23. Bosley Crowther, “‘Carrie,’ with Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones, is New Feature at the Capitol,” New York Times, July 17, 1952.
24. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 330.
25. David Selznick to Frank Freeman, August 22, 1951, Wyler Papers.
26. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 330.
14. The House Un-American Activities Committee
1. “Committee to Defend the Motion Picture industry against Unjust Attacks,” undated, Wyler Collection.
2. Quoted in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 299.
3. Washington Daily News, November 6, 1947.
4. Dunne, Take Two, 194.
5. Ibid., 199.
6. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 301.
7. Dunne, Take Two, 197.
8. Ibid., 199.
9. Madsen, William Wyler, 286.
10. Dunne, Take Two, 198.
11. Gordon Kahn, Hollywood on Trial (New York: Boni and Gaer, 1948), 219–20.
12. Ibid., 223.
13. Ibid., 221.
14. Valley Times, May 7, 1947. The August 25, 1947, issue of Newsweek reported that Best Years was on a list, compiled by the HUAC, of films that portray “congressmen as crooks and bankers as stony-hearted villains.” Examples of un-Americanism cited in the film include the Dana Andrews character (Fred Derry) being denied a plane reservation on his way home, even though a prosperous fat citizen has no trouble getting one; Fred being turned down for anything better than his former job as a soda jerk by the 4-F personnel manager of an unsympathetic drugstore chain; and the Fredric March character (Al Stephenson) as an ex-sergeant who is unhappy in his postwar job as vice president of a bank, which heartlessly insists on collateral for loans to ex-Gis.
15. Kahn, Hollywood on Trial, 184.
16. “Wallace Talks to 12,000 after Secret Fund Raising,” Los Angeles Examiner, May 17, 1948.
17. Letter from Wyler on behalf of Adrian Scott, November 28, 1950, Wyler Collection.
18. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 339.
19. Wyler to Bosley Crowther, undated, Wyler Collection.
20. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 241, 242.
21. Ibid., 243–44.
22. New York Times, July 23, 1950.
23. The filmmakers inserted a scene at the beginning in which McLeod and Mary meet in a cab and she tells him about a doctor's visit for another failed pregnancy.
24. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 320.
25. Kirk Douglas, The Ragman's Son (New York: Pocket Books, 1989), 163. Wyler's recollection was different: he claimed that he suggested Douglas play the part on stage in Phoenix, “where a troupe was doing a revival of the play. They were delighted to have him. He got a hundred dollars, maybe.” Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 335.
26. Douglas, The Ragman's Son, 165.
27. George Stevens Jr. et al., “The Test of Time: William Wyler,” American Film 1, no. 6 (April 1976). The others were Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, and Joseph Mankiewicz.
28. Charles Higham, Hollywood Cameramen (Bloomington: indiana University Press, 1970), 51–52.
29. Anderegg, William Wyler, 175.
30. Ibid.
31. It is interesting to note that in the second draft of the screenplay, that conversation takes place in a bar called the Hangout, not in the privacy of a cab. When Mary tells McLeod that she cannot have a baby and suggests a trip to Lake Tahoe, he turns her down because of the Schneider case: “I can't sleep with that killer loose in the city.” Clearly, Wyler wants to introduce McLeod sympathetically, as a family man. First draft of Dead End, November 11, 1950, Wyler Collection.
32. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 280.
33. New York Times, November 17, 1951.
34. Madsen, William Wyler, 304.
35. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 347.
36. Paul Kohner to Wyler, January 22, 1953, Wyler Collection. In his autobiography An Open Book, John Huston wrote (135–36):
In 1952 both José Ferrer and I ran head-on into trouble after bringing Moulin Rouge back from Paris for its premiere in Los Angeles. Joe had a reputation for being far left but he was in fact no more a Communist than my grandmother. Nevertheless, when we opened in Los Angeles some splinter groups from the American Legion—inspired, no doubt, by Hedda Hopper's constantly raking me over the coals in her column—paraded in front of the theater with placards declaring that José Ferrer and John Huston were Communists. I must say it took the edge off the festivities.
