It might seem that the writer now takes over, but that’s not quite the case. A writer’s instinct is to think in words. The director has got to work with the writer and turn the writer’s words into visual images for the camera. We can do without speeches, but we’ve got to see, for on the screen, seeing is believing, no matter what the characters say.
It’s rather interesting to watch the different methods of the different directors. You’ve all heard of the famous Lubitsch touch? I was introduced to it in a rather unusual way. I was on the set when Lubitsch was directing Ninotchka. (Pause.) Garbo was home that day with a cold. I said hello to Mr. Lubitsch. Whereupon he kissed me on the cheek. And then, for no reason at all, we both tried to sit on the same chair at the same time. Now, he’s a little man, I’m a big girl, and the chair was very rickety—so it was rather a painful experience for both of us. (Pause.) I’ve since wondered whether Lubitsch did the same thing with Garbo, and that’s why she laughs so much in Ninotchka.
John Ford is inclined to be very sarcastic when he’s making a picture. I remember going on the set when he was directing Mary of Scotland with Katharine Hepburn. The way those two insulted each other was nobody’s business. I enjoyed it thoroughly until he suddenly saw me and said, “And how is little Poison Pen this morning?” It’s not all fun being a movie columnist.
When Frank Capra made Mr. Deeds Goes to Town he suddenly got the idea that when Mr. Deeds’ train pulls out for New York and the serenading band has reached its full pitch, he’d turn his camera on the band, move it to a close-up, and there, sending himself off with a terrific trombone serenade, show Mr. Deeds. (Pause.)
If you remember that, you probably think of it still with amusement. But you probably have forgotten that when the audience saw Gary sending himself off, their appreciation was not only hilarious but, from that point on, they felt that they knew Mr. Deeds better than they would have from a hundred speeches.
The director must aim for such moments at all times. If at any time during the unrolling of the eight or nine reels of a feature picture the director allows one minute of relaxation to his audience, one minute when they’re not emotionally held, he’s almost certain that he’s directed a turkey—in other words, made an expensive mistake.
When you’re reading a book and you come to a dull description or to some difficult technical stuff, you skip; if your husband comes to the part about how beautiful Sally looked in her new coachman’s hat, he skips. But in a moving picture you and your husband have got to sit there. So, there can be no uninteresting parts, nor even any highly complicated parts. Everything has got to be simple, forthright, and compellingly interesting.
While most great pictures like Captains Courageous, Birth of a Nation, The Good Earth, and Mutiny on the Bounty have this enormous pictorial quality—we are absorbed in seeing rather than hearing—this accent on the visual need not mean we have to blow up a city or have schooners sailing the seven seas. The focus may be on something as small as the famous “kitten and boots” gag in Harold Lloyd’s Grandma’s Boy. You may remember that Harold Lloyd had greased his boots with a special ointment which proved unexpectedly attractive to cats, and at the crisis of his love affair, sitting on the sofa with his girl, a family of kittens kept licking at his boots. (Pause.)
Gone With the Wind had three directors in as many months. First there was George Cukor. He had directed David Copperfield and Little Women for Selznick, so he seemed a natural choice for Gone With the Wind, which was another attempt to put a long novel on the screen.
Now Cukor likes to direct women. In fact, he likes to direct women so much that he’s liable to slight the male star—in this case Clark Gable. It was rather funny to hear Selznick telling one of the seventeen writers who worked on the script, “Look, don’t let Scarlett romp all over Rhett Butler. George will try and throw everything to her. You and I have got to watch out for Clark.”
Shortly after this, George comes suddenly into Selznick’s office. He looks worried. He says to Selznick, “Do I understand we start shooting tomorrow?” “Yes,” says David. “But we’re not ready,” says Cukor, adding that he wants new scenes for Scarlett’s arrival at Aunt Pitty’s in Atlanta. “Then we’ll just have to work all night,” Selznick replies. One of the current authors on the picture [Scott] groans and telephones his fiancée not to expect him for dinner. The conference begins.
“What worries me,” says George, “is the character of Aunt Pitty.”
