by Marc Eliot
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11. In Dial M, this very scene is seen from the “Elster” character’s point of view, when Tony Wendice, played exquisitely by Ray Milland, invites his old college chum for a visit, and winds up convincing him to kill his, Tony’s, wife (Grace Kelly). Although the perspectives are different, the circumstance not as clear so soon into the movie, and we do not yet know Elster’s real motives, he does, in fact, duplicate Tony’s goal, to get an apparent stranger to kill his wife. This was a favorite plot ploy of Hitchcock’s, seen in variations reaching all the way back to his Rebecca (1940), with echoes in Suspicion (1941) and most vividly in Strangers on a Train (1951). The similarities in Hitchcock’s plots led to his reputation as a director who had made not fifty-two different feature films, but one film fifty-two times.
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12. Hitchcock’s playful use of names is highly engaging: John “Scottie” Ferguson—John as both romantic everyman and phallic pursuer, Scottie as in scot-free, Ferguson, the “son”; Madeleine, as in Proust’s madeleine, the cake whose taste evokes “memories of things past.” Midge sounds like an unerotic, shrunken version of Madeleine.
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13. The creation of the shot was by Robert Burks, the director of photography, and Irmin Roberts, the second-unit cameraman (who didn’t get screen credit on Vertigo). Roberts simply combined a forward zoom with a reverse track, something that henceforth became known as “the vertigo shot,” according to Dan Auiler, author of Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic, “one of the most innovative and imitated effects in film history.”
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14. By eroticizing his pain, he had made his loss/replacement bearable. The dream removed this protective, if illusory, self-deception.
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15. In his book-length conversation with Truffaut, Hitchcock described Judy’s transformation as a specialized form of a striptease, only in reverse: “Cinematically, all of Stewart’s efforts to recreate the dead woman are shown in such a way that he seems to be trying to undress her, instead of the other way around. What I liked best is when the girl came back after having had her hair dyed blond. James Stewart is disappointed because she hasn’t put her hair up in a bun. What this really means is that the girl has almost stripped, but she still won’t take her knickers off. When he insists, she says, ‘All right!’ and goes into the bathroom while he waits outside. What Stewart is really waiting for is for the woman to emerge totally naked this time, and ready for love.” Truffaut: “That didn’t occur to me, but the close-up on Stewart’s face as he’s waiting for her to come out of the bathroom is wonderful; he’s almost got tears in his eyes.” (From François Truffaut’s Hitchcock/Truffaut, page 244.)
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16. Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead, Sam Comer, and Frank R. McKelvy were nominated for Best Art Direction, Set Direction, Black and White or Color. They lost to William A. Horning and Preston Ames, Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason for Gigi. The Paramount Studio sound department and George Dutton, sound director, lost to Joshua Logan’s South Pacific, recorded in Todd-AO, Fred Hynes, director.
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17.Vertigo had a second, limited theatrical release in the late sixties, then was sold to television, after which the negative rights reverted to Hitchcock. In 1974, it was pulled from distribution, along with The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window, and Rope. After Hitchcock’s death in 1980, the film was rereleased by the estate and eventually was given a meticulous restoration by two film historian preservationists, James Katz and Robert Harris. In 1998, a full-size VistaVision-proportioned negative print was released in theaters and subsequently on video and DVD.
In one final twist to the rereleases, in 1990, the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving the copyright of Rear Window. A 6-to-3 ruling written by Sandra Day O’-Conner (Stewart vs. Abend, #88-2102) affirmed a 1988 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, declaring that a literary agent had the legal subsidiary rights to “It Had to Be Murder,” by Cornell Woolrich. The story was first published in Dime Detective magazine in 1942. The case involved the nature of the length and origins of copyrighted material, and acquisition rights and control to derivative works based on it. Woolrich had died before he could renew the story’s copyright, and ownership of the rights were eventually sold by his estate, via Chase Manhattan Bank, to New York literary agent Sheldon Abend for $9,250. When Rear Window was rereleased in theaters, TV, and on video in the eighties, Abend sued the Hitchcock estate, Jimmy Stewart, and Universal, each of whom owned a piece of the film, for copyright infringement. The court agreed and unspecified damages and a significant portion of the movie’s $12 million profits were eventually awarded to Abend.
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1. Truffaut revealed Hitchcock’s feelings toward Stewart’s performance in Vertigo after the director’s death.
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2. “Any role requiring a formal wardrobe is [my] pet peeve!” Stewart, in a Paramount press release for Bell Book and Candle.
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3. In an interview with the author, Bogdanovich responded to Novak’s denial this way: “If it’s not true, then everybody lied. Everybody lies in Hollywood, anyway.”
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4. LeRoy’s filmography begins in 1928 at First National with No Place to Go, after which he worked for virtually every major studio, for nearly four decades, turning out such classics as Little Caesar, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Anthony Adverse, The Wizard of Oz (producer), Random Harvest, Madame Curie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Mister Roberts, The Bad Seed, Gypsy, and dozens of others.