37. Arthur Jacobs to Paul Kohner, January 21, 1953, Wyler Collection.
38. Kohner to Wyler, February 14, 1953, Wyler Collection.
39. Art Arthur to Wyler, April 4 and 8, 1953, Wyler Collection.
40. Y. Frank Freeman to Wyler, January 2, 1954, Wyler Collection.
41. Draft of letter from Wyler to Freeman, February 24, 1954, Wyler Collection.
42. Wyler to Freeman, May 3, 1954, Wyler Collection.
43. Ibid.
44. The Broadway producers would adopt Wyler's original notion and cast Paul Newman, in his first starring stage role, opposite Karl Malden.
45. Anderegg, William Wyler, 180.
46. Peter Biskind, Seeing Is Believing (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 162, 164.
47. Joseph Hayes, The Desperate Hours (New York: Random House, 1954), 245.
48. Bernard Kantor, irwin R. Blacker, and Anne Kramer, eds., Directors at Work (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), 428.
49. Wyler, “Production Notes,” Wyler Collection.
50. Anderegg, William Wyler, 182.
51. Film Daily, March 16, 1960.
52. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 31.
53. Higham, “William Wyler,” 18.
54. Gene D. Phillips, “William Wyler,” Focus on Film 24 (Spring 1976): 7, reprinted in Miller, William Wyler: Interviews.
55. Variety, March 8, 1961.
56. Hellman to Wyler, April 1961, Wyler Collection.
57. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 417.
15. The Pacifist Dilemma
1. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 367.
2. Michael Wilson, script, February 14, 1947, p. 17, Wyler Papers.
3. Jessamyn West, To See the Dream (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1957), 8.
4. Ibid., 92–93.
5. Ibid., 94.
6. Ibid.
7. Kael, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, 238.
8. West, To See the Dream, 101.
9. Ibid., 265–66.
10. Madsen, William Wyler, 318.
11. In the final script by West and Robert Wyler, there is more participation by the Quakers. A farmer reads from a letter his daughter received from Abraham Lincoln: “Your people—the Friends—are having a very great trial. On principle and faith opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma, some have chosen one horn and some the other. For your sons and friends appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have done and shall do the best I could and can, in my own conscience, under my own oath to the law.” These sentiments are voiced by Major Harvey in Wilson's script but do not appear in the finished film. Perhaps Wyler felt this presidential tolerance lent more credence to the Quaker position than he wanted to show. The script also has a businessman recommending that instead of giving all they earn “to the meeting,” they give that money to the families of those wounded and killed in the war. Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler, “Final Script,” August 18, 1955, Museum of Modern Art.
12. West, To See the Dream, 286. Interestingly, in the final script, this comic sequence takes a serious turn when, during the Birdwells’ visit, the Hudspeths arm themselves and hide in the barn when they hear Confederate raiders near their farm. The raiders eventually leave, but not before taking Red Rover, the horse Jess has just traded to Mrs. Hudspeth. Jess is willing to return Lady, the horse he received in the exchange, but the widow insists that the trade is final.
13. West and R. Wyler, “Final Script,” 153A.
14. Jessam
yn West to Wyler, July 1955, Wyler Collection.
15. West and R. Wyler, “Final Script.”
16. Wilson's script also had a more thematically satisfying ending than that used in the film, since it deals with the consequences of war. Eliza announces that Josh will return with Gard to the battlefront, where the war is obviously still raging. Josh, who admits that he has “no stomach for killing,” wants to contribute to the war effort as a stretcher-bearer. Michael Wilson, script, February 13, 1947, Wyler Papers.
17. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 376.
18. Madsen, William Wyler, 326.
19. Wyler affidavit, March 1957, Wyler Papers.
20. Stuart Millar affidavit, March 1957, Wyler Papers.
21. Michael Wilson, versions of Friendly Persuasion script, September 20, 1946, and February 13, 1947, Wyler Papers.
22. Memo from Wyler to Freeman, April 8, 1954, Wyler Papers.
23. Letter from Wyler to Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1978.
24. “Some Summit Lore from Silver Screen,” New York Times, May 31, 1988.
25. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 379.