“What’s the matter with her?” says Selznick.
“She’s supposed to be quaint,” says Cukor, who is the brain behind the camera. “That’s what it says in the book.”
“That’s what it says in the script too,” says Selznick. He opens the script and reads: “Aunt Pitty bustles quaintly across the room.”
“That’s just what I mean,” interrupts Cukor. “How can I photograph that? How do you ‘bustle quaintly across the room’? It may be funny when you read about it but it won’t look like anything at all.”
They argue about this question for three long hours, and the two writers try desperately to make Aunt Pitty funny and not just say she’s funny. Which are two different things.
By midnight, Cukor and Selznick fire one of the writers. The other writer is sent home and immediately a telegram is dispatched saying that he too will not be needed any more [Scott]. Next day, two new writers come on. By noon George Cukor, having directed the first scene for Gone With the Wind, hands in his resignation. (Pause.)
Very much perturbed by the whole situation, Mr. Selznick, who grew up with pictures and has very strong opinions of his own, turns to his father-in-law’s studio—Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer—and asks for the loan of Victor Fleming, who’s a man’s director.
Fleming made Captains Courageous and Test Pilot. He’s a huge man, six feet two, and full of immense physical vitality, like all the directors. That is one thing that they must have. Also they must be iron-nerved, they must sleep at night. Let actors get the jitters, let producers go up in the air, as Mr. Goldwyn is so often accused of doing—and does. Let writers go into temperamental fits. The director must be the strong man. The organization of victory is his fight against time, against human vanities, against luck—which is the story of every big picture. (Pause.)
Victor Fleming comes, bringing with him two new writers. The two writers Selznick has engaged only that morning are hastily put out of sight—two more leaves have “Gone with the Wind.”
Victor Fleming is a producer’s favorite. Because he’s so softhearted and good-natured. Producers will beg him to make just this one picture, and they promise him on their word of honor that next year he can take a whole week off. When Fleming reminds them gently that’s what they said last year, the producer sobs. “It isn’t for me that I ask this favor. I’ve got plenty of money. It’s for the dear old company.”
Whereupon, Victor Fleming sheds a furtive tear, sighs, realizes he’s caught. He phones his wife that she might as well go on the trip to Bermuda without him. He will try to get into wireless communication with his children during the next month. And then the studio gates close behind him. (Pause.) (Confidentially:) I was once in love with a director, but I couldn’t get him to marry me. He was just—too—busy. At least that’s what he said. (Pause.)
In the case of Gone With the Wind, Victor Fleming was too kind for his own good. After the picture was three months in production, he broke down. The doctor told Selznick that unless Fleming got three weeks of absolute quiet, even this fine adaptable mechanism—which in the morning could direct the action of two thousand extras, and in the afternoon decide on the color of the buttons on Clark Gable’s coat and the shadows on Vivien Leigh’s neck—even Fleming had fallen a victim of that great Hollywood vice, overwork.
By this time Selznick is almost immune to shock and calls on reliable Sam Wood, a veteran of twenty-six years in pictures. Sam, perhaps, takes things a little less hard than Cukor or Fleming. Sam is what they call a “trouble shooter.” He’s not p
articularly intellectual. Directors like Lubitsch and Capra plan every move that a character is going to make long before the starting date of a picture, but Sam Wood doesn’t prepare his own scripts. They can always count on him, though, for a thorough, thoughtful job—as witness his fine direction of Mr. Chips. (Pause.)
He keeps Gone With the Wind going until Fleming recovers. For a while the two directors even overlap; then Fleming takes over again completely, without friction or jealousy.
After six months on the sound stages, the first draft of this problem picture is completed. A few more months of retakes—during which Clark Gable is the chief sufferer, because his hair has to grow way down his neck for Rhett Butler and it’s a hot summer and he would like to cut it—well, after retakes and then more retakes, the picture is finished.