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5. Henry Fonda had nothing but disdain for this project. When Mervyn LeRoy, who had for the longest time wanted to work with the actor, offered his daughter, Jane, a small part in the movie (as Jennie Hardesty), despite the novice actress’s excited reaction, Fonda made her turn it down, telling her, “You don’t want to start your acting career as Jimmy Stewart’s daughter.” She reluctantly agreed, and instead enrolled in the Actors Studio.
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6. Production for Anatomy of a Murder began one week after filming for The FBI Story was completed.
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7. “I’ll get an unknown and make her a star,” Preminger announced after firing Turner.
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8. The Time review went on to say that “even the least bark-bound of the spectators may find himself startled to hear, in his neighborhood movie house, extended discussion of what constitutes rape.” Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago banned the film, and Preminger had to get a Federal District Court order declaring the film did not undermine morals to open the film there. Nor was this the only Hollywood film of its time to have such problems. The state of Kansas banned Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, not for having two men masquerading as women, but for some of Marilyn Monroe’s more risqué moments.
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9.Anatomy was also nominated for Best Picture (it lost to William Wyler’s Ben-Hur), Best Supporting Actor (Arthur O’Connell and George C. Scott, both of whom lost to Hugh Griffith in Ben-Hur), Best Director (Preminger lost to Wyler for Ben-Hur), Best Screenplay (Wendell Mayes lost to Neil Paterson for Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top), Best Editing (it lost to Ben-Hur), and Best Black and White Cinematography (it lost to George Stevens’s Diary of Anne Frank).
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1. Henry Fonda (1931), William Wyler (1934), Leland Hayward (1936), Kenneth Wagg (1950).
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2. Aka The Legend of Tom Dooley. The film was directed by Ted Post.
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3. Cinerama was a big-screen novelty, using three projectors and a curved screen to give the illusion of a gigantic, glasses-free 3-D effect to viewers. Because of its prohibitive production costs, and the necessity to reconfigure theaters to play films in this m
ode, only about a hundred theaters ever did so, and the two ever-present and always annoying visible lines that ran vertically between each third of the screen, the intended effects of Cinerama was rarely experienced. Most films shot in the process were of little consequence, with producers not wanting the content to overshadow the gimmickry of the wide-screen presentation, which was the major attraction of most Cinerama films. Those that survived were quickly reprocessed into 70 mm, or the more common 35 mm. How the West Was Won was actually the first Cinerama film with a dramatic narrative. Most were simply glorified travelogues or front-row rides on roller coasters.
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4. But the first of a series of films at the studio for Jimmy, including Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), Take Her, She’s Mine (1963), Dear Brigitte (1965), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), and Bandolero! (1968). In Stewart’s trilogy of family comedies (Hobbs, Take Her, Brigitte), to attract younger audiences the studio sought to place him among its more youthful contract players, including Sandra Dee, Fabian (who appeared in both Hobbs and Brigitte), and John Saxon.
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1. Like How the West Was Won, The Longest Day had several directors, each taking on a different aspect of the film, including Ken Annikan (British exteriors), Andrew Marton (American exteriors), Bernhard Wicki (German scenes), and Zanuck himself. Cleopatra was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Rouben Mamoulian, who was fired and subsequently uncredited. He was replaced by Zanuck.
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2. The play, which opened on December 21, 1961, also starred Phyllis Thaxter as Carney’s wife, and Elizabeth Ashley as his daughter.
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3.Young Cassidy (1965), Seven Women (1966), Vietnam, Vietnam (1971); Ford died in 1973.
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4. Hayward was married four times. After Lola Gibbs, whom he divorced in 1922, and Margaret Sullavan, whom he divorced in 1947, he married Slim Hawks in 1949. They were divorced in 1960. His fourth and final wife was Pamela Harriman, whom he married in 1971 and stayed with for the rest of his life.
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5. Although they were both in the movie, Stewart and Fonda had no scenes together in How the West Was Won.
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6. During production on the film, Jimmy received word that his childhood friend magician William Neff had died in his sleep early in February. He dedicated his work on Firecreek to Neff’s memory.
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1.It’s a Wonderful Life was later restored to near perfection by the American Film Institute.
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2.The Name Above the Title was originally sold by the William Morris Agency from a proposal Capra had written in 1968 to Macmillan, just before the film’s TV renaissance, for the unprincely sum of $3,000.
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3. Retitled overseas as Dynamite Man from Glory Jail.
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4. As a consolation of sorts, Gloria actually appeared in the first episode as part of a flashback in which Jimmy Stewart’s character, Jim Howard, played his grandfather, and Gloria played Grandmother Howard.
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5. Grant’s series never materialized, as the actor ultimately decided he did not want to compete with his younger movie image. Besides, he owned the negatives to most of his movies, and did not want to compete financially with himself, either.
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6. In 1973, Michael received his MA in jurisprudence.
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1. Bogdanovich directed the film and co-wrote it with McMurtry, based on his novel.
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2. The screenplay eventually resurfaced as a highly regarded TV miniseries, Lonesome Dove, starring Robert Duvall in the Jimmy Stewart role, and Tommy Lee Jones in the one Bogdanovich had envisioned for Wayne.
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3. The evening was videotaped and shown on CBS on March 16, 1980.