26. Ibid., 382.
27. Charlton Heston, In the Arena: An Autobiography (New York: Boulevard Books, 1997), 164.
28. Warshow, The Immediate Experience, 147.
29. Wyler to Robert Swink, May 16, 1958, Wyler Collection.
30. Heston, In the Arena, 169.
31. Madsen, William Wyler, 338.
32. In making Ben-Hur, Wyler became embroiled in yet another writing credit controversy, albeit without the political implications involved in Friendly Persuasion. Wyler wanted both Christopher Fry and Karl Tunberg to get credit for the screenplay, and according to Wyler, Tunberg initially agreed but changed his mind when the matter came before the Writers’ Guild. Gore Vidal claims that Wyler wanted Fry to receive sole credit, but Fry thought Vidal should get co-credit. As with Friendly Persuasion, the guild ruled in favor of the original writer (Tunberg) and denied credit to the two other writers who had substantially revised the script. Because Wyler had campaigned against Tunberg's sole credit, the guild eventually blamed him for ruining the writer's chances at the Oscars—of the film's twelve nominations, it won everything except the award for Best Screenplay. While accepting his Best Actor award, Charlton Heston inflamed matters further by thanking Christopher Fry, which prompted the Writers’ Guild to send an angry letter to Heston.
33. “Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic,” Ben-Hur, directed by William Wyler (1959; Santa Monica, Calif.: MCM/UA Home Video, 1993), VHS.
34. In the novel, Messala is merely wounded in the race, not killed. But he is also bankrupted as a result of his wager with Sheik ilderim.
35. Madsen, William Wyler, 339.
16. Final Projects
1. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 420.
2. Madsen, William Wyler, 366.
3. Ibid., 367.
4. “Movies: Wyler's Wiles,” Time, June 18, 1965.
5. Directed by William Wyler.
6. The novel establishes that she is a virgin, despite her relationship with an older man.
7. The screenwriters eliminate Miranda's relationship with G.P. (George Paston), an artist who mistreats women. He tells Miranda that he has seduced many women like her and even married two of them. G.P. collects conquests and, in this regard, is similar to Freddie. The fact that Miranda worships him and admires his values is disquieting. Miranda's politics and class prejudices are also cut from the film's characterization. The screenwriters omit particulars from Freddie's past as well, including the death of his father when he was a child, the abandonment by his mother, and his subsequent rearing by an aunt who disparages his interest in butterfly collecting.
8. Village Voice, June 24, 1965.
9. Saturday Review, December 25, 1965.
10. Quoted in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 436.
11. Laurents would later write one of Streisand's most famous film roles—Katie Morosky in The Way We Were.
12. Barbra Streisand, e-mail message to author, May 10, 2013.
13. Ibid.
14. The opening sequence is a total reimagining of the play, which opens in Fanny's dressing room. She enters the room and says, “Hello, Gorgeous,” followed by the stage manager's announcement, “Half hour, Miss Brice.”
15. The earlier script versions, which were written for Sidney Lumet by Sidney Buchman, eliminate the framing device: the first opens with Fanny asking Eddie Ryan, “You think beautiful girls are going to stay in style forever?” and ends with her singing “Nicky Arnstein, Nicky Arnstein—I’ll never see him again”; the second opens with Mrs. Strakosh singing “if a Girl isn't Pretty.” Sidney Buchman, scripts for Funny Girl, September 23 and November 7, 1966, Wyler Papers.
16. Barbra Streisand, e-mail message to author, May 10, 2013. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 447. During the shoot, Streisand and Sharif had a passionate affair, which ended when filming was over. Wyler channeled this emotion in Streisand for the final song.
17. Pauline Kael, Going Steady (New York: Bantam, 1971), 165.
18. The film added three songs not written for the show. In addition to “My Man,” the writers included “Second Hand Rose” and “I’d Rather Be Blue.” Seven songs from the original show were cut.
19. Quoted in Keith Garebian, The Making of Gypsy (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1998), 120.
20. Madsen, William Wyler, 390, 391.
21. Randall Riese, Her Name Is Barbra (New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1994), 282.
22. Barbra Streisand, e-mail message to author, May 10, 2013.
23. Miller, William Wyler: Interviews, 34.
24. Telegram from Wyler to Darryl Zanuck, September 19, 1967, Wyler Collection.
25. Madsen, William Wyler, 397–98.
26. Entertainment World, April 10, 1970.
27. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 452.
28. Jesse Hill Ford, The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones (Boston: Atlantic-Little Brown, 1965), 346.
29. Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1970.
30. Mark Harris, Pictures at a Revolution (New York: Penguin, 2008), 335.
31. Time, August 11, 1967.
32. Andrew Sarris, “Director of the Month,” Show 1, no. 6 (June 1970): 14–15.
33. Entertainment World, April 10, 1970.
34. Madsen, William Wyler, 403.
35. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 455.
36. Ibid., 467.
Selected Bibliography
Books and Articles
Affron, Charles. Cinema and Sentiment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
———. “Reading the Fiction of Nonfiction: William Wyler's Memphis Belle.” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 7, no. 1 (Winter 1982): 53–59.
———. Star Acting. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977.
Affron, Charles, and Jona Mirella Affron. Best Years: Going to the Movies, 1945–1946. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009.
Anderegg, Michael A. William Wyler. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.
Armstrong, Richard. “The Best Years of Our Lives: Planes of Innocence and Experience.” Film International 5, no. 6 (2007): 83–91.
Arnold, William. Frances Farmer: Shadowland. New York: Jove/HBJ Books, 1979.
Astor, Mary. A Life in Film. New York: Delacorte Press, 1967.
Baxter, John. Hollywood in the Thirties. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1968.
Bazin, André. Bazin at Work: Major Essays and Reviews from the Forties and Fifties. Edited and translated by Bert Cardullo and Alain Piette. New York: Routledge, 1997.
———. What Is Cinema? Edited and translated by Hugh Gray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Behlmer, Rudy, ed. Inside Warner Bros.: 1935–1951. New York: Viking, 1985.
Bellour, Raymond, ed. Le Cinema Américain: Analyses de Films. Vol. 1. Paris: Flammarion, 1980.
Berg, A. Scott. Goldwyn: A Biography. New York: Ballantine, 1990.
Bergstrom, J
anet. “Alternation, Segmentation, Hypnosis: Interview with Raymond Bellour.” Camera Obscura 3–4 (Summer 1979): 71–103.
Biskind, Peter, Seeing Is Believing. New York: Pantheon, 1983.
Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
———. “Word to Image: The Problem of the Filmed Novel.” Quarterly Review of Film, Radio, and Television 11, no. 2 (Winter 1956): 171–80.
Bosworth, Patricia. Montgomery Clift. New York: Bantam, 1979.
Bowman, Barbara. Master Space: Film Images of Capra, Lubitsch, Sternberg, and Wyler. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Brennan, Stephen C. “Sister Carrie Becomes Carrie.” In Nineteenth-Century American Fiction on Screen, edited by R. Barton Palmer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Brownlowe, Kevin. “The Early Days of William Wyler.” Film 37 (August 1963): 11–13.
Capra, Frank. The Name above the Title. New York: Macmillan, 1971.
Carey, Gary. “The Lady and the Director: Bette Davis and William Wyler.” Film Comment 6, no. 3 (Fall 1970): 18–24.
Cartnal, Alan. “Wyler on Wyler.” Interview 4 (March 1974): 10–11.
Coleman, Terry. Olivier. New York: Henry Holt, 2005.
Coursodon, Jean-Pierre. American Directors. Vol. 1. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
Crowther, Bosley. The Lion's Share. New York: Dutton, 1957.
Davis, Bette. The Lonely Life. New York: G. P. Putnam Sons, 1962.
Dick, Bernard F. Hellman in Hollywood. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982.
———. The Star Spangled Screen. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.
Dixon, Wheeler Winston, ed. American Cinema of the 1940s. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2006.
Doeckel, Ken. “William Wyler.” Films in Review 22, no. 8 (October 1971): 468–84.
Dunne, Philip. Take Two. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Dworkin, Martin. “The Desperate Hours and the Violent Screen.” Shenandoah 11, no. 2 (Winter 1960): 39–48.
Falk, Doris V. Lillian Hellman. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978.
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