Like all pictures, it has been a community enterprise. Margaret Mitchell wrote the story; David Selznick, perhaps the most competent producer in Hollywood, dedicated himself to the four-million-dollar production; seventeen writers have figured on the payroll; the cutters, technicians, cameramen, designers, music recorders, dressmakers, tailors, all have done their share—but the tensile strength of this great effort has been furnished by the director.
But don’t feel too sorry for the director—he has his compensations. (Pause.) Capra, Ford, Vidor, Fleming, and the other top directors get from $50,000 to $150,000 a picture. And, in the popular mind, there is another compensation for the director. I quote from William de Mille’s book Hollywood Saga.
“When I first assumed my duties as director, I was surprised and just a bit startled to discover that my personal attraction seemed to have increased in an amazing fashion. Never had I realized the number of charming and ambitious young women who were willing, nay, anxious to pay the price, as they so naïvely expressed it. But my tottering modesty was saved, against its will perhaps, by the inner conviction that all the ladies wanted was a job.”
The question I am asked most frequently is: “How can I break into the movies?”—and I’m just the person to come to. Nine years ago, I had a screen test in London. (Pause.) I was strongly advised to become a writer. (Pause and smile.) However, I always feel that I didn’t have a fair chance. (Smile.)
There is no royal road to screen success. You can be the daughter of a director and have no luck, like Katherine de Mille; you can be a great beauty and a millionairess in one, like Mrs. Jock Whitney; you can be the wife of a Barrymore, or a glamour girl like Brenda Frazier, and then not click in front of a camera.
One of the best ways to get into the movies is to fall into them. David Niven had no idea of becoming a screen actor until he fell off a boat. (Pause.) He was visiting friends on a British cruiser off California. After a rather gay evening, he had retired for the night. Shortly afterwards, the captain of the boat received orders to sail to Australia. There was the problem of Mr. Niven. They couldn’t take him along—even if David wanted to go. For a while the captain considered throwing David to the sharks, but we English—well, that sort of thing just isn’t done. So he hailed a ship a hundred yards away. “Can you take aboard a young man who can’t travel under his own steam?” (Pause.)
The boat hailed was the sailing ship chartered by Metro for Mutiny on the Bounty, and the Bounty was nothing if not bountiful. The ship was to appear before the camera the next day, but they could put up this lost young Englishman for one night. A launch came alongside. David turned at the gangplank to say “Good-by” to his friends, made a false step, and descended hurriedly into the Pacific, whence he was dragged into the Bounty’s launch, a very wide-awake young man. (Pause.) David didn’t know that it was the beginning of his career. At that moment, he was only trying to survive; he was not looking ahead. (Pause.)
Producers never make mistakes about talent—this is a well-known fact. At least if anyone says differently between Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevard, they’d better start looking for a job outside the movies. Producers sense talent by a sort of second or third sight. For example, when the screen tests were run for a certain young lady in 1930, Carl Laemmle, Junior, who’d grown up in the business, immortalized himself with the remark “She’s got no talent, she leaves me cold.”
He was right, of course—that is, so far as his own feelings were concerned. However, about a hundred million Americans thought differently and also thought that Miss Bette Davis was one of the great actresses of our time. Nevertheless, five years passed from the time of Mr. Laemmle’s decision before Bette got her chance in Of Human Bondage, and that was only because every other actress in Hollywood refused the part.
The handsome Errol Flynn will tell you that his career came to life when he played dead. (Pause.) This is literally true. He was first spotted for the big money when, in desperation, he accepted the role of a corpse in a picture called The Case of the Curious Bride. (Disparaging gesture.) It wasn’t much of a part. He had no lines to speak of. But it was a nice quiet occupation and it didn’t require any experience. (Smile for first time.)
But while he was lying dead, news came that Robert Donat was too ill to come to America and a handsome actor had to be found to take his place. So a lot of talent scouts were brought in to look at this corpse with sex appeal. And that’s how Errol Flynn won the title role of Captain Blood.
Then there’s always that old feminine trick of fainting in the producer’s office—only this time it was used by a man, who gave it a different twist. Joel McCrea was driving a motorcycle outside the Paramount studio. A delivery truck bumped into him. Before he lost consciousness, Joel managed to stagger inside the studio. When he came to, he heard Cecil B. de Mille say, “He’s good-looking, he ought to be in pictures.” Before he was fully awake, de Mille had him under contract, at fifty dollars a week.
Sometimes personality conquers all. When Clark Gable was tested for the screen, they dressed him in a sort of sarong, with a rose in his mouth and a wreath of flowers round his head to cover his ears. (Pause.) Even that couldn’t stop Clark Gable. When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.
Again, one can change one’s self in order to win friends and influence producers. Fifteen years ago, Molly O’Day (sister of Sally O’Neil) had a portion of both calves amputated, which caused somewhat of a scandal and injured her career. But there were no protests whatever when George Brent sacrificed a piece of his nose to make it a little less Roman.
Seriously, it does seem that the best way of making a reputation for Hollywood is to make it outside of Hollywood. Judy Garland lived in Hollywood nine years but couldn’t make the movie grade until she sang at Lake Tahoe, where she was heard by a talent scout. And a girl like Mary Martin had to sing unnoticed for two years in Hollywood night clubs. Then she went East, made a hit on Broadway, and was immediately deluged with screen offers.
I won’t depress you by dwelling on the fact that 9,000 extras worked last year an average of 29 days each—for an average pay check of $320 for the year. And that even if you do click in your first picture that’s only one hurdle in a long steeplechase. For one whole year I used to gape at the exquisite Hedy Lamarr sitting neglected in a corner at the Hollywood Brown Derby. And then overnight, after the release of Algiers, she became the glamour girl of the screen. Three months later, her next picture was abandoned in the middle because of the honest conviction of all concerned that she couldn’t act. But she could act in Algiers. (Pause.)
What is the answer? (Pause.) As Bernard Shaw says, “The Golden Rule is (Pause) that there are no golden rules.” There are no reliable signposts on the road to Hollywood success.
One thing I know you all want to know is “What are the stars like?” (Pause.) It’s a little hard to know what they are like physically—after the Hollywood make-up experts get through with them. And we haven’t much time now to go into it deeply, but we’ll take a few of them very briefly.
There’s Shirley Temple. Shirley has changed quite a bit in the four years that I’ve known her. We first met at the hairdresser’s when we were both having our
hair brightened—a little. She bought me a Coca-Cola. (Pause.) She hasn’t quite gotten around to buying whiskeys and sodas—yet—but that will come—I hope.
I think Shirley is going to be a prettier girl and woman than she was a baby. She’s lost a lot of weight, and she’s getting fairly tall for her eleven years. Her mother has wisely decided to let Shirley’s hair revert to its near-natural shade. It will soon be black, like her mother’s. Shirley’s amazingly intelligent. She recently discussed the European war with me, and from the way she spoke, I think she reads Life and Time. She is currently studying Greek philosophy—or rather that’s what her press agent told me.
Charles Boyer—what of him? (Pause.) In real life Charles has a much higher forehead than on the screen. But, like Edgar Bergen and Fred Astaire, he has to wear a little something for the screen. But that doesn’t detract from his tremendous personal charm—whether on the screen or in private life.
I understand that the French government has taken him from the Maginot Line with the view to sending him to this country to spread French propaganda among the clubwomen. (Pause.) You’d better not let him come, because when Boyer meets clubwoman, the combustion will put America right in the war on the side of France—and Mr. Boyer.
Hedy Lamarr? Is she as beautiful in real life as she is on the screen? I’m afraid she is—in fact she’s more beautiful. She has the most perfect complexion I’ve ever seen, literally as soft and white as a camellia. I could go on like this for hours about her. Luckily for the sanity of the rest of the women in Hollywood, Hedy’s figure doesn’t match up with her face. Which is why she wears those long skirts.
Hedy is like a bright child. She laughs like a child, and she probably cries like a child. You have a feeling that she ought to be playing with dolls. As a matter of fact, she is playing with a doll right now. Her husband, Gene Markey, recently bought her a nice, live, masculine doll—a cute little boy, with whom Hedy is now playing Mama.
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