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4. Not generally known is the fact that for virtually the only time in their careers, Fonda and Stewart were both up for the same part, that of the father in the film version of On Golden Pond. The “doubling” of Fonda as the real-life father to daughter Jane, in the film, proved irresistible and he got it. Fonda had shied away from “elderly” parts, until Edward Albee approached him in the early sixties to play George in his new play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? When Fonda acquiesced to his agent’s decision, turning Albee down in favor of making Spencer’s Mountain, directed by Delmer Daves, based on the autobiographical novel by Earl Hamner Jr. (which flopped on-screen but which would go on to be a smash-hit TV series in the seventies renamed The Waltons), Fonda fired his agent. Then, when he saw the stage production of On Golden Pond, he determined that he wanted to play the father.
Stewart had actually been offered the part in On Golden Pond and turned it down. “He didn’t like the relationship the old man had with his daughter in the film,” according to Bill Frye. “Jimmy loved both his daughters and couldn’t imagine a father treating one the way the character did in the film, and therefore refused to play him.” Stewart turned down other well-known roles as well. According to Frye, “He turned down To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) because he felt the racial thing was too controversial—too liberal really, but he would never say it in that way. He also turned down the lead in Network [Sidney Lumet, 1976] because of the language. He would never allow himself to use profanity on the screen.” Ironically, all three of these roles brought the men who played them—Fonda, Gregory Peck (Mockingbird), and Peter Finch (Network) Academy Awards for Best Actor. “When Henry won, all I ever heard Jimmy say was how happy he was for him. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body.” (William Frye’s comments are from an interview with the author, Dec. 10, 2005).
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1. The salaries were reflective of the perceived stature of the film. HBO agreed to pay Stewart and Davis $250,000 each for their work in the film.
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1. These comments are taken from an article signed by Jimmy Stewart for The Screen Actor, a trade magazine, in which he duplicated much of his testimony before Congress. For continuity, much of the back-and-forth Q and A has been eliminated.
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2. The Hitchcock family has indicated they plan to rerelease the film to theaters every ten years. The last was a full digital video and audio restoration issued on DVD in 2005.
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Tributes
“He was the last of that rare breed of male stars whose careers certified the star system as it operated virtually from the beginning of the sound era. Actors like Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, John Wayne and Henry Fonda were larger than life, and because of the fusion of the performers’ public and private personalities created something bigger than the sum of the two parts, something mythical…. The Stewart way of speaking—laconic, with a hesitant, nasal drawl—is instantly recognizable by virtually every American. His early screen image, like his personal life, epitomized a Middle American ideal in a confusing, sophisticated world.”
—FROM JAMES STEWART’S NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY
Word of Jimmy Stewart’s death spread quickly, first in Hollywood and then throughout the world. By the time of his funeral, it was clear that America had lost one of its most unique cultural heroes, an irreplaceable member of the cast of characters produced by the golden years of Hollywood’s studio system, and America’s most complete movie actor. Although he did not have the looks of a Cary Grant, he was able to play Americana better than the British-born matinee idol. Grant could do many wonderful things, but he couldn’t ride a horse, wear a six-gun, or effectively play the little guy taking on the establishment. Against Grant’s romantic exotic, Stewart’s was the image of the American idealist.
He may not have been as tough as John Wayne, that other reigning movie star of twentieth-century patriotic Ame
ricana, but Wayne, with the exception of in John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952), could not play a believable romantic leading man. He was, rather, Hollywood’s ultimate action hero. While Stewart could play hard-edged cowboys as well as Wayne (if not better), Wayne remains inconceivable opposite, say, Kim Novak in Vertigo.
Jimmy may not have been as intellectual as Henry Fonda, the conscience of the American liberal, but neither was he as doctrinaire. It was his innocence that redeemed him, that allowed his worship of Abraham Lincoln (as Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) to ultimately outshine Fonda’s dark portrayal of the sixteenth president of the United States (in John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln, 1939).
Jimmy may not have been as funny as Bob Hope, but he was never irredeemably cowardly, as Hope was in his buddy-buddy “Road” pictures made with sidekick Bing Crosby (who did manage to overcome some of that Abbott-Costello adolescence in later movies). Whereas Hope never managed to win the girl via the self-redemptive notion of anything so unfunny as heroism or self-sacrifice, Jimmy made a virtue out of these qualities in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. While it remains Hope-less to envision His Bobness in one of Ford’s or Hitchcock’s, Cukor’s or even Capra’s excursions, it is entirely plausible to see Stewart doing light comedy, as he did in Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You, Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story, and even the humorous, if relentlessly shadowy, moments of Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
The multiple facets, the complexities, the charm and the torment that combined into the film persona of “James Stewart” live forever in the endless revisitations of his movies, made by new, young viewers, pilgrims to the cultural museum of our collective American lives. Future movie-goers, in whatever form the art takes, will learn more about what America was like for most of the twentieth century from the films Jimmy Stewart and others made than from any textbook of the times.
More than three thousand people turned out for his funeral. He was laid to rest beside Gloria, at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, as a twenty-one-gun salute was provided by the military in honor of his war service. The following are a sampling of some of the thousands of public tributes that came in the immediate wake of his death: