William Wyler
Page 37
One problem with the second part of the film is that Wyler, in part to placate the Breen office, turns Carrie into a noble, sacrificing, and understanding wife. Also, the filmmakers cut and economize too much in this section, retaining less of Dreiser's plot and thus softening the emotional impact of Hurstwood's decline. They omit both Ames and the Vances, the couple in Carrie's building who introduce her to the glories of New York City life, and they do away with Hurstwood's investment in a Warren Street saloon. In the novel, Hurstwood keeps enough of the stolen money to buy into a business while he and Carrie live in middle-class comfort for two years, whereas in the film, a detective tracks Hurstwood to a luxurious New York hotel almost as soon as he arrives, taking back most of the money. As the detective is counting the cash, he remarks that Hurstwood still has his health and, nodding toward Carrie, implies that he also has a beautiful young woman. But as Hurstwood realizes at that moment, in a world governed by money, these advantages will not be enough. In the hotel room, Carrie tries on a new hat, her happy face caught in the mirror; Hurstwood is at the door, his face in shadows. He tells Carrie that he is broke, and she embraces him. He pulls away from her—their positions have changed. Carrie assures him that she is his wife and still loves him, and Hurstwood replies that love may not be enough. The couple's fall into poverty is almost instantaneous.
In the film, a series of brief scenes dramatizes Hurstwood's decline. We see him getting fired from a job as a waiter at a working-class saloon, looking for work at an employment agency, and being reduced to tears when his last good pair of pants is splattered with mud. Paralleling these scenes, Wyler shows Carrie's quick rise in the theater world: first, she is seen auditioning for a chorus line; then a montage of sequences shows her getting more prominent roles.
Throughout much of this section, Wyler's Carrie remains devoted to Hurstwood, dealing patiently with his economic setbacks. Emotions come to a head, however, when she becomes pregnant soon after Hurstwood loses his job. Then Julia and her lawyer arrive, insisting that Hurstwood give her permission to sell their house, and Carrie is shocked to learn that Hurstwood is not divorced. Seeking to placate her, Hurstwood bargains away his share of the house, losing his chance to gain some financial stability. Shortly afterward, Carrie loses the baby. In an effort to console her, he promises that they can have another child when times get better, but Carrie attacks him, demanding, “When? When you're rich?…When you're eighty?” Later, she tells him that she is “still young” and is “going to live somehow.” In the novel, Dreiser chronicles Carrie's growing resentment of Hurstwood's failings and his age; in the film, all her bitterness comes out in this one emotional moment.
When she learns that Hurstwood is going to see his son, who is visiting New York on his honeymoon, Carrie decides to sacrifice herself and leave him, so that he will be free to return to his world. While waiting at the pier, however, Hurstwood is overcome with shame and cannot bring himself to face his son. Ironically, he returns home to find Carrie's farewell note. Dreiser's naturalistic tale of characters at the mercy of forces beyond their control suddenly becomes a story of good intentions gone awry.
The character of Carrie is domesticated enough to be sympathetic to film audiences of the time, yet liberated enough to reflect the new woman emerging in postwar films. She reflects Brandon French's contention that women in 1950s films longed for both a secure, domestic lifestyle and the adventure inherent in an unconventional way of life.21 The examples of domestic reality in the film—Minnie's life of grinding poverty and the Hurstwoods’ marriage, in which the pursuit of social status has destroyed any semblance of happiness—push Carrie to look for fulfillment elsewhere. Carrie is uncompromising in viewing marriage as a trap, and it certainly seems to be an attack on the American way of life in the 1950s, grounded in an institution wholly shaped by money.22
From the beginning, Wyler's Carrie displays spunk and confidence in the face of this dreary prospect. On the train, she tells Drouet that she will not end up like her sister. When Hurstwood teaches her how to play cards, she exults in beating Drouet. Ignoring Hurstwoood's help, she exclaims, “I won!” Her strength again comes to the fore when, after her miscarriage, she realizes that she can no longer devote herself to an aging husband and declares her intention “to live.” That bedside awakening is immediately followed by a scene in which she auditions for the chorus line in a musical revue. This new Carrie is a woman of action. When the director asks for her name, she answers, “Carrie Madenda”—coming up with a new identity on the spot. She will rise and succeed.
Hurstwood initially accepts Carrie's success in the theater. After her opening night, he escorts her home and encourages her dreams. He tells her to buy some good clothes and get a nice place to live, adding, “You can make your way up to that other world that I left.” Carrie responds, “You mean alone,” to which Hurstwood replies, “You're never alone up there. It's down here where it's lonesome.” These lines are telling, for they highlight the contradictions in Hurstwood's mind (and in Dreiser's), indicating that he still worships at the altar of success. Equating happiness with good clothes and a beautiful home, he evidently believes that success functions as a barrier to loneliness and despair. In this context, it is interesting that Wyler lifts an image that Dreiser associates with Carrie and transfers it to Hurstwood: Dreiser uses the rocking chair as an image of Carrie's restlessness, an activity that cannot take her to a satisfying place, whereas Wyler uses it to signify Hurstwood's isolation. He is seen a number of times rocking by a window with a newspaper in his hand, cut off from the world he once navigated successfully. Immediately after Hurstwood's reply to Carrie about the comforts of success, Wyler cuts to Hurstwood in the rocker—the epitome of one who has lost it.
Carrie leaves Hurstwood because she believes he will be happier if he reunites with his son and returns to his former life—the “other world” he left behind. That decision, however, sets him on a downward spiral. Once Carrie becomes more successful, she tries to find him again, but none of her leads proves fruitful. One evening, as she readies herself for a performance, Drouet visits her dressing room. In a scene that parallels the one in the film's first half, when he tells her that Hurstwood is married, he now informs Carrie that Hurstwood stole money before they ran away together. Drouet confesses that despite his current success, he was happier in his old apartment with Carrie. All Wyler's principals—even Drouet—learn something about the nature of success. As Drouet tells Carrie about the theft, she is looking at herself in a full-length mirror—reminiscent of her first moment as Mrs. Hurstwood, admiring her new hat just before Hurstwood is forced to return the stolen money. She has come a long way, but Wyler's camera still imprisons her in the frame, indicating that although she has gained much, she has lost more. Suddenly recognizing her part in Hurstwood's downfall, she exclaims that she has “ruined him.”
When next seen, Hurstwood is in a rooming house for derelicts. This scene, which was cut from the film shown in theaters but restored when it was released on DVD, is one of the most haunting sequences in the movie. Wyler's camera, surveying the place from above, looks down on the men, confined in individual cells that look like cages at an animal shelter. Hurstwood is sick and has just come from the hospital; his once impeccable appearance has deteriorated markedly. He is told to leave in the morning and is forced to roam the streets in search of money. Out on the street and starving, he swallows his pride and decides to ask Carrie for a handout.
Hurstwood's meeting with Carrie is filmed in a noirish style. He hides in the shadows, near the brightly lit stage door area. When Carrie emerges, her face is illuminated, while Hurstwood's remains dark. She invites him into her dressing room and orders one of the workers to bring food. When she turns on the light, Hurstwood looks away, devastated and humiliated by his appearance. When Carrie asks, “What happened?” he can only reply, “I've forgotten”—he is unable to articulate what life has done to him, or what he has done to himself. Carrie tells him that she n
ow has security and success and wants to share it with him; she understands what he did for her and wants to reclaim his love. But Hurstwood advises her not to live in the past, telling her (repeating her words to him) she has time to find someone to love and, finally, that “it's a great experience.” At the end, he seems to be holding on to one of the reasons for his fall—the romantic notion that there is something greater than the materialism pursued by all the film's characters.
When Carrie leaves to get more money, Hurstwood removes just one coin from her purse and fingers it—this is Wyler's third use of this image—then flicks the bills back inside. The gesture of rejecting money seems to consolidate his epiphany, but as he rises to leave, Hurstwood catches sight of himself in Carrie's mirror. His desolate expression suggests that the lesson has come too late and cannot redeem him. He manipulates the burners on Carrie's stove, and we hear the hissing of the gas as Hurstwood leaves. The image hints at Hurstwood's end, and it is the only indication that remains—his actual suicide scene was filmed but removed before the film's release.
In the script version, Hurstwood returns to the dreary shelter, where he uses Carrie's money to rent a room, locks himself in, and stares at the window. The script reads, “An especially hard blast of wind rattles the window and the slip lock falls securely into place. Hurstwood closes his eyes.” Both versions—the Goetzes’ script and the finished film—thus close on images of death. Wyler, unlike Dreiser, ends with Hurstwood, not Carrie. Indeed, both his independent postwar films conclude with death images: Catherine Sloper locking herself in her home, and Hurstwood exiting Carrie's dressing room to commit suicide.
Wyler completed shooting on November 2, just a few days over schedule and roughly $60,000 over budget. The film did not fare well with the critics—the New York Times called it “mawkish.”23 Its failure, however, may have been attributable in large part to the national mood: the House Un-American Activities Committee was preparing a new round of hearings for April 1951, which paralyzed Hollywood; the Cold War was at its height; America was at war with Korea; and Alger Hiss was being tried in front of Senator McCarthy's committee. Sensitive to this rancorous political climate, Paramount panicked about handling a property that was so critical of the American way of life. Wyler delivered his final cut in March 1951, but Paramount sat on it until July 1952, releasing it with no promotion. The studio heads also cut the film without Wyler's input: “I was in Rome preparing Roman Holiday when I got a cable from the studio as long as my arm. It said the picture would be shelved unless I agreed to cuts. They were not allowed to make the cuts without my approval, according to my contract. But faced with the prospect of having the picture shelved permanently, I decided to let them do it.”24
Paramount's handling of the film infuriated David Selznick, who sent lengthy letters to executives Frank Freeman and Barney Balaban with suggestions on how to market it, which theaters it should play in, and what film festivals it should be entered in. In one letter to Freeman he wrote, “Now I am extremely eager about ‘Carrie.’ I wish I were handling it. With the combination of what I regard as the picture's superb quality, and the prestige names of Theodore Dreiser, William Wyler, Laurence Olivier, and Jennifer Jones, it would have a build-up such as few pictures have had before.”25 Paramount obviously did not share the producer's enthusiasm.
Wyler looked back on the film's failure sardonically: “The picture frightened them because of the shameful McCarthy era. Carrie showed American life in an unflattering light…. So we had a flop instead of a success, which I suppose was better for America.”26
14
The House Un-American Activities Committee
Detective Story (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), The Desperate Hours (1955), The Children's Hour (1961)
In September 1947, J. Parnell Thomas, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, reconvened the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate “alleged subversive influence on motion pictures.” More than forty people from the film industry received subpoenas to appear before the committee. There were two groups of witnesses. One—termed “friendly” by the committee—was made up of individuals willing to name fellow workers whom they thought to be members of the Communist Party and to identify moments in films that contained communist propaganda. The second group—labeled “unfriendly”—consisted of nineteen actors, writers, producers, and directors who became, in effect, the defendants. Of these nineteen, only eleven were called to testify. One of the eleven, German playwright Bertolt Brecht, denied membership in the Communist Party and promptly left the country. The others, who became known as the “Hollywood Ten,” were eventually tried, fined, and imprisoned for contempt of Congress.
Shortly after the announcement that the HUAC would hold its first hearings in October 1947, Wyler and his friends John Huston, Philip Dunne, and Canadian actor Alexander Knox met to form a group in opposition to the hearings. At first, they called their campaign Hollywood Fights Back, but they later changed the name to the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA). The CFA gathered at Ira Gershwin's home—along with a group of Hollywood stars that included Edward G. Robinson, Danny Kaye, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Myrna Loy, Ava Gardner, Henry Fonda, and Gene Kelly—and prepared a statement that ran a few days later in newspapers across the country and was also presented to Congress in the form of a petition. An early version of the petition, which was signed by David Selznick, John Ford, Bette Davis, George Stevens, and Frank Capra, among others, read in part:
The America we love and defend is the traditional America where men of goodwill and of different political faiths assemble in town meeting[s], discuss their political differences, and remain friends. For when the freedom to disagree, the right to dissent, is threatened in America, the whole fabric of our beloved country is endangered….
We are tired of our industry, and our professions, and of our family and friends, eternally being placed in a defensive position by every group seeking notoriety at Hollywood's expense. We have faith that the great majority of the elected Congressional representatives of the American people resent equally with us abuses of powers of the Congress.1
The statement that ran in newspapers was much shorter than the original three-page, single-spaced document. It read:
We, the undersigned, as American citizens who believe in constitutional democratic government, are disgusted and outraged by the continuing attempt of the House Committee on Un-American Activities to smear the Motion Picture Industry.
We hold that these hearings are morally wrong because:
Any investigation into the political beliefs of the individual is contrary to the basic principles of our democracy;
Any attempt to curb freedom of expression and to set arbitrary standards of Americanism is in itself disloyal to both the spirit and the letter of our Constitution.2
This statement was signed by all those who had attended the meeting at Gershwin's home.
The CFA also agreed on a steering committee: director Anatole Litvak, screenwriter Julius Epstein, producer Joseph Sistrom (a conservative Republican), and David Hopkins (son of FDR friend and adviser Harry Hopkins). The CFA next decided to send a delegation to the hearings in Washington as a show of support for the unfriendly witnesses. They chartered a plane from Howard Hughes for $13,000. John Huston told the Washington Daily News that Hughes had no interest in politics: “It was strictly a business deal.”3 The stars who attended this rally included many of those who had gathered at Gershwin's home and signed the petition. Wyler wanted to go but was advised against it by his doctors. Dunne and Huston joined the actors in Washington.
The night before the flight, Wyler called a meeting at Chasen's restaurant and reminded the delegates that they would likely be attacked. According to Dunne, Wyler cautioned that “if anyone aboard that plane was in the slightest degree vulnerable, our entire group and its cause could be discredited. If there is anything in any of your pasts that could hurt you or us, don't go. You don
't have to tell us about it. Just don't show up at the airport tomorrow morning.”4 Wyler, Dunne, and Huston were also concerned that when the CFA delegation entered the caucus room of the House Office Building, HUAC chairman Thomas might subpoena the delegates and force them to testify under oath. After some discussion, the group agreed on a plan: “If any or all of us were called to the stand and asked the question, we would reply, ‘I must respectfully decline to answer that question on the grounds that the information is privileged under the First Amendment to the Constitution.’ We would then call a press conference, ask a Supreme Court justice to put us under oath…and answer all questions the newspapermen cared to ask us, including the Sixty-Four-Dollar one.”5 Dunne admitted decades later that he did not like that compromise, but he thought Justice Felix Frankfurter (a friend of his father) would swear the group in on the radio, and they “would come out. But it would not be under the direct duress of the committee.”6
In his autobiography, Dunne wrote that the CFA had two goals: “First, we timed our flight to support the scheduled testimony of Eric Johnston, spokesman for the Producers Association, who had publicly declared that the motion picture companies would never impose a blacklist nor submit to censorship. Second, we intended to confront Richard Nixon, the only congressman on the House Committee from our home state, and request that he either call off the hearings or insist on a reformation of its procedures.”7 The CFA's plan was upended, however, when Thomas decided to bypass Johnston and call screenwriter John Howard Lawson instead. Lawson was a passionate Marxist who had come to Hollywood after establishing a reputation as a playwright and a theorist of political theater. Considered one of the Hollywood Left's most intellectual and passionate spokesmen, Lawson was aggressively brash, and his appearance set the tone for the testimony by the rest of the Hollywood Ten. Dunne considered Lawson's performance unfortunate—a setback for the cause—and felt that Lawson and others erred in not making the First Amendment the center of their defense: “An examination of what they said on the witness stand will reveal few references to the constitutional issue and an emphasis on the barren tactic that they were refusing to answer the congressmen's questions, but were trying to answer them in their own way.”8 Many members of the CFA were appalled by the hostile and belligerent testimony and the subsequent negative press coverage. By the time the CFA members returned to Hollywood, their movement was riven by dissent, and they faced pressure from their agents and their colleagues to distance themselves from the Hollywood Ten and that group's opposition to the HUAC. The CFA sputtered for a little while longer but would soon dissolve. Wyler told Axel Madsen: