: Oakland Tribune, April 5, 1934.
213 an “exact picturization”: Dan Thomas column, May 13, 1934.
214 “and not at all pictorial”: Teacher’s Key to “Treasure Island,” MGM publicity department.
214 “One thing I hate,” “a great kid”: Washington Post, Jan. 6, 1935.
215 “all the pirates were good”: Mahin in Marshall, Blueprint on Babylon.
216 “Beery was in terrible pain”: Cooper, Columbia Oral History Collection.
216 “Fleming would tel
l me”: Cooper, Please Don’t Shoot My Dog.
216 “When I was a kid”: Prelutsky, Secret of Their Success.
216 “the last shot”: Mahin in Marshall, Blueprint on Babylon.
216 “a sort of a large rowboat”: Cooper, Columbia Oral History Collection.
217 “Jackie’s perch”: Teacher’s Key.
217 “the most difficult scene mechanically”: Ibid.
217 “A small charge of dynamite”: Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1934.
217 “But at this point”: Los Angeles Times, Sept. 2, 1934.
217 Final cut: Cooper, Please Don’t Shoot My Dog.
218 “We were all unhappy,” “Fleming nearly had a stroke”: Cooper, Please Don’t Shoot My Dog.
218 “The story of Treasure Island”: Greene, Graham Greene Film Reader.
219 “Fleming was very sort of tough”: Vidor, sound recording (1971), UCLA Library Department of Special Collections.
16 Introducing Henry Fonda, Farewell to Jean Harlow
220 using the pseudonym: Haver, David O. Selznick’s Hollywood, who also reports that Fleming helped Selznick/Jeffries with the story.
220 Ten writers: MGM legal files.
220 Libby Holman: Jon Bradshaw, Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman (New York: Morrow, 1985).
221 “nothing ever done”: Night letter from Howard Strickling to Dietz, April 3, 1935, MGM legal files.
The only other letter in the studio’s files about Reckless is this bizarre joke missive, complete with misspellings out of a B-movie ransom note:
MGM Pictures Corporation,
Hollywood California
From Hollywood, California
May 14, 1935
Dear Mr. President:
This is just to remind you that we are going to Anhiliate YOU if you don’t come across with the profits on “Reckless” amounting to exactly to $100,000 and if you don’t come across with the money that you owe us on account of that script we loaned you we will find other ways of doing it and this is just a reminder that there will be plenty more. So don’t think that you will get out of playing us and DONT FORGET
VERY truly yours,
FRANK CaPrA,
Chief DirEcToR FoR CoLuMbia PiCtUrES CoRpOrAtIoN
221 “I thought she could do well by it”: Behlmer, Memo from David O. Selznick.
223 “a real gentleman”: John McCabe to Kurt Jensen, 2003. McCabe added, “This, coming from gentle, gentle Rosina, who hated the profanity she heard everywhere on the sets of her films, was genuine tribute.” She was, he said, “an observant person” and one “not given to idle prattle or politeness for its own sake.”
223 “falling out all over the place”: Machu to David Stenn.
223 “was working with Franchot Tone”: Allan to Stenn.
223 “Harlow was fun, and nice”: Light to Stenn.
223 “Pursuant to an understanding”: F. L. Hendrickson, of the contracts department, Nov. 2, 1938. “There is no card or contract on Victor Fleming; he has been working pursuant to an understanding he had with Mr. Mannix.” MGM legal files.
224 “very fortunate in my director”: This quotation and Fonda’s anecdote about mugging are in Shay, Conversations. Fonda rejiggered this tale several times. To Howard Teichmann in Fonda: My Life, the actor emphasized how green he was—he didn’t know what a “dolly” referred to when he read the script—and how genial Fleming was, even allowing Fonda to use his adopted saloon cat, George, as the canal boat cat. In Hollywood Speaks, however, he told Mike Steen that Fleming and the film editors didn’t recognize that a stage pause could produce a laugh on-screen; he then repeated the dolly and the mugging stories and gave Fleming credit for steering him toward “total naturalness.”
224 “I was in love with him”: “An Interview by Curtis Lee Hanson: ‘Henry Fonda: Reflections on 40 Years of Make-Believe,’ ” Cinema (Calif.) Dec. 1966.
226 “putting some realism”: United Press, June 13, 1935.
226 “a very big and rugged man”: From the Reminiscences of Janet Gaynor (1958) in the Oral History Collection of Columbia University, p. 26.
227 “set up unlawful housekeeping”: Brooks Atkinson review in The New York Times, Oct. 31, 1934.
227 John Ford wanted to include: Bogdanovich, John Ford. “For example,” said Ford,
I had a lovely scene in which Lincoln rode into town on a mule, passed by a theater and stopped to see what was playing, and it was the Booth Family doing Hamlet; we had a typical old-fashioned poster up. Here was this poor shabby country lawyer wishing he had enough money to see Hamlet when a very handsome young boy with dark hair—you knew he was a member of the Booth family—fresh, snobbish kid, all beautifully dressed—just walked out to the edge of the plank walk and looked at Lincoln. He looked at this funny, incongruous man in a tall hat riding a mule, and you knew there was some connection there. They cut it out—too bad.
228 “The narrative starts slowly”: Variety, Aug. 14, 1935.
228 “an affectionately amusing photoplay”: The New York Times, Aug. 9, 1935.
229 “seems subject to a jinx”: The New York Times, April 21, 1935.
17 Bagging Game on Safari, Losing The Good Earth
230 Cotton’s safari diary: Provided by Charles Cotton Jr.
231 A Hollywood Reporter review: June 10, 1935.
232 “250 cases of film,” Under the direction of General Ting-Hsui: The New York Times, June 3, 1934.
233 “It is a story”: Associated Press, Nov. 16, 1935.
233 “Throw ’em all out”: Thomas, Thalberg.
233 air race publicizing a casino: Los Angeles Times, Nov. 24, 1935.
233 “the most nonchalant”: Associated Press, Dec. 2, 1935.
233 Lewin’s reports: MGM Collection (“The Good Earth”), USC Cinema and Television Library, casting test memos from Albert Lewin.
234 “Here was a great picture”: MGM publicity, Kevin Brownlow files.
234 “too Occidental”: Franklin’s account of The Good Earth is in his unpublished memoir, “We Laughed and We Cried.”
234 “his usual lack of imagination”: Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies.
18 Spencer Tracy and Captains Courageous
235 “Vic’s parenthood”: Undated note, Lighton Family Papers, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
236 “perhaps because he had no children”: Kazan, Life.
236 “a happily married lady codfish”: Kipling, Something of Myself.
236 “A good actor”: Kazan, Life.
237 “cinema’s no. 1”: Time, April 25, 1938.
237 “Spencer always thought”: Hepburn, Me.
237 unsatisfying five years at Fox: An excellent overview of those films is John C. Tibbetts, “Pre-MGM Spencer Tracy,” Films in Review, Nov./ Dec. 1995.
237 “arranging introductions”: Variety, June 23, 2006.
237 “a great and bitchy gossip”: Cukor to Ruth Gordon, Nov. 12, 1941, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Cukor was referring to Lawler’s reaction to a screening of Two-Faced Woman, saying that “he condemned it lock, stock and barrel,” but “it represents a point of view that many of his ilk will have—and with some justice.”
238 he ordered the studio’s security chief: Berdie Adams, interviewed by Eyman in Lion of Hollywood.
238 “I would get drunk”: Granger, Sparks Fly Upward.
238 “I was lying there feeling like death”: Ibid.
239 “Vic sat at one end”: Sidney’s story is confirmed by an item in Virginia Wright’s column, Oct. 1, 1936: “Victor Fleming and Jules Furthman not too mad at each other to continue lunching, although for a time it looked as if fisticuffs might interfere.”
239 “to capture a single”: Kazan, Life.
239 “Spencer does it”: Andersen, Affair to Remember. On June 9, 1940, Howard Barnes, critic of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote, “It is not easy to catalogue Mr. Tracy’s acting gifts. For one thing, he is enormousl
y direct, in a field where it is easy to get a showy effect by being oblique. For another he is aware of all those small clues to universal experience which gives the spectator the feeling of sharing in living rather than watching a reconstruction of it. Meanwhile he has the great talent of seeming at ease amid himself.”